For Metallica fans who hold the band’s post-80s output in low regard, the most common battle cry is “Cliff Burton never would have let this happen!!!” Obviously, we have no way of knowing if this is true or not — maybe he would have been only-too-happy to cut his hair and play “I Disappear” in exchange for for squillions of dollars. Still, it’s fun to speculate what the legendary bassist might have made of the band’s post-Burton era.

Which is probably why Team Rock asked James Hetfield to do this very thing!

What would Cliff have made of some of the directions the band went in the 1990s? Beginning with The Black Album in 1991 up to the time of St Anger in 2003? “Well, I certainly would have thought there would have been some resistance, for sure. I think The Black Album was a great album and I appreciate the fact that we did have the balls to do that and have [producer] Bob Rock to work with us. It had to be, it really did. You know, when I go back and I listen to [previous album] …And Justice For All, it couldn’t have stayed on that path. We needed to bring in another set of trusted ears. [But] I think Cliff would have probably interjected some different stuff, getting his bass heard and some more musically challenging things, probably. I would certainly think that the Load and Re-Load [era], I would have had an ally that was very against it all – the reinvention or the U2 version of Metallica.”

When you say ‘an ally’, you mean that you personally were not comfortable with that mid-90s period of the band’s story? “No, no, not at all. There’s some great, great songs on there but my opinion is that all of the imagery and stuff like that was not necessary. And the amount of songs that were written was… it diluted the potency of the poison of Metallica. And I think Cliff would have agreed with that.”