October 15, 2025 • 19 mins
Before the fame. Before the chaos. Before the name became legend. This is the story of a young musician whose genius outgrew the world around him — a rebel philosopher with a bass in his hands and lightning in his veins.
From smoky bars and dirt roads to roaring crowds and endless highways, his journey was fueled by raw talent, deep conviction, and a sound that seemed to tear through the earth itself.
But behind every note was a warning — whispered by fate, drowned by volume.
Part One of “The Last Ride” pulls you into the birth of a movement… and the rise of a prodigy who refused to follow anyone’s rules but his own.
Written by Jonny Hartwell
Voiced by Jonny Hartwell
Music Credit: Reel World Audio.
A iHeart Radio Production
DISCLAIMER: This podcast contains discussions of sensitive topics...Listener discretion is strongly advised. While the stories you’ll hear are rooted in real events, not every detail is strictly historical—some moments are dramatized with creative license to bring the narrative to life. Please keep this in mind as you listen.
Jonny’s Dead Air Podcast
Written, hosted, and produced by Jonny Hartwell.
A production of iHeartRadio Pittsburgh.
Thanks for listening—and for keeping the light on.
From smoky bars and dirt roads to roaring crowds and endless highways, his journey was fueled by raw talent, deep conviction, and a sound that seemed to tear through the earth itself.
But behind every note was a warning — whispered by fate, drowned by volume.
Part One of “The Last Ride” pulls you into the birth of a movement… and the rise of a prodigy who refused to follow anyone’s rules but his own.
Written by Jonny Hartwell
Voiced by Jonny Hartwell
Music Credit: Reel World Audio.
A iHeart Radio Production
DISCLAIMER: This podcast contains discussions of sensitive topics...Listener discretion is strongly advised. While the stories you’ll hear are rooted in real events, not every detail is strictly historical—some moments are dramatized with creative license to bring the narrative to life. Please keep this in mind as you listen.
Jonny’s Dead Air Podcast
Written, hosted, and produced by Jonny Hartwell.
A production of iHeartRadio Pittsburgh.
Thanks for listening—and for keeping the light on.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome in. I'm Johnny Hartwell and this is Johnny's
Dead Air Podcast, a production of iHeartRadio. Here we go,
diving into another story from music's dark side. Some storms
don't arrive with thunder. They start as a vibration, low, steady,
(00:20):
until your bones begin to hum. Picture a two lane
road at the edge of night, Fog pressed flat to
the asphalt, street lights bleeding halos into the dark, a
bus shouldering through it like a ship through blackwater. Inside
four young men with calloused hands and sleepless eyes, chasing
a sound that feels older than language. They think sound
(00:42):
will save them, and maybe it already has. Their laughter
is thin, their bones sore. Antique coffee cups rattlecross tabletops.
Somewhere behind the glass, a cassette hisses another bootleg of
last night's show, Feedback and Miracles in equal measure. They've
been play playing so long that silence feels wrong, like
(01:02):
a missing limb. One of them, one of them is different,
red hair like a warning flare, fingers that summon gravity,
a mystic's calm, and a hurricane of noise. He is
the quiet center, the anchor. Others don't realize they're holding
until the rope snaps outside. The wind rises, headlights cut
ribbons through the fog. Steel hums, tires, whisper prophecies. Every
(01:26):
dream has its price, Every road collects its dew. Before
the night is over, steel will meet glass, glass will
meet flesh, and the machine that carried their dream will
take its tax. This is a story of ascent of devotion,
a bargain paid in blood. This is script number fourteen,
the Last Ride, Part one, Act one ride The Lightning, Suburbia,
(01:53):
cul de sac, strip, malls, sprinklers ticking under a tired sun.
Behind one door, the floor boards trumble. A rule is set.
If you play, you practice, So he does hours a day,
metronome clicking like a second heart, Fingertips blister, then harden.
What begins as scales becomes a private language. Bock fugues
(02:14):
Punk forty five's southern rock jazz lines lifted off records
and stitched into something new. The bass stops becoming background
and becomes a weapon, A voice a storm. He doesn't
talk much. Words feel clumsy compared to vibration. Neighbors hear
low thunder leaking through the garage door and think a
(02:34):
storm's rolling in from the coast. They're not wrong. He
is strange in the best way, long red hair, denim
vest patch with the ghosts of his record collection. He's
too tall for his age, too thoughtful for small talk.
In garages and school auditoriums, people smirk when they hear
he's just the bass player. The smirk dies on the
(02:55):
first note. He learns discipline from one parent, quiet, steady, unglamorous.
He learns permission to be himself from the other, soft, proud, unafraid,
tenderness and iron. He carries both by late teens. Local
players avoid following him on stage, not fear, just self preservation.
(03:15):
Word spreads. There's a kid who makes the low end
speak like a lead. He makes wall shake without turning
everyone to mud. He seems older when he plays like
the instrument adds years to his face. He reads music
and metaphysics side by side, wondering if both are trying
to say the same thing in different languages. He starts
(03:35):
dressing like the heroes on his album Covers, not out
of a rebellion, but reverence, ritual armor for communion through sound.
He dreams of the city, but not a fame, for velocity.
He wants to see if the hum in his chest
matches the one in the world. You were there, garage
at dusk, flicker of a fluorescent tube. The air smells
(03:58):
like dust and hot wires. He did in the concrete
tingles under your shoes. The amp coughs, then howls. It
isn't a solo, it's a summoning. You glance around. Every
jaw is unhinged. Something has arrived. You were there, school, auditorium,
fold out chairs, a creaking curtain, a microphone that feeds
(04:20):
back if you look at it wrong. He steps forward
for a feature. No light, no smoke, just fingers and
wood and wire. The first low note lifts the hairs
on your arms. The second makes a custodium stop mid sweep.
The room doesn't clap right away. It exhales you were there.
Graveyard shift at the gas station, he pumps gas under
(04:43):
the buzzing lights, headphones in notebook balanced on the pump housing,
he writes scales like poetry. A customer asks what he's
listening to. He smiles, half apology, half challenge. He says everything.
The man drives off, not sure what he meant, only
that he'll remember it later. Every storm begins with a
(05:03):
hum this one won't stop. Act two Hit the Lights,
early eighties Bay Area. The bars that smell like spilled
beer in electricity, xerox flyers with jagged logos promise thrash
until death. A scene forging itself in sweat and speed.
He steps onto a tiny stage with a battered base
(05:25):
and a wah wah at his foot. The crowd expects rhythm.
They get more than they bargained for. Notes, climb, dive,
and talk through fuzz like a throat clearing to speak truth.
A room full of cynics gets silent. Somewhere in the
crush are musicians searching for more than volume. When they
hear him, they recognize the missing piece. They ask. He
(05:47):
sets a condition. If you want me, you come here,
you move. They do. Everything changes raw force becomes shaped fury.
Three minute rippers stretch into epix, riff, get themes, themes
grow teeth. He argues that speed without meaning is just static.
Earn the heavy, make the pretty cost something. The others grumble,
(06:11):
then follow. The music makes the case better than talk.
They rehearse in storage units under flickering bulbs and water
stained ceilings. The air smells like ozone and ambition outside,
teenagers skate past, unaware that history is mutating just a
few feet away. The clubs become crucibles, word spreads by
(06:32):
mouth and by tape, hissy copies, dubbed in dorms, duplicated
on living room decks, smuggled across state lines in denim pockets.
The underground learns the songs before a single ad buys
inc He starts bringing books on the bus, even before
there was a real bus. Paperbacks with bent spines, Philosophy
(06:52):
for long nights, horror for longer ones, classical cassettes for
mornings that need discipline. He reads Nietzsche and Lovecraft, listens
to Bach and the Misfits, connects them through pulse, chaos
and order, terror and grace, always a pattern. If you
listen hard enough. You're there. The dive bar, low ceiling,
(07:12):
wet floor, bodies colliding mid set. He steps forward. The
wall opens like a mouth, and the bass sings. The
pit stops. People stare, hands half raised, as if interrupting
would break the spell. You're there. Cheap four track demo,
a borrowed recorder on a kitchen table, coffee rings on
(07:33):
the sleeve. Notes. He lays a line that others stack around.
You listen back through cheap headphones and hear something bigger
than the room, bigger than the tape. The cassette hisses
like it's trying to keep a secret. You're there the
van at two am. The band argues about tempos. He
stares out the window watching lights strove across the highway,
(07:56):
then quietly says, we can be faster than anyone, or
better than everyone. Pick one. The van falls silent. Someone
changes the subject, but nobody forgets that line within months.
The sound is an animal with a purpose because what
they're building can't stay small. Act three, The Four Horsemen. Next,
(08:28):
Act three, The Four Horsemen. By nineteen eighty three, the
underground already knows the password Metallica. It travels on bootleg
cassettes and sharpie scarred binders. Kill him. All hits like
a street fight, whiplash, seek and destroy, Ignition for kids
(08:49):
who feel invisible inside the riot is a blueprint. The
base isn't filler. Its spine and spear both the name
behind the frequency. Cliff Burton, long red hair patch, denim,
cigarette glow. He doesn't chase spotlight. He builds sound until
(09:09):
at points somewhere worth going. He fights not for speed,
but for power, and power comes from contrast, light against dark,
stillness against impact. Ride. The lightning proves it. Harmony threads,
the guitar's counterpoint haunts the low end, the heresy lands
fade to black. Some burn shirts, some learn to breathe again.
(09:33):
The song stop being fast and start being inevitable. He
starts to believe heavy music can feel holy. A cathedral
of distortion. He talks about melody like scripture, about tone
like prayer. Van mates roll their eyes, but the crowd
proves him right. You're there the record store. The clerk
(09:55):
slides you a bootleg first rift threat, second promise, and
then the other sound low, articulate, hungry. That j card
says Metallica your future pivots five degrees. You're there, Sweet
silent Studios, Copenhagen control room, glow, guitar's carve, drums crack.
(10:17):
He steps into the live room and plays a line
that carries the whole sky. Conversations die. Someone in the
booth just says there. The take becomes a spine. He
doesn't celebrate, He just nods once, rewinds, listens again. Perfection
is an ego. It's duty, it's his job. You're there
(10:41):
the tour bus in Sweden, Condensation streaks the window. He's
sketching harmonies on graft paper while the others joke about
beer and girls. He hums to himself, half bock, half
doom riff. He's planning the next record already, something symphonic,
something finely beautiful. Then in nineteen eighty six, Master of Puppets,
(11:05):
Eight Songs, No Fat. The title track is a thesis.
Battery keeps finding new explosions. Welcome Home, Sanitarium, whispers Nightmares
at the center O'Ryan, a bass forward symphony in movements.
It's Cliff's soul written into vinyl. On stage, he is
(11:26):
the still eye of a hurricane, feet planted hair of banner,
hands pulling vows out of steel through a Morley wah wah.
When he solo's fists rays whole crowds hold their breath.
Tape Trader kids become Day one believers. Critics who once
smirked at speed Kids are forced to write about composition,
(11:47):
motif dynamics. Other bands wander backstage for a glimpse in question,
how did he make that thing sing like that? Cliff
talks back right hand attack thin picks than apple, and
mindedly demonstrates with a run that makes your fingers feel
like thumbs. You're there. Day on the Green nineteen eighty five,
(12:08):
Late afternoon burn over Oakland. When the quartet takes the stage,
it's like a crane dropped a furnace in the grass.
Mid set, the lanky redhead steps forward, the wall opens,
and the bass sings. People who came to fight the
air find themselves listening. The bass player isn't just a
bass player. He's a difference maker. You're there the bus
(12:33):
after glow, hours after another city explodes. The bus hums
everyone else asleep or arguing softly in the lounge. He
sits by road case with the right of spring, hissing
into his headphones, sketching cord consolations on a scrap of paper.
He's building something. Nobody else yet can hear. Dusk banners
(12:54):
pinned flat by wind foreshadows. A drone swells, then bong
a bell. Your chest insists as real bronze. His line
lurches forward four notes, like marching orders older than history.
The ground moves under your boots. This is in a concert.
It's a ritual the press canonizes the scene, crowns opening
(13:19):
slots become headliners, America becomes Europe. Vests appear. Cliff them all.
The reluctant prophet has become the band's soul. He writes
postcards home, tiny, polite, full of weather and gratitude. He
misses California's sunsets, the smell of eucalyptus after the rain.
He tells friends, I just want to keep learning, and
(13:40):
he means it. The ascent looks unbroken, but success runs
on a timetable that doesn't care what it's carrying. Outside
the window of the moving bus, Sweden sleeps beneath a
cold mist somewhere ahead. The road curves left, somewhere ahead.
Gravity awaits Act four Trouble in Paradise, the thing that
(14:06):
should not be Next Act four Trouble in Paradise, the
thing that should not be. Success doesn't arrive like a parade.
It arrives like call times. Load in at noon, sound
check at three, doors at seven, lights at nine, load
(14:27):
out at midnight. Sleep. If the bus allows repeat, the
machine is diesel. Adrenaline and denial. Bodies break, minds, fray, schedules,
win in the middle. Cliff Burton, ballast and conscious of
the band. When tempo's sprint, he drags them back into purpose.
When Ego blurs the horizon, he looks away and listens
(14:50):
for truth. You're There load in empty arena, yellow tape
xes on a scuff deck. He circles the cabs like pews,
touches the wall like a relic, plucks one open note
and makes the rafters hum. The bottle smooths, edges into
a doesen't control. Wrestles with power, precision with heat. Some
(15:13):
arguments end in laughter, Some indoors all end with a
bell and four silhouettes in front of a roar covenant.
The song is God. God goes on at nine. Cliff's
sermons come soft, earn the heavy, make the pretty cost.
He hands out paperbacks, hesse cameu Lovecraft. He talks eternal recurrence,
(15:37):
how choices loop until they feel like fate in your
own footprints, jokes deflect. Hours later, someone asks for the
title again, You're There Night Drive. The bus is a
dark lung breathing miles TV blue with no sound. He
sits cross legged a paperback, face down pencil, mapping chord
(15:58):
consolations on a napkin. A pothole skews the line, He
smirks and turns the accident into an idea. Rehearsals on
off days are negotiations. If a song rushes, he locks
the low end like a mooring line and refuses to
be dragged. If an arrangement bloats, he shaves it to
the bone. He is not the loudest voice. He's the
(16:21):
last one. Everyone keeps hearing You're There. Ozzie Tour, Fly
on the wall, shared hallway, hot with hairspray and anticipation.
A titan from another world lurches past with a mischievous blessing.
He nods amused, disappears into a closet sized room, warms
up on bach like he has a recital in twenty
(16:42):
minutes later. He's a cyclone under the strobe. Europe adds
weather to the weight. Cold is presence, windows, fog, Mornings
feel like church in a freezer. The set tightens like
a blade. Hon too many times, improvement, audible cost to
You're There, sound check alone seats like a million eyes.
(17:04):
He releases the Orion interlude into an empty room. It
sounds like a prayer you weren't meant to overhear fault
lines persist the kind that began in earlier rooms with
earlier choices. When charm can't neutralize them, he uses work,
a cleaner harmony, a truer counterline, a solo that behaves
like a choir. He believes the way out of every
(17:26):
fight is a better idea. Sometimes he's right. Sometimes the
road is louder. Whispers accumulate black ice, two countries ahead,
a detour near a border, a driver's story about a
bus that went sideways last winter. None of them is
about them. All of it is about buses. He listens
the way some people pray you're there. The quiet after
(17:51):
encore done, The building breathes smoke. Four figures sit on
flight cases, steam rising from skin into cold air. No
one speaks. He lights two cigarettes, hands one off without
looking Somewhere. A fan screams a name that echoes down
the dock. Everyone flinches. No one says, why you're there.
(18:13):
Hotel corridor three seventeen am carpet pattern like a bad dream,
ice machine growling at the end of the hall. Two
door chains half lashed, one room buzzing with argument, one
with guitar. Figures played too quietly for the instrument's nature.
He stands at a vending machine, studies his reflection in
(18:33):
scratch plexiglass, flexes his fingers like a pianist checking a spell,
buys nothing, slips back into a door that closes without
a sound. The night feels heavier, not bad, just weighty.
The show is immaculate backstage. The humor is big and honest.
Buss call is late. Bags thump into bays. A deck
(18:56):
of cards appears, because that's what appears when young men
tend not to hear the undertow. He watches the shuffle
with a small, private smile, the kind he wears when
the universe is about to make a point, and he
intends to hear it, even if he can't stop it.
He pats the bus as he climbs in, greeting the
big animal that sometimes lets you ride and sometimes decides
(19:19):
your cargo. The door folds, the engine low roars, taylights
blur into the mist. Paradise hasn't vanished, it is curdled.
The dream is intact. The price has grown teeth. Somewhere ahead,
the road sharpens its lesson what you love most can
(19:39):
carry you, and what you love most can crush you.
This is the end to part one, to be continued
in part two. The last ride
And welcome in. I'm Johnny Hartwell and this is Johnny's
Dead Air Podcast, a production of iHeartRadio. Here we go,
diving into another story from music's dark side. Some storms
don't arrive with thunder. They start as a vibration, low, steady,
(00:20):
until your bones begin to hum. Picture a two lane
road at the edge of night, Fog pressed flat to
the asphalt, street lights bleeding halos into the dark, a
bus shouldering through it like a ship through blackwater. Inside
four young men with calloused hands and sleepless eyes, chasing
a sound that feels older than language. They think sound
(00:42):
will save them, and maybe it already has. Their laughter
is thin, their bones sore. Antique coffee cups rattlecross tabletops.
Somewhere behind the glass, a cassette hisses another bootleg of
last night's show, Feedback and Miracles in equal measure. They've
been play playing so long that silence feels wrong, like
(01:02):
a missing limb. One of them, one of them is different,
red hair like a warning flare, fingers that summon gravity,
a mystic's calm, and a hurricane of noise. He is
the quiet center, the anchor. Others don't realize they're holding
until the rope snaps outside. The wind rises, headlights cut
ribbons through the fog. Steel hums, tires, whisper prophecies. Every
(01:26):
dream has its price, Every road collects its dew. Before
the night is over, steel will meet glass, glass will
meet flesh, and the machine that carried their dream will
take its tax. This is a story of ascent of devotion,
a bargain paid in blood. This is script number fourteen,
the Last Ride, Part one, Act one ride The Lightning, Suburbia,
(01:53):
cul de sac, strip, malls, sprinklers ticking under a tired sun.
Behind one door, the floor boards trumble. A rule is set.
If you play, you practice, So he does hours a day,
metronome clicking like a second heart, Fingertips blister, then harden.
What begins as scales becomes a private language. Bock fugues
(02:14):
Punk forty five's southern rock jazz lines lifted off records
and stitched into something new. The bass stops becoming background
and becomes a weapon, A voice a storm. He doesn't
talk much. Words feel clumsy compared to vibration. Neighbors hear
low thunder leaking through the garage door and think a
(02:34):
storm's rolling in from the coast. They're not wrong. He
is strange in the best way, long red hair, denim
vest patch with the ghosts of his record collection. He's
too tall for his age, too thoughtful for small talk.
In garages and school auditoriums, people smirk when they hear
he's just the bass player. The smirk dies on the
(02:55):
first note. He learns discipline from one parent, quiet, steady, unglamorous.
He learns permission to be himself from the other, soft, proud, unafraid,
tenderness and iron. He carries both by late teens. Local
players avoid following him on stage, not fear, just self preservation.
(03:15):
Word spreads. There's a kid who makes the low end
speak like a lead. He makes wall shake without turning
everyone to mud. He seems older when he plays like
the instrument adds years to his face. He reads music
and metaphysics side by side, wondering if both are trying
to say the same thing in different languages. He starts
(03:35):
dressing like the heroes on his album Covers, not out
of a rebellion, but reverence, ritual armor for communion through sound.
He dreams of the city, but not a fame, for velocity.
He wants to see if the hum in his chest
matches the one in the world. You were there, garage
at dusk, flicker of a fluorescent tube. The air smells
(03:58):
like dust and hot wires. He did in the concrete
tingles under your shoes. The amp coughs, then howls. It
isn't a solo, it's a summoning. You glance around. Every
jaw is unhinged. Something has arrived. You were there, school, auditorium,
fold out chairs, a creaking curtain, a microphone that feeds
(04:20):
back if you look at it wrong. He steps forward
for a feature. No light, no smoke, just fingers and
wood and wire. The first low note lifts the hairs
on your arms. The second makes a custodium stop mid sweep.
The room doesn't clap right away. It exhales you were there.
Graveyard shift at the gas station, he pumps gas under
(04:43):
the buzzing lights, headphones in notebook balanced on the pump housing,
he writes scales like poetry. A customer asks what he's
listening to. He smiles, half apology, half challenge. He says everything.
The man drives off, not sure what he meant, only
that he'll remember it later. Every storm begins with a
(05:03):
hum this one won't stop. Act two Hit the Lights,
early eighties Bay Area. The bars that smell like spilled
beer in electricity, xerox flyers with jagged logos promise thrash
until death. A scene forging itself in sweat and speed.
He steps onto a tiny stage with a battered base
(05:25):
and a wah wah at his foot. The crowd expects rhythm.
They get more than they bargained for. Notes, climb, dive,
and talk through fuzz like a throat clearing to speak truth.
A room full of cynics gets silent. Somewhere in the
crush are musicians searching for more than volume. When they
hear him, they recognize the missing piece. They ask. He
(05:47):
sets a condition. If you want me, you come here,
you move. They do. Everything changes raw force becomes shaped fury.
Three minute rippers stretch into epix, riff, get themes, themes
grow teeth. He argues that speed without meaning is just static.
Earn the heavy, make the pretty cost something. The others grumble,
(06:11):
then follow. The music makes the case better than talk.
They rehearse in storage units under flickering bulbs and water
stained ceilings. The air smells like ozone and ambition outside,
teenagers skate past, unaware that history is mutating just a
few feet away. The clubs become crucibles, word spreads by
(06:32):
mouth and by tape, hissy copies, dubbed in dorms, duplicated
on living room decks, smuggled across state lines in denim pockets.
The underground learns the songs before a single ad buys
inc He starts bringing books on the bus, even before
there was a real bus. Paperbacks with bent spines, Philosophy
(06:52):
for long nights, horror for longer ones, classical cassettes for
mornings that need discipline. He reads Nietzsche and Lovecraft, listens
to Bach and the Misfits, connects them through pulse, chaos
and order, terror and grace, always a pattern. If you
listen hard enough. You're there. The dive bar, low ceiling,
(07:12):
wet floor, bodies colliding mid set. He steps forward. The
wall opens like a mouth, and the bass sings. The
pit stops. People stare, hands half raised, as if interrupting
would break the spell. You're there. Cheap four track demo,
a borrowed recorder on a kitchen table, coffee rings on
(07:33):
the sleeve. Notes. He lays a line that others stack around.
You listen back through cheap headphones and hear something bigger
than the room, bigger than the tape. The cassette hisses
like it's trying to keep a secret. You're there the
van at two am. The band argues about tempos. He
stares out the window watching lights strove across the highway,
(07:56):
then quietly says, we can be faster than anyone, or
better than everyone. Pick one. The van falls silent. Someone
changes the subject, but nobody forgets that line within months.
The sound is an animal with a purpose because what
they're building can't stay small. Act three, The Four Horsemen. Next,
(08:28):
Act three, The Four Horsemen. By nineteen eighty three, the
underground already knows the password Metallica. It travels on bootleg
cassettes and sharpie scarred binders. Kill him. All hits like
a street fight, whiplash, seek and destroy, Ignition for kids
(08:49):
who feel invisible inside the riot is a blueprint. The
base isn't filler. Its spine and spear both the name
behind the frequency. Cliff Burton, long red hair patch, denim,
cigarette glow. He doesn't chase spotlight. He builds sound until
(09:09):
at points somewhere worth going. He fights not for speed,
but for power, and power comes from contrast, light against dark,
stillness against impact. Ride. The lightning proves it. Harmony threads,
the guitar's counterpoint haunts the low end, the heresy lands
fade to black. Some burn shirts, some learn to breathe again.
(09:33):
The song stop being fast and start being inevitable. He
starts to believe heavy music can feel holy. A cathedral
of distortion. He talks about melody like scripture, about tone
like prayer. Van mates roll their eyes, but the crowd
proves him right. You're there the record store. The clerk
(09:55):
slides you a bootleg first rift threat, second promise, and
then the other sound low, articulate, hungry. That j card
says Metallica your future pivots five degrees. You're there, Sweet
silent Studios, Copenhagen control room, glow, guitar's carve, drums crack.
(10:17):
He steps into the live room and plays a line
that carries the whole sky. Conversations die. Someone in the
booth just says there. The take becomes a spine. He
doesn't celebrate, He just nods once, rewinds, listens again. Perfection
is an ego. It's duty, it's his job. You're there
(10:41):
the tour bus in Sweden, Condensation streaks the window. He's
sketching harmonies on graft paper while the others joke about
beer and girls. He hums to himself, half bock, half
doom riff. He's planning the next record already, something symphonic,
something finely beautiful. Then in nineteen eighty six, Master of Puppets,
(11:05):
Eight Songs, No Fat. The title track is a thesis.
Battery keeps finding new explosions. Welcome Home, Sanitarium, whispers Nightmares
at the center O'Ryan, a bass forward symphony in movements.
It's Cliff's soul written into vinyl. On stage, he is
(11:26):
the still eye of a hurricane, feet planted hair of banner,
hands pulling vows out of steel through a Morley wah wah.
When he solo's fists rays whole crowds hold their breath.
Tape Trader kids become Day one believers. Critics who once
smirked at speed Kids are forced to write about composition,
(11:47):
motif dynamics. Other bands wander backstage for a glimpse in question,
how did he make that thing sing like that? Cliff
talks back right hand attack thin picks than apple, and
mindedly demonstrates with a run that makes your fingers feel
like thumbs. You're there. Day on the Green nineteen eighty five,
(12:08):
Late afternoon burn over Oakland. When the quartet takes the stage,
it's like a crane dropped a furnace in the grass.
Mid set, the lanky redhead steps forward, the wall opens,
and the bass sings. People who came to fight the
air find themselves listening. The bass player isn't just a
bass player. He's a difference maker. You're there the bus
(12:33):
after glow, hours after another city explodes. The bus hums
everyone else asleep or arguing softly in the lounge. He
sits by road case with the right of spring, hissing
into his headphones, sketching cord consolations on a scrap of paper.
He's building something. Nobody else yet can hear. Dusk banners
(12:54):
pinned flat by wind foreshadows. A drone swells, then bong
a bell. Your chest insists as real bronze. His line
lurches forward four notes, like marching orders older than history.
The ground moves under your boots. This is in a concert.
It's a ritual the press canonizes the scene, crowns opening
(13:19):
slots become headliners, America becomes Europe. Vests appear. Cliff them all.
The reluctant prophet has become the band's soul. He writes
postcards home, tiny, polite, full of weather and gratitude. He
misses California's sunsets, the smell of eucalyptus after the rain.
He tells friends, I just want to keep learning, and
(13:40):
he means it. The ascent looks unbroken, but success runs
on a timetable that doesn't care what it's carrying. Outside
the window of the moving bus, Sweden sleeps beneath a
cold mist somewhere ahead. The road curves left, somewhere ahead.
Gravity awaits Act four Trouble in Paradise, the thing that
(14:06):
should not be Next Act four Trouble in Paradise, the
thing that should not be. Success doesn't arrive like a parade.
It arrives like call times. Load in at noon, sound
check at three, doors at seven, lights at nine, load
(14:27):
out at midnight. Sleep. If the bus allows repeat, the
machine is diesel. Adrenaline and denial. Bodies break, minds, fray, schedules,
win in the middle. Cliff Burton, ballast and conscious of
the band. When tempo's sprint, he drags them back into purpose.
When Ego blurs the horizon, he looks away and listens
(14:50):
for truth. You're There load in empty arena, yellow tape
xes on a scuff deck. He circles the cabs like pews,
touches the wall like a relic, plucks one open note
and makes the rafters hum. The bottle smooths, edges into
a doesen't control. Wrestles with power, precision with heat. Some
(15:13):
arguments end in laughter, Some indoors all end with a
bell and four silhouettes in front of a roar covenant.
The song is God. God goes on at nine. Cliff's
sermons come soft, earn the heavy, make the pretty cost.
He hands out paperbacks, hesse cameu Lovecraft. He talks eternal recurrence,
(15:37):
how choices loop until they feel like fate in your
own footprints, jokes deflect. Hours later, someone asks for the
title again, You're There Night Drive. The bus is a
dark lung breathing miles TV blue with no sound. He
sits cross legged a paperback, face down pencil, mapping chord
(15:58):
consolations on a napkin. A pothole skews the line, He
smirks and turns the accident into an idea. Rehearsals on
off days are negotiations. If a song rushes, he locks
the low end like a mooring line and refuses to
be dragged. If an arrangement bloats, he shaves it to
the bone. He is not the loudest voice. He's the
(16:21):
last one. Everyone keeps hearing You're There. Ozzie Tour, Fly
on the wall, shared hallway, hot with hairspray and anticipation.
A titan from another world lurches past with a mischievous blessing.
He nods amused, disappears into a closet sized room, warms
up on bach like he has a recital in twenty
(16:42):
minutes later. He's a cyclone under the strobe. Europe adds
weather to the weight. Cold is presence, windows, fog, Mornings
feel like church in a freezer. The set tightens like
a blade. Hon too many times, improvement, audible cost to
You're There, sound check alone seats like a million eyes.
(17:04):
He releases the Orion interlude into an empty room. It
sounds like a prayer you weren't meant to overhear fault
lines persist the kind that began in earlier rooms with
earlier choices. When charm can't neutralize them, he uses work,
a cleaner harmony, a truer counterline, a solo that behaves
like a choir. He believes the way out of every
(17:26):
fight is a better idea. Sometimes he's right. Sometimes the
road is louder. Whispers accumulate black ice, two countries ahead,
a detour near a border, a driver's story about a
bus that went sideways last winter. None of them is
about them. All of it is about buses. He listens
the way some people pray you're there. The quiet after
(17:51):
encore done, The building breathes smoke. Four figures sit on
flight cases, steam rising from skin into cold air. No
one speaks. He lights two cigarettes, hands one off without
looking Somewhere. A fan screams a name that echoes down
the dock. Everyone flinches. No one says, why you're there.
(18:13):
Hotel corridor three seventeen am carpet pattern like a bad dream,
ice machine growling at the end of the hall. Two
door chains half lashed, one room buzzing with argument, one
with guitar. Figures played too quietly for the instrument's nature.
He stands at a vending machine, studies his reflection in
(18:33):
scratch plexiglass, flexes his fingers like a pianist checking a spell,
buys nothing, slips back into a door that closes without
a sound. The night feels heavier, not bad, just weighty.
The show is immaculate backstage. The humor is big and honest.
Buss call is late. Bags thump into bays. A deck
(18:56):
of cards appears, because that's what appears when young men
tend not to hear the undertow. He watches the shuffle
with a small, private smile, the kind he wears when
the universe is about to make a point, and he
intends to hear it, even if he can't stop it.
He pats the bus as he climbs in, greeting the
big animal that sometimes lets you ride and sometimes decides
(19:19):
your cargo. The door folds, the engine low roars, taylights
blur into the mist. Paradise hasn't vanished, it is curdled.
The dream is intact. The price has grown teeth. Somewhere ahead,
the road sharpens its lesson what you love most can
(19:39):
carry you, and what you love most can crush you.
This is the end to part one, to be continued
in part two. The last ride
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