Quotes Made By And Directed At Cliff Burton
"Cliff Burton was the man who had that wild spirit that makes a band like Metallica a quality band. He wasn't only the bass player, or someone else in the band who co-write the songs, he was the man who made Metallica reach the sky. After his death, Metallica sold their souls for fame and fortune, things that he would never wanted to deal with. He'd never allowed all that "Black Album" to happen, and neither that damn "Load" thing. When Metallica lost their bass player, they also lost their soul." - Lars Ulrich
The following is a few quotes from various people, including Cliff himself.
From Cliff:
When asked "What would you say to a band that's just starting out on the rock scene today?" Cliff replied "Quit"
"We do what we want...... We don't care what anyone else thinks"
"When a man lies he murders some part of the world. These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives. All this I cannot bear to witness any longer. Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home" - quoted in 'To Live Is To Die' from '....And Justice For All'
"You don't burn out from going too fast. You burn out from going too slow and getting bored."
"Control your life through insanity."
"When I started, I decided to devote my life to it and not get sidetracked by all the other bullshit life has to offer"
"Personally, I would say the 'master' of this whole thing is fate... Whoever is on the playing field is fair game, and it's up to them to avoid being used."
About Cliff:
"We heard this wild solo going on and thought, 'I don't see any guitar player up there.' It turned out it was the bass player, Cliff, with a wah wah pedal and this mop of hair. He didn't care whether people were there. He was looking down at his bass playing." - James Hetfield
"Cliff was so completely honest to himself and the people around him. He hated all this being put on a pedestal bullshit." - Lars Ulrich
"To this day, I think of him every day." - Kirk Hammett
"He was a great and very special talent.....Cliff's solos were absolutely brilliant." - Jason Newsted
"He was a wild, hippie-ish, acid-taking, bell-bottom-wearing guy. He meant business, and you couldn't fuck around with him. I wanted to get that respect that he had. We gave him shit about his bell-bottoms everyday. He didn't care. "This is what I wear. Fuck you." He loved music. He was really intellectual but very to the point. He taught me a lot about attitude." - James Hetfield
"The only person who was able to figure out a time and write it on a piece of paper was Cliff. He had an immense knowledge of timing, musical harmonies and music theory in general." - Kirk
"Cliff's taken classes in school on music theory, things like mixing harmonies together. I think he took a junior college course. " - James
"I remember this guy lit my couch on fire a couple times." - James
"I could just see them go, 'oh my God! Look at that guy!' The thing that struck them most was that while you see lead-guitar playing, here you had a guy playing lead bass! They thought that was great" - Metallica drum tech, Marrs, on the 1st time James and Lars saw cliff play
"I know Cliff, more than anyone else in the band, would have been the first guy to give us a kick in the ass, and wouldn't want us to sit around. It's what he would have wanted us to do." - Lars
"He was always against looking too posy, he was always into just looking natural." - Kirk
"We came up here and played with Cliff, who just blew the doors off anyone we've ever played with. He's the new Steve Harris of metal." - Dave Mustaine
"Cliff had a lot of very loyal fans, including me." - Jason
"There was a huge shadow there. I'd always looked up to him so much" - Jason
"People probably thought, 'Oh they're not going to do the heavy lyrics now because of what happened.' Man those lyrics mean a lot more to me now." - James
" I once called him up and said 'How do you like being a rock star?', and he was furious. He asked me never to refer to him that way again," - Cliff's sister, Connie.
About Cliff's death:
"I saw the bus lying right on him. I saw his legs sticking out. I freaked. The bus driver, I recall, was trying to yank the blanket out from under him to use for other people. I just went, 'Don't fucking do that!' I already wanted to kill the guy. I don't know if he was drunk or if he hit some ice. All I knew was, he was driving and Cliff wasn't alive anymore. I just recall our tour manager Bobby saying, 'Okay, let's get the band together and take them back to the hotel.' The only thing I could think was, 'The band? No way! There ain't no band. The band is not "the band" right now. It's just three guys." - James Hetfield
"I wasn't too angry in the beginning. I was obviously grieving, but the anger started setting in when I realized that it's not new that people in rock-n-roll die, but usually it's self-inflicted in terms of excessive drink or drug abuse. He had nothing to do with it. It's so useless. Completely useless." - Lars Ulrich
"We always miss Cliff but he is kinda on the record (...And Justice For All) The song "To Live Is To Die" is really based on a couple of years ago. It's kind of cool to have something written by Cliff on the new album." - Lars
"If we had hung it up, Cliff would've been so pissed off." - Kirk
"Knowing Cliff's attitude he'd kick our butts if we quit" - James
"We were on a two-lane road. The bus went off to the right, and I think the driver over corrected, cranking the wheel to the left to get us back on the road. The wheel grabbed, and the bus swung completely around. During this time, the tail of the bus was sliding, kind of fishtailing around and bouncing on its wheels. That was right when we all started to wake up. I think I bounced right out of my bunk. The bunks were like trays with foam in them. The foam was held in place by a wooden lip. When the bus started rocking, my back bounced across that lip. Afterwards, I could barely walk, it hurt so bad. The bus eventually slid to the dirt alongside the road. When the wheels caught, the bus rolled over on its side." - John Marshall
"We were all sitting out there in 35 degree weather, with me in my socks and underwear before someone gave me a blanket. I remember Kirk and James yelling at the driver. By then, everyone had begun to realize that something was wrong with Cliff. I remember James walking up the road a bit to see if there was ice on the road, because the driver had claimed he'd slid over a sheet of ice. Kirk was crying." - John Marshall