One of my favorite stories to come back to is retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan's outrageous claims that he once auditioned to be in Metallica to replace Cliff Burton. It all started with a quote he gave to the UK tabloid, The Sun about seven years ago:
"I used to be a session musician before I was a wrestler. I played bass guitar. I was big pals with Lars Ulrich and he asked me if I wanted to play bass with Metallica in their early days but it didn't work out."
The story got really big and even Howard Stern caught wind of it, so of course the next time Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich was in studio, Stern asked him about it. Lars' response was basically "Hulk who?" Lars said he'd never met the guy.
So naturally, when Hulk "10 Inch Penis" Hogan gets called out on his bullshit, he changed his story a bit, as noted during this interview with Noisey on Hulk's music ventures:
I heard that Metallica needed a bass player, and brother, I was writing letters, made a tape of myself playing and sent it to their management company. Kept making calls trying to get through. I tried for two weeks and never heard a word back from them either. [..] I was hoping for a call from them but never got one. All the haters were like “You never auditioned for Metallica!” Of course I didn’t—but I tried!
So Hulk went from being "big pals" with Lars Ulrich to going of course I never actually auditioned. Good stuff. But even better is this interview that surfaced from December, where James Hetfield is given a bunch of photos and asked to react. The highlight is when he is given a photoshopped photo (created by yours truly) of the band and Metallica together and Hetfield is almost at a loss for words as to how to react.
"I don't know [Hogan]'s version of history. I don't remember him." Hetfield says with a laugh. "What is it? He was in the band for a minute?"
When the interviewer explains that Hogan said he auditioned for the band, Hetfield responds "Huh? Definitely not. But anyway, it's a good fit, yeah? [Laughs] He makes us look very small."
So that's two prominent members of Metallica who have no idea what Hulk Hogan is talking about. Excellent. The entire video of Hetfield talking about folks is worth watching. Here it is cued up to the Hogan part:
We were able to track down Hogan's lost audition tape.
