The January 2014 issue of Guitar World is going to have Sepultura guitarist Andreas Kisser talking about some pretty interesting stuff, including the band's new album title The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Is the Heart and that one time he filled in for Scott Ian in Anthrax in Europe. Oh, and when he almost got to be in Metallica for a little bit!
Kisser told Guitar World:
"Phil Rind, the singer and bass player from Sacred Reich, was very good friends with [then-Metallica bassist] Jason Newsted. He mentioned my name to Jason, and Jason said, 'Yeah, If you can manage to come to the United States, we're going to be in Denver auditioning different guitar players.' So I bought a ticket right away, and the next day I was going to Denver. I knew all the Metallica stuff by heart — that's like my school — except the Black Album, which was very new at the time. But I went there and I practiced with them the first day. James wasn't there — only Lars [Ulrich], Kirk [Hammett] and Jason, and I played the songs, and they liked it a lot. Jason was really excited about my playing and they asked me to stay the second day, which were the finals. James was there that day. It was between me and James Marshall [Metal Church guitarist and one time Metallica roadie], who had already filled in before when James broke his arm skateboarding.
"Maybe they didn't choose me because I wasn't really ready with the full repertoire. I played many songs with them — "The Shortest Straw", "One" and "Enter Sandman" — but "The Unforgiven" was kind of hard for me, as was "Nothing Else Matters." Plus, I was nervous as well. To walk into a Metallica practice room… The first time you see everybody there, it was like a dream/nightmare for me. But from there I got to be really good friends with them, especially Jason Newsted. We've met many times after that, and we've done demos together and jammed and stuff, so It was awesome. Even though I didn't get the job, it was an amazing experience for me."
Interesting! Maybe Metallica was good buddies with Max Cavalera at the time and he said Kisser would try to take the band hostage, so they had to figure out an alternate way to let him down? Probably not. It's probably exactly for all the reasons Kisser said. Here's the part in Metallica's Behind the Music discussing the pyro incident:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Pn48o9bhU[/youtube]
