'One of the best biographies you'll ever read.' - Robb Flynn,
Machine Head
Today, Metallica are known as consummate musicians, but it wasn't always
that way. Their early career is marked by a gradual evolution from
garage thrash to sophisticated, progressive heights - an evolution
driven by their bass player, Cliff Burton, who pushed the band to new
heights with his songwriting ability and phenomenal bass skills across
the band's first three albums, including their undisputed masterpiece,
Master Of Puppets.
Cliff's life was short but influential; his death at the age of 24 in a
tour bus crash on a Swedish mountain road was sudden and shocking.
Following his passing, Metallica went on to huge global success, but by
their own admission they never pushed the creative envelope as radically
as they had done during the first four years of their career.
The cult of Burton grows year on year, and so too the list of bassists
acknowledging his influence in metal and beyond. Published to coincide
with the 40th anniversary of Metallica's debut album, Kill 'Em All,
this revised and updated edition of To Live Is To Die adds a new
chapter that looks at Burton's enduring legacy from a fresh perspective
and includes commentary from current Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo
and Aquaman star Jason Momoa, as well as an eyewitness account of the
opening of the Cliff Burton Museum in Ljungby, Sweden, in 2022. There is
also a brand new preface by Testament bass master Steve Di Giorgio, who
shares his memories of meeting Burton as a teenager and then watching on
from close quarters as Metallica began to take off.
