Back in 1992, during Metallica’s 1992 co-headlining tour with Guns N’ Roses, James Hetfield suffered second-degree burns after a pyrotechnics accident. So, guitar technician and Metal Church member John Marshall replaced the singer on guitar for the remaining tour days. Ex-Overkill guitarist Bobby Gustafson revealed during a new interview with the Meista – Brews & Tunes that he also auditioned to temporarily fill in for Hetfield.
“I was doing [the Bay Area thrash metal project with Tom Hunting] I4NI in New York after the Cycle Sluts [From Hell],” Gustafson recalled. “I had put an original band together when we were playing out, and we had a show the next night at L’Amours in Brooklyn, and I got a call at about 11:30 at night from Tony Smith, and they said that, ‘You know James got hurt, he burned, and they said that you were the first one they thought of to call.’”
The musician continued, sharing how prepared for the audition to replace Hetfield, “So he gave me the entire set list, which was like eighteen songs. So I had, like, a day and a half to learn the songs, plus I didn’t cancel my show that night, so I played that show with the songs on cassette trying to learn them backstage.”
Gustafson added, “I was supposed to fly to Denver, they went to Denver, and they set up in the arena like in a back room, and they were doing the auditions there. And I was leaving the airport in New Jersey, and it rained for ten minutes, just a downpour, 10 minutes. It screwed my flight up for four hours.”
“So James was in pain,” recalled Bobby Gustafson. “But he was waiting there because he wanted to sing while I went out and played, and I assumed he would be there, and I kind of tried to work off the vocals because I really never learned their songs, I guess maybe they thought I did, but I was trying to cram all that in, and then they just auditioned me on like five songs, and I’m like, ‘Sh*t, why didn’t you just tell me the five? It would’ve been a lot easier to learn.’”
Sharing why he failed in the audition, Bobby said, “So I really didn’t have everything down, and as I was playing, I kind of knew… I did ‘Creeping Death,’ and I nailed it, and they were like, ‘Holy sh*t, your right hand’s really good,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, thank you,’ and the rest just didn’t go, like ‘Nothing Else Matters,’ I didn’t learn that yet. I was doing my own stuff…but yeah, that could have been pretty cool too. It would have been fun.”
Thus, the Metallica members didn’t consider Bobby Gustafson as a good fit for the remaining tour dates, and James Hetfield was eventually replaced by John Marshall, who had filled in for the guitarist before during the ‘Master Of Puppets’ tour in 1986. When Metallica returned to the stage 17 days after the incident, Papa Het could still sing but couldn’t play.
