Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery talked about auditioning for Metallica in the early 2000s.
Avery credited Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers as a key supporter during the audition process. “It was Flea who first planted the idea that I might actually get the gig,” the rocker said in a new interview with Bass Player. “I was talking to him a few days before I went to audition, and he was like, ‘Well, why wouldn’t you get the gig?’ I said, ‘I’m not that guy. I’m not Metallica’s new bass player.’ Flea was like, ‘Why not? They write rad music, and you’re a great bassist.’”
“I remember being at a small dinner party with some friends the night before the audition. They were like, ‘So, are you excited? Tomorrow you could become Metallica’s bass player, you’ll become a millionaire!’ My friend said she could see it all beginning to dawn on me, and I got this deer-in-the-headlights look, and I receded from the conversation in terror. It was a shocking realization, but it turned out to be an amazing day,” he added.
While he could have got the job, there was one reason the rocker didn’t think he was a good fit for the band.
“So I entered into them as experiences, like, ‘I’m gonna have a life experience; I’m gonna create a memory.’ Not every day does one travel to Santa Rosa to play a few songs with Metallica, you know,” the bassist explained in a different interview. “I didn’t see it as a job audition; and in that way, it really delivered. They were great to me, too. I came away with a great day from my human lifetime.”
At the time, Metallica was looking for a new bassist after Jason Newsted left. Avery had distanced himself from Jane’s Addiction, skipping the short-lived 2001 reunion. After working with Alanis Morissette and playing in bands like Deconstruction and Polar Bear, he got the chance to audition for Metallica. However, he was ‘basically looking for a story to tell the grandkids’ rather than a new job.
Ultimately, the role went to Robert Trujillo. After a short time with The Smashing Pumpkins, Avery joined Garbage. He returned to Jane’s Addiction in 2022 for a reunion with the classic lineup, though the band’s future is uncertain following recent on-stage conflicts.
