The Grunge Guitar Legend Who Is One of Robert Trujillo’s Favorite Bass Players

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Robert Trujillo has called grunge guitar legend Jerry Cantrell one of his favorite bass players.

You read that right — bass player.

The two musicians recently sat down for a conversation for an episode of The Metallica Report podcast. They talked a lot about Cantrell’s latest album I Want Blood, which Trujillo played bass on three songs for (“Vilified,” “Off the Rails,” “It Comes”).

The duo’s collaborative efforts actually go back much further though, as Trujillo also played bass on Cantrell’s entire second solo album Degradation Trip, which came out in 2002.

“It’s a doomy record!” Cantrell said, noting that the album came out just a few months after the death of Alice In Chains‘ Layne Staley.

“Rob and Mike [Bordin] went all the way on the trip with me, and I know it wasn’t easy for them… They rode the hard miles with me through one of the roughest patches of my life, and we came out the other side with a really fucking cool piece of work.”

Thus, when Cantrell started working on the songs that would become I Want Blood, he felt Trujillo belonged on some of the tracks. The bassist praised the music and explained how Cantrell actually helped him with his own playing.

“When I heard the demos for this body of music, it really spoke to me,” Trujillo said of I Want Blood. “It was time to reunite with Jerry and I wanted to be a part of this. Even from the rehearsals, we paired a lot of this music at Jerry’s house, in his living room.”

“Jerry’s one of my favorite bass players, in terms of on a composition level,” Trujillo continued. “He’s very tasteful, and I don’t know if he knows this, but I learned from him on the Degradation Trip album, I learned the art of simplicity and how each note resonates and speaks to the chord. Less is more — this sort of concept. It was great to reunite with that.”

The bassist compared the diversity of sound on I Want Blood to that of Metallica‘s most recent record 72 Seasons, and admitted that the closing track on Cantrell’s album, “It Comes,” was one of the most difficult songs he’s ever recorded in his career.

“The reason is because of the space. There’s so much space, you’re naked,” he elaborated, adding that there’s an emphasis on every detail of the song.

“There’s nothing to hide in!” Cantrell chimed in.

Listen to the full podcast episode below.