Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery recently looked back on auditioning for Metallica in the early 2000s and noted how “shocked” he was to see the iconic band rock out as “just guys with amps facing each other as if we were in a garage.”
Eric Avery talks about Metallica audition
Avery recalled the time when Metallica were in search of a new bassist following the departure of Jason Newsted, Eric Avery had already put a lot of ground between him and Jane’s Addiction, as he didn’t take part in the short-lived 2001 reunion.
After collaborating with Alanis Morissette and playing in bands of his own such as Deconstruction and Polar Bear, Avery got the chance to audition for Lars Ulrich & Co. — although, as he told Bass Player in a recently published interview, he was “basically looking for a story to tell the grandkids” rather than steady employment.
Avery noted that his colleague from Red Hot Chili Peppers was one of his greatest supporters in the process:
“It was Flea who first planted the idea that I might actually get the gig. 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.'”
“Up to then, I hadn’t really even considered it. I was just looking at it as a chance to go play ‘Master of Puppets’ with Metallica for an afternoon.”
He added:
“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.”
Talking about the audition itself, Avery recalled how “shocked” he was by Metallica’s adherence to their garage band roots:
“They flew me up and gave me the red-carpet treatment, which was really charming. When we started playing, I was shocked that it was just guys with amps facing each other as if we were in a garage. It was like hearing Metallica as if they were playing in their garage and we were all 20. We played through ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, and ‘Fuel’. It was a lot of fun.”
After a brief stint with The Smashing Pumpkins, Eric Avery found a new home in Garbage. In 2022, he returned to Jane’s Addiction to take part in the classic lineup’s reunion. However, the band’s future is uncertain following a recent on-stage fallout.
