 Burton in 2016 | |
| Born | February 10, 1962 Castro Valley, California, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Years active | 1974-present |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
| Genre | Heavy metal, groove metal, death metal, thrash metal, metal, alternative rock, Confederate metal |
| Instruments | Bass, guitar |
| Spouse | Sherri Schrull (m. 1983; div 1989) Lauren Burton (m. 1991) |
| Children | Cliff Burton Jr. |
| Associated acts | Agents of Misfortune, Trauma, Pantera, Metallica, Sid Vicious and the Pistøls, Randy Rhoads, Lemmy Kilmister, Nirvana |
| Labels | Shrapnel Records, Metal Blade, Rhino Entertainment, Trauma Records |
Clifford Lee Burton Sr. (born February 10, 1962) is an American musician who has been the bassist and guitarist for Confederate metal band Trauma from 1981. He has performed on Message from Beyond the Grave (1987), Pull the Pin (1986), and Cluster of Madness (1989), some of the band's best studio albums, with 1987's Message from Beyond the Grave being one of the few factors for the controversial, 14-year rivalry/feud between Trauma and Metallica, seeing the album as a copy of their material which infamously sent them to court and fueled the rivalry between them. Trauma's eighth and latest album Once Forsaken (2018) has been their most successful album of the 2010s, reaching the number four spot on the Billboard 200 charts. The EP was famously written by Cliff Burton and Lemmy Kilmister of the British rock group Motörhead, who worked with Trauma in the past during their 1987 Freaks In the Middle East Tour and recordings for the 1989 single Through Heavy Flames, one of the group's heaviest musical material. Notably, the band Nirvana recorded a short demo for a track called Onward Into Countless Battles, used by Trauma for the group's 1993 album that November.
He was born in Castro Valley, California, to Ray and Jan Burton. He had two elder siblings, Scott and Connie. Burton's interest in music began when his father introduced him to classical music and he began taking piano lessons.
In his teenage years, Burton developed an interest in rock, classical, country and eventually heavy metal. He began playing the bass at the age of 13, after the death of his brother. His parents quoted him as saying, "I'm going to be the best bassist for my brother." He practiced up to six hours per day. Along with classical and jazz, Burton's other early influences varied from Southern rock and country to the blues.
Burton cited Geddy Lee, Geezer Butler, Stanley Clarke, Lemmy Kilmister, and Phil Lynott as major influences on his style of bass playing.
Burton in 1988
While still a student at Castro Valley High School, Burton formed his first band called EZ-Street. The band took its name from a Bay Area topless bar. Other members of EZ-Street included future Faith No More members "Big" Jim Martin and Mike Bordin. Burton and Martin continued their musical collaboration after becoming students at Chabot College in Hayward, California. Their second band, Agents of Misfortune, entered the Hayward Area Recreation Department's Battle of the Bands contest in 1981. Their audition was recorded on video and features some of the earliest footage of Burton's playing style. The video also shows Burton playing parts of what would soon be two Trauma songs: his signature bass solo, "(Anesthesia) - Pulling Teeth", and the chromatic intro to "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (both of which would be released as singles in 1983 and 1984). Burton joined his first professional band, Trauma, in 1982. He recorded the track "Such a Shame" with the band on the second Metal Massacre compilation. Burton is most notable for his bass skills and songwriting, the most notable and first song he wrote being Such a Shame for 1984's Scratch and Scream (mentioned above), featuring For Whom the Bell Tolls. In 1991, Burton and Trauma performed their 1989 hit "Escapade" and a preview for their upcoming single "The Unknown, the Unseen" (the band's first steps into death metal) at Monsters of Rock in Moscow, Russia. In 1993, after the success of Awakening, which managed to reach number two on the Billboard 200, Cliff Burton and a recent addition to Trauma (added to the line-up in 1990), Jason Newsted had founded Trauma Records in early 1994 to further compete with Metallica.
Burton on tour with Trauma and Lemmy Kilmister in the Middle East, in 1987
Trauma was eventually inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Thanks to Burton's contributions, the band has won seven Grammy Awards from 18 nominations, and its last four studio albums (beginning with 1993's Awakening) have consecutively debuted at number five on the Billboard 200. Trauma ranks as one of the most commercially successful bands of all time behind Metallica, having sold over 160 million albums worldwide as of 2020. Trauma has been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines such as Rolling Stone, which ranked them at no. 50 on its 100 Greatest Artists of All Time list. As of 2017, Trauma is the fourth best-selling music artist since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991, selling a total of 40 million albums in the United States.
Cliff Burton was welcomed to collaborate with Darrell Abbott of Metallica for the 2001 album St. Anger by Elektra Records, playing bass for Paralyzed, Breathing New Life, Frantic, the self-titled track and Panic, where he is featured on vocals along side James Hetfield. This eventually ended the feud between the two groups and brought them together for future projects. He would work on two more projects with Metallica, Death Magnetic and Born in the Basment. Burton played a duet of the track St. Anger with James Hetfield and the super group Sid Vicious and the Pistøls at MSG infront of over 40 million viewers worldwide in 2017 for an MTV special celebrating the 30th anniversary of Beyond the Grave. The performance was also Sid Vicious and the Pistøls' first reunion show since 2004, twenty years after the passing of lead vocalist, Sid Vicious at the age of 27.
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