IN THE MAGAZINE

FROM FAN TO CLAN

I’m with the Band

GEORGIE THOMPSON

If you created a pie graph indicating the incidences of people meeting their creative heroes, you’d find a massive piece of pie representing all the people who never get to experience an encounter. Next would be a small piece of pie for the people who have been able to hang out with (or possibly date) one of them. Lastly, there’d be a tiny sliver, indiscernible to the naked eye, representing those who have become creative equals with those they have formerly admired from afar. Ending up best friends and creative collaborators with your long held hero is essentially the modern-day fairy tale. For the following few musically gifted people, this dream became reality. Here are the approaches they used:


BE A DEAD MEMBER REINCARNATED
Rob Trujillo, Metallica

To say that Rob Trujillo’s path to Hero-dom was paved in death and dishonour is a cool sounding understatement. Firstly, Metallica’s original bass player Cliff Burton had to die. Burton acquiesced in 1986 when his bus overturned in Sweden during the Master of Puppets tour. Next, Burton’s initial replacement had to be a complete asshole. Thankfully, Jason Newstead came up with the goods. A poor fit and a constant reminder of Cliff’s demise, Newstead compounded his unsuitability by starting his badly named side project Echo-Brain. Lastly, singer James Hetfield had to be a giant baby, which he is, and the rest as they say is history.

Trujillo eventually beat out Twiggy Ramirez, Pepper Keenan and many others in a star studded audition process to join the band in time for the St. Anger tour. Having already played with Suicidal Tendencies and Ozzy Osbourne, Trujillo’s playing style and physical appearance brought to mind a sort of Cliff Burton 2.0, making him a logical choice and popular addition to the band. So ends the story of how Rob Trujillo won his upfront signing fee of $1,000,000 and a full time gig playing with a band fans offer their girlfriends to night in night out.

DO IT THE ‘IDOL’ WAY J.D Fortune, INXS The 1997 death of Michael Hutchence and Jon Stevens’ failure to extend a relationship beyond contractual obligation meant that by 2004, INXS were once again looking for a lead singer. The solution: reality TV. Fifteen Hutchence fans from around the world became contestants on the show Rockstar: INXS, competing for the chance to join the seminal melodic rock band. The show was a greasy clichéd delight, offering viewers a syrupy cocktail of makeup wearing men, open shirts, alcoholic sulks, butch women, Dave Navarro, excruciating song choices, and more. Epitomising it all was Jason Dean Bennison, aka J.D Fortune, a former Elvis impersonator who had been wailing after the band for years. With a performance of ‘What You Need’, original lyrics to ‘Pretty Vegas’, and an endless supply of cougars prowling the crowd in their daughter’s singlets, the Canadian eventually pulled the whole thing off. He became the lead singer and newest member of INXS. Sure, his stardom was short lived and notable only for its resulting drug dependency, but how many people get to say that they were full time singers for the band that brought you Just Keep Walking? (The answer is two).

BE REALLY GOOD-LOOKING Nico, The Velvet Underground Standard wisdom implies that if you did what Andy Warhol asked you to do, you would eventually get your fifteen minutes, if not more. With Warhol as a kind of artistic director, Lou Reed’s pre punk quartet was already making a mark on pop culture. What other band could play a three hour set of grinding monotones, only to start it all over at the end? “Always leave them wanting less” was their motto. And hey, it worked. Then came the incredible Nico. A lingerie saleswoman from age 13 as well as model, actress and muse, Nico was possessed with a preternatural beauty. In other words, she was really insanely hot. Finding her way to New York via Ibiza, Paris and Berlin, she eventually became a Warhol favourite, appearing in a number of his films. With the pieces all in place, Nico’s inclusion into The Velvet Underground was seemingly inevitable. Even with initial resistance from the band, she was installed as backing singer and tambourinist in time for the recording of VU’s debut album. Immediately afterwards, Nico formed simultaneous sexual relationships with the bands’ two driving forces Lou Reed and John Cale. She left the band in 1967.

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