Rob Trujillo Explains What Surprised Him About His Son’s Show With Suicidal Tendencies, Recalls Playing With Current A7X Drummer Aged 15

The bassist discusses Brooks Wackerman’s “unusual ability” on drums.

During an appearance on The Vinyl Guide, Metallica bassist Rob Trujillo talked about his son Tye joining Suicidal Tendencies live in concert last year, while also looking back on playing with current Avenged Sevenfold drummer Brooks Wackerman in Infectious Grooves back in the ’90s.Brooks was still a teenager when he joined the band. Interestingly enough, he was also a member of Suicidal Tendencies, although not at the same time when Rob was the group’s bassist.

Trujillo said about Tye (transcribed by UG):

“My son, he’s a bass player, he’s 15, and he played a show with Suicidal Tendencies recently. For some reason, the bass player had some issues; he’s from Chile, an amazing player.

“So [singer] Mike Muir asked Tye if he was gonna do the gig, and it was a big show; it was a big punk festival in San Pedro, it was over 5,000 people there, so he had to learn a large set of music.

“And it was really cool to hear him play those songs, very authentic, with a pick – because I never play the songs with a pick, but he was playing that stuff that way. I remember hearing him from the early stages, and I thought that was the coolest thing, you know?

“He went in that direction, but he gave it the edge and the attitude that he has, so it just depends on the individual.

“I found myself playing a four-string more on the older songs. Back in the day, I would never play with a four-string. ‘No, I’m a five-string player,’ you know what I mean? So it depends.

“The cool thing – now that I think of it, he was playing some of my stuff, that I was playing on a five, he was playing it on a four, so he was just like readjusting to that, but I was more impressed that he was playing the early Suicidal stuff like ‘War Inside My Head’ and all that – ‘Subliminal.’

“And he was playing it the way Louiche Mayorga did back in the day, with the pick – same feel. When Dave Lombardo was playing drums, from Slayer, and this is only a few months back – it was awesome, and I was just like, ‘There you go, man.’

“It’s so neat when that can happen sometimes, you’re bringing it in its original form I guess you could say, there’s something to be said for that.

“But it varies; it’s hard to say what’s right and what’s not right because I understand a player should be their own player, and then sometimes it’s nice where they go with a more authentic approach.”

Focusing on Brooks, Rob commented:

“Brooks Wackerman, who was obviously the drummer for Infectious Grooves many years ago.

“I mean, he was 15 years old when he played drums on the first record, and to get on stage with him again, to perform that music was really exciting to me because some of that stuff was really challenging for any drummer.

“So it really kind of resonated in his style and his feel. Brooks has this unusual ability to play a hip-hop groove and then throw in, like, incredible double-kick patterns, so it’s almost like if you took Slayer and combined it with Parliaments or something.

“He was doing this when he was 15 because he didn’t have any rules or restrictions as to his approach to his drumming, so it was really fun to spontaneously create music around that kind of energy.

“Now you take that, live, for the first time – again, almost 25 years ago – it was pretty exciting for me. We went down there and I know we won a lot of people over.”