In a recent episode of Steve-O’s Wild Ride!, Steve-O shared how he confronted Lars Ulrich for betraying Cliff Burton’s legacy.
The host recalled a moment when a VJ in charge of a show told him, “‘Here, we have a request for a Metallica music video and just to let you know there are so many requests for Metallica music. Look at this pile.'”
Steve-O added, “And there’s this huge pile of envelopes on the floor and they said, ‘Every single one of those letters is a request for a Metallica music video but I want you to know that the band’s official statement, the official position is that they’ll never make a music video. They don’t want to be commercial’ or whatever it is.”
He continued, “And I thought, ‘Okay, that’s great,’ but then Cliff died, and then next thing they got the ‘One’ music video and I thought, ‘Wait, you said one thing and then you did another.’ And I was kind of offended by that.”
Later, Steve-O recounted his conversation with Ulrich, “Years years later, I’m partying with Lars and I told him among other things, I told him, ‘When I saw the ‘One’ music video, I arrived at the conclusion that Cliff was leaving claw marks inside his coffin trying to get out to strangle him’ [laughs]. It’s a terrible thing to say.”
Metallica’s ‘One’ was their first music video, directed by Bill Pope and Michael Salomon. It premiered on MTV on January 20, 1989. The video, filmed in Long Beach, California, on December 7, 1988, is primarily black and white and features the band playing in a warehouse, along with scenes and dialogue from the 1971 film ‘Johnny Got His Gun.’
The band was initially excited about incorporating scenes from the film into their video. Ulrich mentioned, “The idea took precedent over the assumption that we had to do a video because that’s what you did when you were putting out your next single. We were pretty comfortable with the idea right away — dare I say even excited about it.”
Metallica initially considered director Wayne Isham for the video, but he struggled with mixing archival footage with band shots. The job was then handed to Michael Salomon, who, though experienced in editing, had little experience with metal videos.
