Jaco Pastorius is considered by many to be the greatest electric bassist of all time. At age 25 he had a solo record on a major label-no mean feat for a bass player. By 26, he was a member of the popular jazz group Weather Report, and a year later earned a Grammy nomination for his work with the group. He collaborated with luminaries like Herbie Hancock, Ian Hunter, and Joni Mitchell. A decade later, homeless, broke, and struggling with bipolar disorder, among other demons, he died tragically after an altercation in a Florida bar at 35. In the ensuing years, awareness of Pastorius and his music has faded, but a cadre of influential and sometimes surprising musicians have kept his legacy alive.
Robert Trujillo, best known as bassist of Metallica (though he also played with Suicidal Tendencies and Ozzy Osbourne), comes to the Sound Garden in Fells Point this week to promote a documentary he produced about Pastorius. City Paper talked to him on the phone to get the scoop on that and a Record Store Day LP that unearths some never-before-heard material.
City Paper: Can you speak about how Jaco impacted you and how you came to learn about him?
Robert Trujillo: As a young, very young bass player at the time, I just started getting into the instrument, people started to talk about this cat named "Jaco," just one name. Like, "Oh, have you heard about Jaco?" He was the talk of the town. That debut solo album, which I kind of related to Eddie Van Halen-when you first heard Eruption-when that first album came out and you didn't know if it was a keyboard or a synthesizer, or what the heck instrument the guy was playing because it was so incredible. . . . I saw him the first time around '79 and it was just incredible. He was playing with Weather Report, progressive jazz music, but at the same time he was bringing this crazy stage presence, and his energy level was like that of a rock guy. I remember he had baby powder on the stage and was dancing around like James Brown, but then at one point he actually took the bass and slid into it like he was sliding into home plate. And I thought it was so cool what he brought to the stage, and from that moment on I was hooked.
CP: I heard, or read, you describing him as the essence of punk, which I thought was pretty interesting.
RT: To me, punk is an attitude. Suicidal [Tendencies] was referred to more in the context of being crazy and being wild. All the skateboarders followed the band back in the day. There was a heavy-duty skateboard movement with Dogtown . . . a lot of the guys that were wild and crazy, with their bikes or just living on the edge. And Jaco had that daredevil quality. Jaco was fearless in a lot of ways. He was the guy I would imagine wanting to jam with the Sex Pistols, not putting a rule on who he'd jam with or play with. . . . I always say he woulda been the first one in a slam pit at a Slayer show at the right time. He just had that edge and conviction.
CP: He put out his first solo album at 25, was Grammy-nominated the next year, he had a very brief career but has a huge legacy. It seems to me a lot of young people aren't as familiar with his work as they could be. Is that why you're interested in doing the documentary?
RT: Yeah, exactly. I feel that it's time for Jaco's relevance to be shared with the world. . . . Young people, I think will identify with this. I think it will inspire them to create and dive into the purity of learning an instrument and not letting the computer necessarily control your vocal abilities or techniques or your timing. Raw is good. Jaco was raw. The other thing we wanted to bring attention to is his bipolar disorder, because Jaco did have that. It's a treatable disease, and that had everything to do with the things that happened to him and put him in certain situations too. So we do touch on that too . . . it's not only a celebration, but we bring awareness too.
CP: How did you come to get involved with the documentary?
RT: Johnny Pastorius, Jaco's eldest son, and I became friends. He was a fan of Infectious Grooves and Suicidal Tendencies and all that, and a metal friend of ours that lived in Fort Lauderdale, where Johnny lived, he worked at a bar. Johnny came in and ordered some drinks, my friend recognized his last name on his credit card and then at that point he realized it was Jaco's son. So I met Johnny when I came through Fort Lauderdale on tour with Ozzy Osbourne in 1996. We hung out, spent some time together. I said to him, "You should really try to make a film about your father, sharing his story with the world." Because I also wanted to convey that even though he's primarily recognized for playing jazz, there's so many musicians that are inspired by him that aren't jazz players . . . that play heavy metal, some play punk rock.
When I moved back to L.A. about four years ago, the project became a lot more serious, because [of] some people I had met through the Metallica channels, like John Battsek from Passion Pictures [executive producer of Searching for Sugar Man]. He became involved, and at that point we started making a serious film. It's coming together incredibly well, I'm very proud of it.
CP: Any plans to produce any more films after? New side career?
RT: I love filmmaking as much as I love writing songs and music, so I would hope that there are. I think I might have to take a break after this for a couple of years. . . . But there are a couple of things I'm interested in doing in the future, we'll see how this goes. I think after this it's time to really concentrate on the next Metallica album, which we're already starting to write.
CP: Can you talk a little bit about Jaco's iconic instrument, the "Bass of Doom"? I understand you acquired it and are holding it for the family?
RT: There's been this incredible amount of magic and coincidence that's happened in the past few years. Sometimes it's a bit uncanny how things happen. But the Bass of Doom, in a nutshell, had been missing. Some say it was stolen, some say Jaco had sold it. It's a mystery. But the point is that the bass, in Jaco's actual words, was stolen from the park . . . because Jaco was homeless. The bass was with him, maybe he had fallen asleep, whatever. It was gone. So now, a collector ended up with the instrument and the family was unaware of this. Once it was authenticated, it was thought that the instrument . . . could go back to the family. That won't be the case, it ended up being a legal dispute. Which, after two years, all it resulted in was massive attorney bills and nothing was really resolved. At that point, it was decided that this would have to be settled, and I sponsored the money to get the instrument back.
There's a lot of misconceptions. There's a lot of people that think that I bogarted the instrument. That I went and I found the collector and I, not knowing the family or having any connection, that I went with my rock-and-roll rockstar money-which is totally not true, by the way, I did not write "Enter Sandman"-I'm the new guy! I have been approached by people who have been almost borderline saying, "Why did you take the bass?" This came to me by, and through, the wishes of the family. I just helped sponsor the money to bring the bass back.
CP: Can you talk a little bit about how the new record Modern American Music . . . Period! The Criteria Sessions on Omnivore Recordings came about?
RT: We had lunch and Johnny (Pastorius) innocently said, "Oh, there's a lot of cool stuff that my dad had recorded that no one's ever heard. Like his demos. We've got his demos, we have the original acetate from 1974." And we were like, "What?!" . . . So Gregory Pastorius, Jaco's younger brother out in Melbourne, had the acetate. I flew out there, connected with Johnny and we went up, we got the acetate, brought it back to L.A. Omnivore checked it out and just fell in love with it. And here it is, now gonna be released to the world for the first time. So it's very exciting. You hear his playing on it, and you're mesmerized. Because you're thinking, How can anyone possibly play with that kind of accuracy in that field? And also you can tell they're jamming, they're playing this stuff, it's real. There are no machines here, it's real. It's super-special.
CP: You've had a long career, at this point a longer career than Jaco had. How does it feel to look at one of your heroes and then realize that you've outlasted them?
RT: It's been that way with a lot of my favorite musicians, be it Jaco or Cliff Burton or a multitude of others. Sometimes its a very strange thing, a musician will bless us with their art-someone like Jeff Buckley-and they will bring the magic to you and bless you in your heart and soul. You're moved by it and it's powerful and engaging, and it takes you to a different place. And then for whatever reason, they depart. . . . I wonder why, how. Is that what's supposed to happen? Are they supposed to be here, have a message for us, and then go? Jaco always seemed to know. There are stories where he put himself in very critical situations, life-threatening situations, and he was OK with it because he's rumored to have said it wasn't his time to die. But then there's other stories where he said he knew when he was gonna die. So all of this is almost coming from somewhere else, some place that we're not in touch with yet. That's a hard one, but I think a lot of that has to do with very special people blessing us with their gift, and then having it there for us to share, and to hopefully learn from and be able to write and be inspired by. ?
Robert Trujillo and Johnny Pastorius will appear on Record Store Day (April 19) at 4 p.m. at the Sound Garden (1616 Thames St.) to meet fans and discuss the new LP and upcoming documentary.
