“The Immortal” Hulk Hogan sadly passed away last week at the age of 71. While his death brought a mix of reactions due to his complicated legacy, no one could argue his importance to the wrestling business. Hogan was a key piece to wrestling going mainstream on two occasions, first with his “Hulkamania” run in the WWF in the ‘80s and early ‘90s and again when he turned heel and formed the NWO with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in 1996.
Later in his life, Hogan became somewhat dubiously known for elaborating on stories in his career, and one of the most famous was the Hulkster’s supposed association with heavy metal legends Metallica.
Loudersound has compiled several Hogan quotes about the wrestling legend trying to audition for the band and also drummer Lars Ulrich’s reaction. Hogan first told “The Chicago Tribune” in 2009 that he wanted to join the group after bassist Jason Newsted famously exited in 2001. “When Metallica was looking for a bass player, I called and never heard a word back from them,” Hogan said. “I would have quit wrestling in a heartbeat to be a bass player for Metallica.”
He later did an interview with The Sun where he suggested he nearly joined the band in the early ‘80s. “I used to be a session musician before I was a wrestler,” Hogan said. “I played bass guitar. I was big pals with Lars Ulrich and he asked me if I wanted to play bass with Metallica in their early days but it didn’t work out.”
Ulrich appeared on “The Howard Stern Show” a few weeks later and said he had no recollection of any association with Hogan. “You know what?,” he told Stern. “I’m blessed or cursed, depending on how you look at it, with having more or less a photographic memory for pretty much anything that I’ve been a part of. That one, when that showed up two or three months ago, I was scratching my head over that one. Unless he went by like his Christian name or something, and I don’t know if anybody knows what his Christian name was Dave Smith or something, if there was a whole thing that we had with him under a different name, but I certainly have no recollection of doing anything with ‘Hulk Hogan’.”
Hogan later reverted to his original story in a 2014 interview with Vice. “I heard that Metallica needed a bass player, and brother, I was writing letters, made a tape of myself playing and sent it to their management company,” he said. “Kept making calls trying to get through. I tried for two weeks and never heard a word back from them.”
In another interview, singer/guitarist James Hetfield was shown a photoshopped image of Metallica with Hogan who referenced to the frontman the story of the wrestler trying to join the band. Hetfield chuckled and replied: “Really? Huh … definitely not.”
