Tom G. Warrior on Metallica’s Cover of Celtic Frost: “They Butchered It.”

Back in May, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo covered Celtic Frost’s “The Usurper” as part of the regular “Doodles” section of Metallica’s live show, and for once, everyone in the world actually agreed on something: the cover was fucking terrible. The Internet lobbed many a siqq burn that fateful day.

But no burn could ever be siqqer than this one, ’cause it comes from Celtic Frost’s Thomas Gabriel Fischer (a.k.a. Tom G. Warrior) himself!

Asked about the cover by Rolling Stone, Mr. Warrior had this to say:

“They butchered it, and it was humiliating. Why don’t they leave their millionaire fingers off it? They’ve long lost the ability to play true metal in my opinion. Maybe I should go onstage and do a really miserable version of [Metallica’s] ‘Hit the Lights’ with, like, 200 mistakes to set the balance.”

The opinion of the original artist isn’t necessarily the end-all-be-all, but it’s hard to imagine Hammett or Trujillo being pleased that Fischer so loathed their cover. I mean, presumably, they were doing it at least in part as a tribute to Celtic Frost, so to have that band’s grand puba himself diss them surely stings.

Maybe the guitarist and bassist can take some comfort, however small, knowing that they never stood a chance of getting Tom’s endorsement — ’cause as it turns out, he hates James Hetfield most of all:

“This is completely personal, and I know probably the majority of your readers will not share this feeling, but even if they had done a fantastic job, I could puke all over it because I don’t support people who go hunting bears for a hobby. I cannot respect a person like that, even if it’s a genius musician.”

Hetfield has caught flack for his bear hunting habit before, of course… but never from someone as cool as Tom G. Warrior. So that probably hurts a little, too. I mean, I’m sure Hetfield can use a hundred doll bill as salve. But still.

Read the whole interview here.