ROBERT TRUJILLO Says He Hung Out With GEDDY LEE ‘For Two Days Solid’ During Filming Of ‘Are Bass Players Human Too?’

In a new interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station, METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo spoke about his participation in Geddy Lee‘s new four-part TV documentary series “Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?” The Paramount+ series will feature the RUSH legend digging into the lives of Trujillo, former NIRVANA bassist Krist Novoselic, PRIMUS bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, and former HOLE/SMASHING PUMPKINS bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur, making music, and taking part in a range of extracurricular activities, from trading licks with Auf Der Maur, flying in an airplane with Claypool, canning tomatoes with Novoselic to surfing with Trujillo.

Robert said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It was a lot of fun. I got to hang with Geddy for two days solid… I’d met him before, but we were hanging out for 10 to 12 hours through the weekend. And we just kind of threw it all into two days. We had two beautiful days down in SoCal. And it’s basically a lifestyle hang. He wants to know, or wanted to know, what’s it like in the world, in the life of Robert Trujillo outside of bass? And he came by the house. We went down to Venice Beach. We kind of got a bit of education on the history of my neighborhood and some of the people I grew up with. It was really, really cool. And the stars kind of aligned those two days. The waves weren’t huge. They filmed me surfing, and I did the best I could with what we had. And yeah, it was just a lot of fun. It was just one of those weird weekends where everything kind of came together. And my son was actually playing a gig too — I think it was on the Saturday night that [Geddy] was there — and [Lee] came out and checked that out. I think he was only gonna stay for, like, two songs and he ended up staying for, like, 10 songs. So it was pretty cool. And the funniest thing was people that were there to see the show were, like, ‘Wait a minute. Is that Geddy Lee?’ There was the triple take and the quadruple take, ’cause he had a lot of fans there. But it was just so surreal that he was hanging at a local [gathering] — this is local-style, neighborhood we’re talking. We were talking neighborhood kids, neighborhood parents. I mean, it was all very, very localized. And he’s coming out there from Toronto.”

Trujillo went on to say that it was surreal for him to be spending time with his musical idol whose playing had influenced him from his teenage years.

“I played in backyard party bands at age 16 and we played [RUSH‘s] ‘La Villa Strangiato’, we played ‘YYZ’, we played all those classic songs,” Robert said. “The harder, the better back then. And we probably butchered them, but we would play these backyard parties and play RUSH songs in the same way that we also played Ozzy [Osbourne] songs and we played BLACK SABBATH songs and VAN HALEN and all these different bands. So you can imagine hanging out with one of your heroes and just trying to stay grounded. At the end of the day, everybody’s a human being and you always wanna treat people with respect and, again, stay grounded. But at the same time, you’re going, ‘Damn, that’s Geddy Lee.'”

In the trailer for “Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?”, which was released last month, Lee said: “I’m trying to show the world that a bass player can do many things. Join me as I travel to the homes of four bass legends and dive deep into their lives. And their inspirations. Plus some fun making music, as I try to answer one really important question: Are bass players human too?”

He added: “The idea for this show was born out of interviews I did for my first book ‘The Big, Beautiful Book Of Bass’. I was struck that these accomplished musicians also lived incredibly interesting, multifaceted lives offstage. Who knew bass players were so effin’ human?”

“Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?” will premiere on Paramount+ on December 5 in the U.S. and Canada, and December 6 in the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.