Metallica Shocker: Former Bassist Found Alive, Living in Sweden 

In an amazing turn of events, former Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, who was thought to have been killed in a bus accident in 1986, is actually alive and well and living in a remote Swedish village.
    
      The band was touring Sweden when their bus skidded off the road and landed on its side, ejecting the bassist and supposedly killing Burton when the bus landed on him.

    “I was thrown from my bunk and into some bushes.  I must have gotten knocked in the head pretty hard because when I woke up, I had no idea who I was,” says Burton.  “I looked around and I didn’t see anybody, so I just started walking.  I ended up at this village.  I didn’t have any ID and I had no idea who I was, eventually an old couple took pity on me and gave me shelter.  The old man was a cobbler and as a way to repay him, I started to help him around his shop.  After a while, he took me on as his apprentice and I’ve been making and repairing shoes ever since.”

    Burton, who uses the name, Bartholomeus Larrson, regained his memory in 1996, when a horse kicked him.  When asked why he had not let his former bandmates know he was alive, he is clear about his reasons.
    
    “1996 was the year Metallica released ‘Load’, I was kind of embarrassed for them and figured I would call them when they came to their senses.  I kept waiting and waiting, and then the Napster thing happened.  I mean, you saw ‘Some Kind of Monster’, right?”
    Burton would have stayed “dead” had it not been for his recent purchase of a computer.
    
    “I was reading a messageboard about bass playing and some kids were arguing about whether I used a Morley Fuzz Wah or a Morley Wah Fuzz.  I decided to weigh in, albeit anonymously, and I got involved in what they call a ‘flame war”.  I will admit, it got pretty heated and some geek tracked my I.P. address and showed up on my doorstep.  You should have seen his face.  He actually shit himself.  I enjoyed that.”

    Now that Burton has revealed himself to the world after twenty-four years, will he be returning to music?
    
    “Not likely.  I’ve got a wife and eleven kids and my cobbling takes up most of my day.  I haven’t played the bass in years.  I called up Metallica’s management to at least touch bases, but I guess those guys are at a leadership conference, working on a trust bridge and nobody wants to disturb them.”

    The real question is who was the unlucky soul who was crushed by Metallica’s tour bus back in 1986?

    “I’m not 100% sure, but people think it was this guy named Vendel, who was kind of the village idiot around here back then.  Supposedly, he looked a lot like me.  He liked to walk the roads in the dark for fun.  People didn’t really like him, so nobody complained when he disappeared.  I got his bike, though.  So that’s a plus.”