Michael, Trauma was formed in 1981, with you and George „Tiger” Lady on guitars, Dennis Schaefer on the drums, Cliff Burton on bass and Donny Hillier on vocals, how did you get together?
Actually George and I formed Trauma in 1979 with different members. Itbroke up after our first show. The new version that you know formed atthe end of 1980 when George and I’s other band Scepter broke up. I metGeorge in 1979 through a friend at a party at Judd’s barn. We hit it offand immediately started jamming with each other. I had just got firedfrom a band called The Willies because the lead guitarist was jealous ofmy songwriting. I came up with the name Trauma as we were out andabout and passed by a hospital which I had taken (statute of limitationsshould be up by now) the emergency trauma center sign for my room. Inthe same area there was a street called Montrose, that signed was takenevery month until they actually welded it to the pole LOL!!! George and Iplayed numerous parties during this time and mainly played with JimmyShafer (EZ Street) drumming. We met Dennis Shafer at one of thoseparties and he seemed interested in forming something serious. I hadmet a singer named Richard Lord and convinced him to try singing metal.He was more of a pop guy, like the The cars or the baby’s. He tried it andstarted to enjoy our music plus the UFO, Priest covers we were doing. Wewere searching for a bass player when, Jimmy Shafer invited us to hismom’s birthday and he had set up an area behind the apartments to havea jam. We jammed with Cliff off and on all day and asked Cliff if he wouldbe interested in an all original project. After a couple more discussionsand beers and bowls he said yes. So we started with Richard, Dennis,Cliff, George and I. We did 2-3 shows with Richard and our following wasgrowing fast. Our 3rd show at the stage in Danville was packed andRichard got terrible stage fright in the middle of set. We finished, but Richard never showed up to rehearsal or answered our phone calls. Wewere like Crap now what are we going to do. His voice was the exact styleGeorge and I were looking for. So one night in the middle of the week, Dennis, George, and I headed out to a club called Frenchy’s (looking forgirls). It was a popular night club with a lot of big name acts like EddieMoney, Tower of Power, etc… Plus they supported local acts as well. There was a cover band called The Front that was playing that night. The singer was Donnie and we were checking him out saying this guy sounds pretty good. Well the finished their first set and Donnie comes to our table and asks, “hey are you guys in a band?” Well we were kinda taken back but I think George said yes and were looking for a lead vocalist. A couple days later we (Cliff, Dennis, George, and I) went to Donnie’s apartment in Oakland and met with him and his manager (the infamous Tony Van Lit). We played a cassette recording of our originals and showed him our setlist and he joined right on the spot and Tony offered his services as manager. That is the formation of Trauma.
Was Trauma the very first outfit for all of you, that you were involved in or did you already have any musical experiences in other acts?
I had been in a band in high school, but we broke up with no place torehearse as the one place our keyboardist parent’s garage we got bustedby the sheriffs every practice. I went away to Sierra College for a year,after Chabot (where Cliff went) and ended up being in a cover band toplay local parties. A friend of the drummers came up for one of ourfamous neighborhood parties and introduced us to punk rock. He was adj at Ohlone college radio station in Fremont, Ca. I immediately became afan. We decided to form a cover punk band called the “Dead Popes” Weplayed Ramones, Sex Pistols, Dead Kenny’s, and tuff darts to name a fewand I began writing simple 3 chord punk songs. After college I movedback to the Bay Area and met up with a high school buddy Norm, (whonow plays in my new project) He had a band looking for a rhythmguitarist. I auditioned and got the job with the Willies. We played originalsand covers, mostly AC/DC, etc.. I started introducing my originals thatstarted out punk but with some rearrangement turned into Hard Rock/Power Metal style tunes like Such a Shame and Going Off. Well the leadguitarist ego couldn’t take that the rest of the band were liking my songsand he told me I was out of the band. Until I reconnected with Norm a fewyears ago, he was always under the understanding I quit based off ofwhat the other guy told him. I started going to a lot of parties with livebands and jumping in jamming with different musicians, and then I metGeorge at the famous Judd’s barn. We hit it off talking about forming anoriginal band. We formed Trauma with Randy Esperson on drums and Bob Chacon on vocals and a bass player who was good friends with Bob. They were both 16 and very much into more commercialized music butthey wanted to play in a band. It was the start of Trauma. We played ourfirst show at a paper shredding company who the owner built rehearsalstudios in the warehouse, and we did great and got a lot of positiveresponse from the crowd. Unfortunately the young ones did not like theidea of metal and the first version of Trauma broke up. George and I metRob Churchfield and Sammy Randazzo at a Castro Valley Party and theysaid they wanted to form a band, we added a singer and Scepter wasformed. We started playing local parties and we started to take off. Wellthe drummer (Sammy) hurt his back at work and that was the end of Scepter. As above George and I decide to reform Trauma and the rest is history.
How did you get into your local underground Metal scene which was already somewhat big with bands like Blind Illusion, Exodus, Violation, Murder, Metal Church, Anvil Chorus/Leviathan, Sinister Savage/Griffin etc. building their own foundations?
We had already done a few shows with Richard as the singer, playing the Phase 3 (pinball arcade) and the Stage in Danville, we were opening for other local bands that had already been out there, we opened for Bennie and The Jets at phase 3, they were supposed to be the Bay Area’s next Y&T. When Donnie came on board Tony the manager started working on booking us into the local club scene. He had already made someconnections being manager for Donnie’s former band The Front. But billing as a metal act was not getting much reception from the local months ahead of the other Bay Area metal bands. We built quite a following and actually opened the door for the others to follow. We showed the Keystone’s and The Old Waldorf that Metal was definitely worth booking into their clubs. We started doing prime shows on the weekend for the Keystone’s and Bill Graham started the Metal Mondays which opened the door for getting opening slots for the major acts that came through. Tony Van Lit was quite instrumental for getting us in the door, but our performances and showing we could bring a crowd kept it open.
Do you belong to the first wave of the Bay Area movement?
Yes I would say that Trauma was in the first wave.
Do you have any memories of the KUSF radio and the Metal Mania fanzine?
I did not know about KUSF at the time as Ron started that after we hadbeen around a while. Brian Lew who saw us open for Saxon at Palo AltoKeystone reviewed our show in one of the first issues of Metal Mania andalso Such A Shame on Metal Massacre 2.
Did you try for writing originals or were you mostly jamming on covers?
Trauma always was going to be an original act. We did covers that fit withour style of Power Metal to fill out our set until we had enough originalsongs and our following was enjoying the originals.
In 1982 you released a demo, do you still remember how was it recorded? Can you give us any details regarding the demo?
The demo was recorded at Tony’s studio in Concord, and Hyde streetstudios in San Francisco. He always had us in the studio which was goodbecause we got used to recording and the patience that comes withbeing in the studio. There were I think 3 or 4 actual demo tapes that gotmade. Of course Tony would not let us pass them around like we wantedstating he was selling us to record companies.
Was it spread around in the underground scene?
So we never spread enough underground copies around. One of thereasons we fired Tony. He kept trying to take us to the top recordcompanies, when we were more happier with a more grassroots route,ie.tape trading.
The band’s first recorded appearance was as part of the compilation series curated by Metal Blade Records, Metal Massacre II (1982) featured Such a Shame, in your opinion did you manage to get a name for the band?
We recorded the Metal Massacre version of “Such A Shame” at HarbourSound In Sausalito, Ca. down the street from the famous Record Plant Studio. We thought that we would get a deal with Metal Blade for analbum after that release Metal Massacre II. Interesting fact about that recording, I recorded the my rhythm tracks with an original ESP Strat copy. The ESP rep had come to the studio after Tony met him and invited him to the session. He brought the guitar to sell to George and I. Tony insisted I record with it and that after I would get an endorsement deal. Well if you know guitars the first ESP copies were horrible. We nicknamed it the Balsa wood guitar. But I recorded with it and that is why my tracks are so thin sounding compared to my Gold V. I will say Tony was always trying to get us equipment endorsements. We used some of the first Nady wireless systems but they were just loaned to us. Every once in a while you would pick up an airplane pilot talking to the tower at the local airport. That actually happened during a Keystone Berkeley show. Also down in L.A. he tried to get us endorsed with Acoustic amps, they had just come out with a new full stack.We went to the factory, needless to say that didn’t pan out as they were solid state horror!! You can see them in the video and some show pictures but we always had our real equipment mic’d up behind the stage.
The band shot a video for the song The Warlock in Santa Ana, California, not long before Cliff Burton left the group to join Metallica, how did it go?
Finally we come to the video shoot. Quite a few back stories to that. First, we had fired Tony as our manger. He quickly packed up and moved to L.A. We did not like the fact that he would not listen to us about the direction of the band. It was his way or the highway and we were not happy. We did feel we needed to be on a major label and that an independent would be a better way to go. He wanted us to look more like Mötley Crüe than Trauma. We did not want the glam makeup crap. Just ask Slayer when they played Keystone Berkeley the first time. That story is well documented. He kept selling us a major headliner when we would have been pleased opening for other acts like Montrose, Y&T, etc… We also didn’t like the drummer he got us after Dennis quit to go play with someone else. He was not pleased when we told him adios!! We had just done a show at the Old Waldorf and after the show the club manager was looking for me or donnie to book another show the drummer was there and took it upon himself to book that show. Cliff, Donnie, George, and I were discussing dumping him and taking our time finding the right drummer. Well I happened to be looking in the paper and saw we were advertised to play in a couple of weeks. I called the manager and asked what was up and he told me the drummer had booked it. I apologized and cancelled the show and told him we were firing him and that we had fired Tony as well. Well we called the drummer and fired him immediately. Unbeknownst to us Tony had called the club and complained to the manager. The Manager said they fired you what is it to you. Well Tony proceeded to call Bill Graham and somehow got through and pissed Bill off, causing him to tell BGP presents to never hire Trauma again. We did not know the time we had been blackballed. That is also when Tony was selling us on coming down to L.A. and doing the video so he could sell us to the record companies again. Promising to get us signed. We decided to do it, but had no drummer. We tried out a few drummers and happened upon this young kid named Steve Quartarola, Cliff and I loved him. But time was limited to prepare for the video shoot so we asked Dennis to come back to the band. The video shoot would take two weekends. One weekend to rehearse and plan and the second weekend to do the actual video. We went down the first week and practiced in this abandoned warehouse. It was really cool and out back they were demolishing some buildings, so there was all this rubble and massive equipment. I suggested why don’t we do a concept video instead like MTV videos as they were becoming popular. But Tony had this plan to sacrifice a virgin in Warlock and do two other songs all recorded live rather than a soundtrack which I suggested. We argued numerous times that weekend. A couple weeks later we went down and recorded the video live like Tony wanted. By the time we got started the place was super hot. So hot that during Woman Be Gone segment my guitar neck would not stay in tune and I had to play George’s Les Paul. We wreaking the best of it enjoying each other and that was the day that Lars and James came down and talked to Cliff. Of course Tony messed up the sound recording and we had to go back to the studio that night to rerecord many parts to the songs. You can hear two different distinct guitars of mine during Going Off. I had enough of Tony and I finally blew up at him and had to be held back from beating his ass into the ground. Then after I started to cool down, George said something smart to me and I got in his face too. I told everyone I’m packing up and heading back to the Bay Area I’m done with this idiot. I did cool down and we got back to the place we were staying and partied until the morning. We left the next afternoon, thinking this will never work. The video may now be a piece of history, Cliff’s solo was one of His best ever!!!, but when I saw the video I thought it sucked. There are missing pieces to the video as well. We did two extra songs, one was Beat of The Street just written by Cliff and He worked with on the arrangement. Also we did an interview video, each of us introducing ourselves and a brief background. All of that is missing I hope one day I will get my hands on it, and release it for everyone to see for free unlike that guy that originally released the video on the internet and charged people $5 a viewing. What an asshat!! The video got nothing but rejection letters from the record companies as I have a few of those letters still. Tony still trying to win us back got us the Troubadour headlining show. We played awesome that night and won over the LA crowd which had really come to see their hometown band Bitch. We did a ten minute encore! One of my most memorable shows actually. Well long story short, Tony had rented a bunch of lights and sound and hired lighting and sound people to put on a great stage show for us. He even had the crappy Acoustic Stacks onstage. Of course our real equipment was behind them. After the show we loaded up and headed back to the Bay Area to play Valley High School the next afternoon. All the while Tony loaded up a haul and stole all the equipment, drove up to Seattle sold it and has never been heard from again. Of course during the time this was all going on Cliff was talking with Metallica about joining. In fact he was showing their tape and playing it on a Walkman for our Road manager Steve. The call from the L.A. County Sheriffs was not pleasant, and a week later we spoke with Interpol as they believe Tony left the country for his home in England.
Around 1982/1983 there were several line up changes: instead of Cliff Burton joined Lucas Advicula, while George Lady was replaced by Ross Alexander and Dennis Schaefer by Kris Gustofson, what happened? How about the musical background of the new members?
So you know how the story goes from here with Cliff, he soon joinedMetallica. Dennis left to go back with his other band because we didn’tget signed. So George, Donnie and myself, were left wondering what todo next. A good friend, still to this day, Adam Alvarez stepped into fill inat bass while we had local shows lined up. We started drummerauditions. At the time we did not have a rehearsal studio and I had movedin with Adam at a house so we turned the garage into a practice area. Weadvertised in BAM Magazine and did quite a few auditions before KrisGustafson. He came in with an awesome double bass set and was veryprofessional. He knew the 3 songs perfectly. We offered him the job, andhe accepted. Adam was doing double duty playing with us and his otherband. He found us a really cool strip mall storefront studio and we had anew rehearsal home. Kris got up to speed quickly and we did our first atthe Stone in San Francisco, one month after Cliff’s Metallica debut at thesame venue. We were asked at the last minute to open for John Kay andSteppenwolf. Wasn’t actually a good fit but hey it was a chance to play toone of my 60’s favorite bands. He didn’t show up and we headlined, wewon over a bunch of the 60’s hippies who were expecting Steppenwolf.Unfortunately at that show George and I got into it over drinking beforegoing on stage. It was very painful for me to tell my good friend that hisdrinking was ruining our show, I had been dropping hints for weeks. Sadlya couple weeks after the Eastern Front show I asked Donnie to fire himsince I couldn’t do it myself. During the time Adam was in the band wewere auditioning bass players, and found Luke, who had mainly beenplaying in a cover band. I think we really liked that he had a Rickenbackerbass. But he was solid. We auditioned lead guitar players found a greatyoung kid who joined and just as we were about to do a show, he quitstating he wanted to play more progressive music. Back to the auditionboard. Put out another add in BAM. Ross came in and auditioned andblew us all away. There was only one issue his age, so I had to have aconversation with his mom. His mom liked what I said and I guess I had another younger brother!!
At which point did you start work on your debut album Scratch and Scream? How the compositions were put together?
We went right to work on the music finally Donnie and I had a solid group again, although I was still heartbroken that my good friend George was not around. But getting back to the music was great therapy. We took older songs and rearranged them and added new songs with Ross, Luke and Kris’s input to my writing. Metallica and the Thrash scene was completely blowing up now, so our style got a little heavier still power metal, but as wikipedia says Montrose with faster tempos. I love that compliment!!
The album was released by Shrapnel Records, how did the label take you under its wings? Were there perhaps bigger label’s interests in the band at this point? Was it unequivocal for you to accept the label’s contract? They released Griffin’s Flight of the Griffin and No Escape of Hexx, both came out in 1984…
We did a show at the Stone and Mike Varney (Shrapnel) was in theaudience, and approached Donnie after the show as I was always busywith the road crew making sure everything was running smooth. Heasked if we would be interested in making an album. We discussed itknowing there would not be a whole lot of promotion as Shrapnel was notvery big at the time and we didn’t have any better offers. So we decidedto sign a two album deal with Shrapnel. We should have signed for justone as we were tied down to Shrapnel for another album. The otherproblem is that Varney would own the masters even though we had thesongwriting rights.
Did you locate at the interface of power metal and speed metal?
We started immediately working on getting ready for the studio, no liveshows as live was always different and spontaneous. Mike Varney cameto a few rehearsals helping with our arrangements and a little studiocoaching. He introduced us to his friend Vocalist, Peter Marino (Lemans)who he said would be our producer. We kinda were thrown back as wethought Varney would produce it, but he took on Griffin and Hexx andgave us to Peter. We worked our butts off to be prepared and it payed offas wee recorded all the drums bass and rhythm tracks in one weekend.
Did the album offer a wide range of compositions?
I truly believe that Scratch and Scream was a great first album for us.There was a good mix of speed and power metal. Not thrash as the newTrauma these days claim to be (very annoying). We got great reviews andsome not so great. But we liked it, we felt it had enough there to draw inthe US crowd as well as the European crowd. At least there were nocompletely negative reviews. Nothing less than a 3 out of 5. It did makeme want to work harder on the next album and the arrangements andwriting for it.
How do you view, that apart from the arrangement, Trauma impressed with the strength of each and every track?
Peter being a rookie producer had soon pretty interesting and cool ideasfor the sound. I think the rhythm guitars could’ve had less reverb to givethem more presence but it still came off good. But we soundedcompletely different than Varney’s work with Griffin and Hexx. And ourreviews came back much better than the others, and that annoyed Varney and Peter definitely let him know it.
How do you explain, that the album has a lot to offer; it can be found melodic sections, almost elegiac parts, fantastically evocating arousing guitar solos and hymnal screams? Do you mind, that the songs develop their full force not at least because of the well balanced mix?
We had virtually no support from Shrapnel and Varney. We got all ourpromo copies and did the mailings ourselves and promotion of our albumwas done the best we could by Donnie and I with no management. Wereally could have used a manger and some help. We were constantly looking for someone and actually asked the manager for Laaz Rocket if he would do double duty. Well, come to find out our album was not getting distributed very well and it was considered an import to Europe causing the price to be affordable. So even with the good reviews our sales didn’t pan out. Also, Varney made us a tax deduction (a lot of big labels did the same) that is why he didn’t promote or distribute the album like he did for Griffin and Hexx. I think there was some animosity because our reviews were coming back much better than his production work. We got approached by Roadrunner records in Europe to release it over there to make it affordable for our European fans. Varney turned it down and Ithink it’s because he had already written us off as a deduction. We reviewed our contract with hopes of getting out of it and not giving him a second album. We shopped Scratch and Scream to the record labels and the best response we got was from Jet Records (Sharon Osbourne) saying send a demo for the second album and we will give it a listen.
Is it correct, that Trauma built a strong reputation in places like The Stone, late music impresario Bill Graham’s Wolfgang’s venue, and Hollywood landmarks The Troubadour and Whiskey-A-Go-Go? Were there any shows/tours in support of the record?
After the release of Scratch and Scream we began playing local showsagain. We did a record release show with Griffin and Hexx at the Stoneand we began trying to plan little mini tours. It was very difficult trying tobe management and musician. Donnie would help a little but I had theroad crew as well to watch over until I got John Hurd and he started tostep up to being our Road manager. We ended up doing one little minitour where we played Orange County, Weekes Park (Hayward) Portlandand then Seattle. Kris had moved to LA with his wife’s job and wasdemanding we pay him to travel with the band. We ended up doing afriend of John Hurd a favor by picking up his Drum road cases down in LAafter he auditioned for Ozzy. So we paid Kris for Weekes Park and John’sfriend played Portland and Seattle.
Did the band create an individual sound? You were definitely more than just the former band of Cliff Burton…
Thank you for saying we were more than the former band of Cliff. After all that had happened I still worked my butt off to make the reformed Trauma as good if not better than the original with Cliff. You cannot replace a talent like Cliff but I think with Scratch and Scream and the new music we had lined up and written for the second album would have put us back on the map so to speak. During this time we had moved into a rehearsal warehouse called the rehearsal spot. We were one of the first bands to rent there and I became friends with the owners. We had a really nice studio that we were able to keep our equipment setup and locked up. Metallica actually moved into the biggest studio and Cliff and I were able to hang out a lot more when they were off the road. He would come by our rehearsals and we would go out afterwards. He liked the way we were sounding. They studio had a 4 track recording area that we utilized for the demo of the second album. With Kris gone to LA and after Seattle Luke mysteriously disappeared. So again no drummer and bass. We recruited Dan Cunningham, drums (Dublin Death Patrol) and my old buddy Rob Churchfield, bass, who had recently quit playing with our old drummer Dennis. We recorded 8 out of 10 songs for a demo at the 4 track studio. We also recorded a video advertisement for the rehearsal spot in a room they were creating for band videos. Things were starting to come back into place after another devastating blow to the lineup and I spent one whole night mixing the demo with the vocals and the next morning I left on vacation, asking Donnie to prepare demos for sending out. They were quite rough and Donnie’s vocals and Ross’s leads were not good enough yet, but it was an insight to what we had going on. I came back from Vacation and Donnie had done nothing. I was upset and then he tells me he has been singing with another band for the last couple months, no wonder his vocals had been rough. That was the final stab in the back. I was done and Trauma was no more.
How do you want Cliff Burton and Donny Hillier to be remembered?
Final thoughts on Cliff: Cliff remained a good friend after he left us too soon, he said some stuff in interviews with Metallica I didn’t care for about Trauma, but I understood he was getting frustrated with Trauma’s musical direction before he left. There just wasn’t enough out of the box song writing for him. We had many a conversation about that and it all ended with understanding and when are we going fishing again and pass me that bowl. Cliff was a special once in a lifetime person and musician. Extremely rare especially nowadays. I am not surprised of the expression of love for him even with people who didn’t actually meet him. His presence and musicianship was spiritual and has had an everlasting effect on the world. Final thoughts on Donnie: This is a little tough. After Donnie stabbed me in the back back in 1986 I never spoke with him again, until he called me about Ross who had gone deep into addiction. We talked but I’ve always been a forgiving person so I was cordial. We did not speak until Kris Gustafson started calling me about getting Trauma back together. He would tell that when he was out on the road, especially Europe, when people would here he was the drummer on Scratch and Scream they would always say how much they liked the album and why we never came to tour Europe and many other questions as to what happened. Some started to have conversations in 2010 about how to rerelease the album and maybe get the band back together. He had gotten approached by an independent label to rerelease our album. So he contacted Donnie and we decided to try and bury the hatchet and reform to support a rerelease of Scratch and Scream. Unfortunately we didn’t have the master tapes from Schrapnel. I did however have the master tapes of the 3 Cliff recordings. So we reviewed the original contract and found a section where the masters if not used after 10 years ownership would be reverted back to us. We sent Varney a letter and he tried to tell us that he still had the rights we pointed to the clause in the contract and he said what if rerelease it for you. Well come to find out he didn’t have the masters. So we agreed to do it through Shrapnel again and he remastered the actual vinyl. Donnie, Kris and I went to a studio in Reno and remixed and remastered the 3 songs I had tapes of. Then we started to talk about rehearsals. Somehow I got the job again of organizing everyone for rehearsals. We all didn’t live close together anymore so I spent hours organizing our rehearsals in Scaramento. It was a lot of work. I needed up having a health issue and I told Kris and Donnie that I do not have time to be the organizer I just want to be a guitar player. Well Donnie and Kris stabbed me in the back again and reformed Trauma with other musicians behind my back. Since I never heard back from them and my calls were not returned I figured it was a done deal. Well a few months later I see an online add for a show in San Francisco and Trauma was opening the show debuting the rerelease of Scratch and Scream. I was livid and started threatening to sue for using my name and logo. I ended up having them change the logo and told them to leave me out of any interviews etc.. They had been making up lies about me as to why I wasn’t involved. I threatened legal action again and they complied. I went to a show at a club they were headlining and buried the hatchet with them. Donnie’s words” Your better man than I for doing this”. Well I never spoke with them again until I went to another show with the lineup of Joe Fraulob, Steve Rebello, and Greg Christian. Kris and Donnie invited me to their show opening for The Metal Allegiance at The House of Blues in Anaheim, praising my son and I passes. Since it was NAMM weekend hotels were no where to be found but my son and I found one quite a ways away and decided to go. We had never been to a concert together. Well I meet some friends down tab the house of blues that were at NAMM for dinner and we would go to the show afterwards. So when it got close to doors opening I went to get mob son’s and I passes. No great list no passes. The girl behind the desk, oh we didn’t get their list yet. Went back to restaurant and 30 minutes later went back same thing, by then I tried texting them no response. I tried to buy tickets, sold out. So again stabbed in the back. My son and I left and went and did something together elsewhere. Then a response from Donnie I don’t know what happened. Same response from Kris. So I never spoke to them again even after Kris tried calling and leaving messages. When I found out Donnie was on his deathbed with a week to live. I began communicating with him during that final week. He apologized for stabbing me in the back all these years since 1986 and thanked me for being a friend throughout. I of course forgave him. Rest In Peace Donnie.
Michael, thanks a lot for the interview, anything to add, what I forgot to mention?
Well that about wraps it up there is lot more to these wild and crazy times. I still have issues with Kris and the new Trauma, I caught wind of an idea by Kris recently that he wanted to make an album of all the Trauma songs with Cliff on them. Somehow he has gotten a hold of the demos and the other tapes that never got out. I’m thinking Donnie musthave had them and Kris has got Donnie’s son thinking they could make some money. I told Kris over the phone not interested and he went behind my back and tried to do it anyways. I sent a Cease and Desist Letter because those are my songs that I wrote. I also spoke with The Orchard (Sony) who he pitched the idea to and they agreed that he could not do anything without my approval and the approval of the Cliff Burton Family! Kris has continued to try and contact me but I will not return his calls, I’m done with this mess. I will continue to protect the original Trauma legacy and anything involving Cliff working with Connie and the other half of the Cliff Burton Family and foundation. Hope I was to longwinded but each question had so much involved. As I said to Dennis and George when we rehearsed to play at the last Cliff Burton Celebration in February, “What an amazing Time we were in, we lived a lifetime from 1979-1986 that not a whole lot of people ever get the chance to do or say!!”
