Roberto Trujillo [Pronounced "Troo-Hee-Yoh"] (born on October 24, 1962) is a bassist who played in Suicidal Tendencies, Infectious Grooves, Black Label Society and Ozzy Osbourne's band before joining Metallica in 2003.


EARLY LIFE

He was born as Roberto Agustín Miguel Santiago Samuel Perez de la Santa Concepción Trujillo Veracruz Batista; grew up in Culver City, California where his father was a teacher at the local high school (Culver City High School). Robert was a standout among other local musicians.


CAREER

He played in a few local bands before joining Suicidal Tendencies (in 1989) and fellow Culver City native, Rocky George, the guitarist for the band at the time. Robert replaced the band's second bassist Bob Heathcote. He is responsible for adding in funk influences to the band seen prominently on albums Lights...Camera...Revolution! and especially on The Art of Rebellion. He eventually turned bandmate Mike Muir on to funk music, and the two formed Infectious Grooves to play more funk oriented music.

He was a member of Ozzy Osbourne's band for a number of years starting in the late 90s. Trujillo was the subject of controversy for rerecording Bob Daisley's bass tracks on Osbourne's albums Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman due to Daisley's claim of not receiving proper royalties. This achieved additional notoriety for giving no notice on the outside of the CD to the buying public that they were not purchasing an original recording.

Robert Trujillo became Metallica's bassist on February 24, 2003 after auditioning for the band and fitting in with fellow band members James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett. Trujillo received 1 million dollars from the band as an advance on the percentage he would earn by being in Metallica. His audition and hiring appear in the documentary film Some Kind of Monster.

Also in 2003, Robert was seen playing an upright bass in the Nickel Creek music video, Smoothie Song. However, he did not play bass for the band during the song's recording.


PLAYING STYLE

Although at times Trujillo has been known to use a pick, he prefers to use his fingers, like the early Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, but unlike Trujillo's predecessor Jason Newsted (who used a pick almost exclusively). He is also a very skilled slap bass player, as ably demonstrated in his work for Suicidal Tendencies, and particularly Infectious Grooves, where he used the technique extensively. A good example of this is seen the video clip for Punk It Up. He sometimes slaps while playing live with Metallica.

With Metallica, he is most often seen to play Fernandes Guitars Gravity 5-string basses, particularly a model with a silver finish, blue flame decals, and EMG pickups. He also has a signature bass model, the Sonus RT, manufactured by Zon Guitars. Prior to Metallica, he was most often seen to play Tobias, ESP and Musicman basses (all 5-strings), as well as a Fender Precision Bass with Black Label Society and Ozzy Osbourne. For amplification, he uses Ampeg amplifiers and cabinets.


Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Trujillo