Revised Third Edition Of 'To Live Is To Die: The Life & Death Of Metallica's Cliff Burton' Due In April

The revised third edition of "To Live Is To Die: The Life & Death Of Metallica's Cliff Burton" will go on sale April 11, 2023, complete with a brand new foreword by Steve DiGiorgio of TESTAMENT.

Published to coincide with the release of METALLICA's first new album in seven years — and the 40th anniversary of their landmark debut, "Kill 'Em All" — this updated edition of Joel McIver's essential biography tells the full story of the life and career of Cliff Burton, METALLICA's former bass player, who died tragically young but continues to have a profound impact on the band and the entire landscape of heavy metal.

Today, METALLICA are known as consummate musicians, but it wasn't always that way. Their early career is marked by a gradual evolution from garage thrash to sophisticated, progressive heights — an evolution driven by their bass player, Cliff Burton, who pushed the band to new heights with his songwriting ability and phenomenal bass skills across the band's first three albums, including their undisputed masterpiece "Master Of Puppets".

Cliff's life was short but influential. His death at the age of 24 in a tour bus crash on a Swedish mountain road was sudden and shocking. Following his passing, METALLICA went on to huge global success, but by their own admission they never pushed the creative envelope as radically as they had done during the first four years of their career.

The cult of Burton grows year on year, and so too the list of bassists acknowledging his influence in metal and beyond. This revised and updated edition of "To Live Is To Die" adds a new chapter on Cliff's enduring legacy as well as a preface from DiGiorgio.

Cliff was asked to join METALLICA in 1982 after the band saw him perform with his group at the time, TRAUMA.

The bassist was not willing to move to Los Angeles, where METALLICA was based, so they decided to move to the San Francisco area so that he would join.

Burton played on METALLICA's first three studio albums — "Kill 'Em All", "Ride The Lightning" and "Master Of Puppets" — and co-wrote classic songs like "Ride The Lightning", "For Whom The Bell Tolls", "Fade To Black", "Creeping Death" and "Master Of Puppets".

Burton's initial replacement in the group was Jason Newsted, who stayed in the lineup until 2001. Robert Trujillo joined in 2003 and remains in the band to this day.

February 10, 2018 was proclaimed "Cliff Burton Day" by Alameda County supervisors. The late METALLICA bassist would have turned 56 years old on that date had he lived.

Burton died in 1986.

McIver is the author of 35 books on music. As well as writing biographies of leading figures in rock and metal, he has co-written the memoirs of a number of musicians, including members of DEEP PURPLE, THE SPIDERS FROM MARS and THE SEX PISTOLS. He was the editor of Bass Guitar and Bass Player magazines for a decade, and often appears on radio, podcasts, and TV.