{"id":94712,"date":"2025-08-25T01:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/94712\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T01:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:14:09","slug":"the-surreal-moment-metallica-rejected-hulk-hogan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/94712\/","title":{"rendered":"The surreal moment Metallica rejected Hulk Hogan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Metallica<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Tommy Holl \/ Sony Pictures Releasing)<\/p>\n

Mon 25 August 2025 0:00, UK <\/p>\n

Hulk Hogan was a bloke who looked like he was born to wrestle. <\/p>\n

With a moustache that dripped around his face like an extra frown and muscles that bulged from every angle, wrestling was his for the taking. But before he found the WWE, though, he\u2019d set his sights on a different path, one that led to the metal band Metallica<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There was music in Hulk Hogan\u2019s life from an early age. His mother, Vernice Ruth, was a dance teacher, and his father, Pietro \u2018Peter\u2019 Bollea, was a construction worker. Somewhere between all that clanking and spinning, Hogan, real name Terry Gene Bollea, learned how to play the bass.<\/p>\n

For almost a decade, the eventual wrestler played the bass in several projects around Florida; one might call him the original \u201cFlorida man\u201d, so fitting some of his crazier stories<\/a> seem to be with the bizarre headline-grabbing phantom. In 1976, he formed a band called Ruckus with two other local musicians. He even dropped out of college to focus on playing music.<\/p>\n

However, the star, who passed away this July<\/a>, would never get his big break. This isn\u2019t too surprising mind you, given that he once played bass during a live performance of Vince McMahon\u2019s \u2018Stand Back\u2019 at the 1987 Slammy Awards, but was miming the whole time. Perhaps the wrestler didn\u2019t realise that being a musician wasn\u2019t just parties, drugs and name-dropping ping-pong. He\u2019d need to actually play. The music world was lucky to miss out on whatever mess he would\u2019ve brought to the table.<\/p>\n

Still, the dream persisted, despite the blossoming of his wrestling career. After the turn of the century, Hogan was ready to ask the music Gods for a chance once again, and he wasn\u2019t taking any prisoners. He tried his luck with arguably the biggest metal band in the world. <\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>(Credits: Far Out \/ Cabin Fever Entertainment \/ Cineplex Odeon Films \/ New Line Cinema \/ Syndication)<\/p>\n

In 2001, Jason Newsted left Metallica to focus on his side-project Echobrain, after exhaustion from whipping his long locks around on stage caught up to him. In that move, Hulk Hogan saw a six-foot-seven hole that he was destined to fill.<\/p>\n

In a 2014 interview with Vice<\/a>, the star admitted that he pulled out all the stops in an attempt to get himself to the top of that list. \u201cI heard Metallica needed a bass player, and brother, I was writing letters, made a tape of myself playing, and sent it to their management company,\u201d he recalled, fully aware that he was sticking his neck out.<\/p>\n

The silence didn\u2019t deter the wrestler, who was confident in his bass-playing abilities. \u201cI kept making calls, trying to get through. I tried for two weeks and never heard a word back from them either,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

James Hetfield, frontman of Metallica, laughed away these wearying dreams in reaction to the story. \u201cI don\u2019t remember him,\u201d he stated simply, according to Metal Injection<\/a>. And, aware of his towering frame, he later added, \u201cHe makes us look very small.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite everything that came after, it was a dream Hogan always held on to. \u201cI would have quit wrestling to play in The Rolling Stones or Metallica like that,\u201d Hogan said with a snap of his fingers. He may have wanted an in, but his bullish personality would\u2019ve certainly seen him on his way out in the snap of his fingers, too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Tommy Holl \/ Sony Pictures Releasing) Mon 25 August 2025 0:00, UK Hulk Hogan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,17680,7874,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-94712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hulk-hogan","12":"tag-metallica","13":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}