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How to play old Metallica stuff without a pick?

What's really tough is playing his stuff cleanly. Even Cliff didn't bother himself with that.

I think part of what made Cliff, "Cliff," was that style. Like a savage beast thrashing around underneath the straightforward buzzsawing guitars. It was that that for me really was lacking after he passed, Metallics song lost that "living" element in their songs.
 
skidrawk said:
Yes. Funny that you relate speed to a pick. A pick just slows me down like a speed bump. When I need to play fast it's all fingers.

Same here. Picks for me just seem slow and kind of sloppy (but just because I haven't gotten the style down yet)
 
I agree with the thread here, to get the Cliff songs down, you just need to practice even more. One thing I never got around do (or quite needed to in my band at the time) was learning to pluck with three or four fingers, which may help quite a bit for some of that crazy Cliff stuff. There's plenty of tutorials out on the web to help with that.

And I agree with the fact that yes, Jason had lots of energy, but a different, albeit still good sound on stage.

I heard once in an interview that the entire band was really angry for a year or two after Cliff passed, and took it all out on Jason, just because he was the new guy/replacement. Jason had said that for a while, he was contemplating leaving because the "new guy" position was so difficult within the group.
 
Call of Cthulu mercilessly destroys me every time. Just get your speed up. Play 8th notes at increasing tempos, then go up to 16ths and keep going up.

To be honest, what got my fingers moving was just playing. Try some maiden and stuff. that stuff will force you to get fast. And 3 fingers helps sometimes, but I find it's not so helpful in Metallica.