TONY ‘BONES’ ROBERTS

(Discharge guitarist 1977-82, 2001+)

When did you hear that Metallica would be covering Discharge?

“Somebody mentioned to us one day, ‘Did you know Metallica have covered two of your songs?’ I didn’t know anything about it!”

Why do you think so many bands cover Discharge?

“Easy to do, innit?! Ha ha ha! The thing is, out of all the tracks I’ve ever heard, nobody’s ever got it right. It’s nearly there, but there’s something missing. Nobody has ever recreated it. Even we haven’t recreated that original sound; it was just a one-off. Lucky day, wasn’t it?!”

How close is the bond between Discharge and Metallica?

“I met ’em a few times in the 80s at CBGBs and places like that. They came to watch us somewhere in London a few years ago; they were playing the O2 the day after. They didn’t speak to us, but they saw us. They tried to blag a free t-shirt, but the person selling them didn’t seem to know who they were, so they didn’t get one!”