So it has come to pass that Jason Newsted has returned and come back quietly he has not. He has released a nasty EP simply entitled Metal and it will rip your head off. Jason was gracious with his time and checked in with Metal Exiles to give you the fans the lowdown on the return of this mighty bass slinger.
An interview with Jason Newsted
By Jeffrey Easton
Metal Exiles: After you left Metallica you have been involved with many tours and albums but it was always under somebody else’s logo. What finally led you to put something out under the Newsted name?
Jason Newsted: This kind of thing happens to bass players across the board. We go in, especially in my case and I did get to live a few dreams, and become a resuscitator, a transfusion and a new engine for an established act. With Flotsam And Jetsam I formed that band with Kelly David-Smith but since then I have not formed a band, meaning I made decisions or chose who was going to be in it. I have been proud of what I have done with helping Metallica with what they were going through at the time, helping Voivod coming back to life and playing in Ozzy’s band. Those are three dreams that came true and I am very proud of those things. But my fourth dream was putting my name on the project, write my own songs with my own voice from top to bottom, it’s a prideful thing.
Metal Exiles: What did it take to finally make this dream of yours come to pass?
Jason: I have been involved with a lot of projects and shows as mentioned and I was taking Papa Wheelie out for a few shows around The Bay Area just to have a good time and right around that time Metallica was gearing up for their 30th Anniversary and Lars asked me to come play which I said “of course, lets rock some shit” so I went down for all four nights and it was such a great feeling. I have not tasted the energy exchange from the fans for such a long time, especially at the level of Metallica. There are few bands that fire up the crowd like Metallica does, creating unbelievable unity and Metallica has that and always has. All of that got to me and I knew that this was what my life was for, what I was meant to be doing. About five weeks after I jammed with Metallica I reformed the original Flotsam And Jetsam and we played over two weekends, played Doomsday in its entirety, It was very special. I was searching all of my options, just trying to find a big way to bring the music back, the right way, not just some project, not tongue in cheek, the real thing. So I tried it with Flotsam and it was powerful but it was not going to work as far as logistics ect. So I thought about my other options and I thought about these two guys I have been jamming with, drummer Jesus Mendez Jr. and guitarist Jessie Farnsworth, both from Fresno. So I wrote a bunch of songs, every part in them and gave them to those guys and they brought them back and made them what they are. We just kept it going, writing more songs and now we have about 21 songs that we wrote together and now we have added Mike Mushok on guitars as well. He has been in the band for about seven weeks now and we have now completed 13 tracks to be delivered to the record company in May and a world tour at our feet. We only started recording the EP six months ago and here we are with all of this stuff going on, things are moving pretty fast.
Metal Exiles: You were quoted as saying you are old school and this EP has an old school metal feel in several places. Is that what you wanted to do when you started this project?
Jason: There was no thought process that it would be this or be that, this is just what came out. It is a culmination of all of the experiences in my musical career and there have been some unbelievable opportunities that I have been privileged to be a part of. When you get to play with the caliber of musicians I have played with I would get wide eyed, my head gets spongy and I take in everything I can from the gifted musicians I have played with. I have played all of these different styles of music over my 30 years so I put it through my filter, regurgitate it and it comes out the way I know best. My forte is old school metal, it is what I am made of so that is what comes out but it took all of the experiences that I had to make it what it is. I cannot be anything other than what I am.
Metal Exiles: I know that there is a full length album coming out so why did you go with the EP first?
Jason: I haven’t been deep into this business since I was with Ozzy’s band in 2003 and the last ten years with Voivod, Echobrain and various other projects with many styles of music but coming back into it like this I had to test the waters. I have been repelling computers and social media for a while but I finally got a website in November so I could reconnect with the fans and see what’s out there. So the EP was to test the waters. I needed to know who was still out there who would give a shit about my music and what I was doing. Back in the day I spent a lot of time with fans before and after shows because that was my thing, I always wanted to make that direct connection with them. That has come back to me a thousand fold in respect by those fans, there are many thousands of fans around the globe that are showing me respect that I did not know would be there. Now, because of social media, I know that they are there for me and excited to take part in this.
Metal Exiles: With the material, it seems very personal and the delivery is so aggressive. What were you trying to get out of your system when you were writing this?
Jason: The aggression, that is still me, I haven’t lost it and now that it has my name on it all the chips are in so I have to come out with all guns blazing. It is important for me to show the people how happy I am to be back and to see them.
Metal Exiles: Soldiearhead does sound intensely personal, am I picking up on the right vibe?
Jason: There are some things in there that get a little more personal but like any creative person that writes you reflect what’s around you, for good or for bad. Soldierhead was initiated by reading the Pat Tillman story. The music came right away, it was put together in about 20 minutes and when the lyrics came around I knew what I wanted to say. It was a tip of the hat to our service personal and those who protect what we believe in. Godsnake is more of a personal thing from my childhood I think more than anything. I was raised fairly strictly in the church and it comes from a bible story about not judging others. If God was a snake how would he be judged, as God or a snake? You have to be careful about how you judge people on the first glance. I have been around the world several times now, seen a lot of people and I have learned how not to judge people.
Metal Exiles: Is King Of The Underdogs how you view yourself?
Jason: That song is probably the most personal of them all because the underdog is the one you root for and I am the king, the king of the underdogs. I want people to root for me coming out again with this project and making it happen. That is my personal take on that song but I want people to translate it into whatever they are challenged with.
Metal Exiles: It seems like Skyscraper is well timed. What is your opinion on the current lunacy we are facing?
Jason: In this world it is tough taking the metal message and spreading our joy to the masses. It is scary now, a lot scarier than before, to go out and give some fans something to hang on to. It is more threatening now, more foreboding than before and I had that in the back of my head when I wrote this song. It is about a plane making a big hole in the side of a skyscraper, which is what the song comes down to. We have all had to deal with the world being turned upside down for the last 12 years. On Metallica’s biggest tour for the Black album, we had 16 semi’s full of gear and nine busses. One of those trucks was full of magnesium, black powder and blasting caps. We would carry that stuff border to border playing 42 countries on that tour. Do you think that kind of stuff is happening now? Probably not.
Metal Exiles: To go back to the EP, I know you wrote the EP yourself but how much input did Jesus and Jesse have in finishing the release up?
Jason: It is my seeds but those guys brought it to fruition. I cannot play guitar or drums as good as those guys so they came in, put in their artistry and out came the songs. The early songs are mine but the newer ones that were developed for the full length are all equal parts, there is no weak link in this band, it is everybody writing and playing. Mike Mushok, the last guy to join, brought a dimension and element to this band that I could not have predicted. I did not realize that he was the shredder that he was. I was somewhat familiar with his work in Staind but I had no idea that he was this heavy. I think with this record he will spin some heads.
Metal Exiles: Now with the release of this EP you have the tour dates with the club shows, festivals ect so what else can we expect from the Newsted camp as you promote this release?
Jason: We just signed on to another big tour that you will be hearing about very soon and there are offers all the way to next year. It is coming out of the woodwork, people are really responding to the EP, they are coming from everywhere trying to get us to be a part of things.
Metal Exiles: How does it feel to come out of the shadows of other acts and have everybody want you to play with them?
Jason: It feels great, it is empowering. I know I did a lot of hard work in Metallica, I spent a third of my life in that band working very hard and taking it to the people. I earned that part of things that way but for the people to still be there is my fortunate situation. The fact that when radio plays a Metallica song or a video is played from Metallica, it is usually with me playing bass and that has kept me alive with people waiting for me to come back.
Metal Exiles: To close this out, when you look back on the And Justice For All record, has your opinion changed over the years because of what happened to your parts on the record?
Jason: There are so many years of water under the bridge with that and I can now see it for what it is. There is no real confusion or mystery to me now that I can look back after time and look on the situation. When I went in to record Justice I had only recorded one time and that was with Flotsam for Doomsday. I was used to recording with the band, you go in together, do it and your done. With justice I went into the studio with an assistant engineer and nobody else, no other band members, just go in, plug in and do your best. I plugged into the same shit I did the Flotsam record, recorded my parts and loaded my gear and went home. There was nobody there to work parts out with or discuss how this or that was going to sound, it was just record your bass and that’s that. Being a bass player in Flotsam, I did not know about playing the to the bass part yet, I just knew about playing bass really fast like guitar, basically everybody playing the same thing like a sonic wall. So it ended up with everything being in the same frequency, my bass and James’ guitar battling for the same frequency. If I had of known then what I know now it would have been different but it became a classic album for what it was, we captured a moment in time and that is all there is about it. I used to be pissed about it back then but that was a long time ago but the records I have made since then have had some ugly bass parts all over the place on them.
So there you have it, Newsted is back, he has a nasty EP of heaviness out and you need to go buy it.
MAKE sure you visit http://newstedheavymetal.com/for everything Jason Newsted! Tourdates are listed below as well!
An interview with Jason Newsted
By Jeffrey Easton
Metal Exiles: After you left Metallica you have been involved with many tours and albums but it was always under somebody else’s logo. What finally led you to put something out under the Newsted name?
Jason Newsted: This kind of thing happens to bass players across the board. We go in, especially in my case and I did get to live a few dreams, and become a resuscitator, a transfusion and a new engine for an established act. With Flotsam And Jetsam I formed that band with Kelly David-Smith but since then I have not formed a band, meaning I made decisions or chose who was going to be in it. I have been proud of what I have done with helping Metallica with what they were going through at the time, helping Voivod coming back to life and playing in Ozzy’s band. Those are three dreams that came true and I am very proud of those things. But my fourth dream was putting my name on the project, write my own songs with my own voice from top to bottom, it’s a prideful thing.
Metal Exiles: What did it take to finally make this dream of yours come to pass?
Jason: I have been involved with a lot of projects and shows as mentioned and I was taking Papa Wheelie out for a few shows around The Bay Area just to have a good time and right around that time Metallica was gearing up for their 30th Anniversary and Lars asked me to come play which I said “of course, lets rock some shit” so I went down for all four nights and it was such a great feeling. I have not tasted the energy exchange from the fans for such a long time, especially at the level of Metallica. There are few bands that fire up the crowd like Metallica does, creating unbelievable unity and Metallica has that and always has. All of that got to me and I knew that this was what my life was for, what I was meant to be doing. About five weeks after I jammed with Metallica I reformed the original Flotsam And Jetsam and we played over two weekends, played Doomsday in its entirety, It was very special. I was searching all of my options, just trying to find a big way to bring the music back, the right way, not just some project, not tongue in cheek, the real thing. So I tried it with Flotsam and it was powerful but it was not going to work as far as logistics ect. So I thought about my other options and I thought about these two guys I have been jamming with, drummer Jesus Mendez Jr. and guitarist Jessie Farnsworth, both from Fresno. So I wrote a bunch of songs, every part in them and gave them to those guys and they brought them back and made them what they are. We just kept it going, writing more songs and now we have about 21 songs that we wrote together and now we have added Mike Mushok on guitars as well. He has been in the band for about seven weeks now and we have now completed 13 tracks to be delivered to the record company in May and a world tour at our feet. We only started recording the EP six months ago and here we are with all of this stuff going on, things are moving pretty fast.
Metal Exiles: You were quoted as saying you are old school and this EP has an old school metal feel in several places. Is that what you wanted to do when you started this project?
Jason: There was no thought process that it would be this or be that, this is just what came out. It is a culmination of all of the experiences in my musical career and there have been some unbelievable opportunities that I have been privileged to be a part of. When you get to play with the caliber of musicians I have played with I would get wide eyed, my head gets spongy and I take in everything I can from the gifted musicians I have played with. I have played all of these different styles of music over my 30 years so I put it through my filter, regurgitate it and it comes out the way I know best. My forte is old school metal, it is what I am made of so that is what comes out but it took all of the experiences that I had to make it what it is. I cannot be anything other than what I am.
Metal Exiles: I know that there is a full length album coming out so why did you go with the EP first?
Jason: I haven’t been deep into this business since I was with Ozzy’s band in 2003 and the last ten years with Voivod, Echobrain and various other projects with many styles of music but coming back into it like this I had to test the waters. I have been repelling computers and social media for a while but I finally got a website in November so I could reconnect with the fans and see what’s out there. So the EP was to test the waters. I needed to know who was still out there who would give a shit about my music and what I was doing. Back in the day I spent a lot of time with fans before and after shows because that was my thing, I always wanted to make that direct connection with them. That has come back to me a thousand fold in respect by those fans, there are many thousands of fans around the globe that are showing me respect that I did not know would be there. Now, because of social media, I know that they are there for me and excited to take part in this.
Metal Exiles: With the material, it seems very personal and the delivery is so aggressive. What were you trying to get out of your system when you were writing this?
Jason: The aggression, that is still me, I haven’t lost it and now that it has my name on it all the chips are in so I have to come out with all guns blazing. It is important for me to show the people how happy I am to be back and to see them.
Metal Exiles: Soldiearhead does sound intensely personal, am I picking up on the right vibe?
Jason: There are some things in there that get a little more personal but like any creative person that writes you reflect what’s around you, for good or for bad. Soldierhead was initiated by reading the Pat Tillman story. The music came right away, it was put together in about 20 minutes and when the lyrics came around I knew what I wanted to say. It was a tip of the hat to our service personal and those who protect what we believe in. Godsnake is more of a personal thing from my childhood I think more than anything. I was raised fairly strictly in the church and it comes from a bible story about not judging others. If God was a snake how would he be judged, as God or a snake? You have to be careful about how you judge people on the first glance. I have been around the world several times now, seen a lot of people and I have learned how not to judge people.
Metal Exiles: Is King Of The Underdogs how you view yourself?
Jason: That song is probably the most personal of them all because the underdog is the one you root for and I am the king, the king of the underdogs. I want people to root for me coming out again with this project and making it happen. That is my personal take on that song but I want people to translate it into whatever they are challenged with.
Metal Exiles: It seems like Skyscraper is well timed. What is your opinion on the current lunacy we are facing?
Jason: In this world it is tough taking the metal message and spreading our joy to the masses. It is scary now, a lot scarier than before, to go out and give some fans something to hang on to. It is more threatening now, more foreboding than before and I had that in the back of my head when I wrote this song. It is about a plane making a big hole in the side of a skyscraper, which is what the song comes down to. We have all had to deal with the world being turned upside down for the last 12 years. On Metallica’s biggest tour for the Black album, we had 16 semi’s full of gear and nine busses. One of those trucks was full of magnesium, black powder and blasting caps. We would carry that stuff border to border playing 42 countries on that tour. Do you think that kind of stuff is happening now? Probably not.
Metal Exiles: To go back to the EP, I know you wrote the EP yourself but how much input did Jesus and Jesse have in finishing the release up?
Jason: It is my seeds but those guys brought it to fruition. I cannot play guitar or drums as good as those guys so they came in, put in their artistry and out came the songs. The early songs are mine but the newer ones that were developed for the full length are all equal parts, there is no weak link in this band, it is everybody writing and playing. Mike Mushok, the last guy to join, brought a dimension and element to this band that I could not have predicted. I did not realize that he was the shredder that he was. I was somewhat familiar with his work in Staind but I had no idea that he was this heavy. I think with this record he will spin some heads.
Metal Exiles: Now with the release of this EP you have the tour dates with the club shows, festivals ect so what else can we expect from the Newsted camp as you promote this release?
Jason: We just signed on to another big tour that you will be hearing about very soon and there are offers all the way to next year. It is coming out of the woodwork, people are really responding to the EP, they are coming from everywhere trying to get us to be a part of things.
Metal Exiles: How does it feel to come out of the shadows of other acts and have everybody want you to play with them?
Jason: It feels great, it is empowering. I know I did a lot of hard work in Metallica, I spent a third of my life in that band working very hard and taking it to the people. I earned that part of things that way but for the people to still be there is my fortunate situation. The fact that when radio plays a Metallica song or a video is played from Metallica, it is usually with me playing bass and that has kept me alive with people waiting for me to come back.
Metal Exiles: To close this out, when you look back on the And Justice For All record, has your opinion changed over the years because of what happened to your parts on the record?
Jason: There are so many years of water under the bridge with that and I can now see it for what it is. There is no real confusion or mystery to me now that I can look back after time and look on the situation. When I went in to record Justice I had only recorded one time and that was with Flotsam for Doomsday. I was used to recording with the band, you go in together, do it and your done. With justice I went into the studio with an assistant engineer and nobody else, no other band members, just go in, plug in and do your best. I plugged into the same shit I did the Flotsam record, recorded my parts and loaded my gear and went home. There was nobody there to work parts out with or discuss how this or that was going to sound, it was just record your bass and that’s that. Being a bass player in Flotsam, I did not know about playing the to the bass part yet, I just knew about playing bass really fast like guitar, basically everybody playing the same thing like a sonic wall. So it ended up with everything being in the same frequency, my bass and James’ guitar battling for the same frequency. If I had of known then what I know now it would have been different but it became a classic album for what it was, we captured a moment in time and that is all there is about it. I used to be pissed about it back then but that was a long time ago but the records I have made since then have had some ugly bass parts all over the place on them.
So there you have it, Newsted is back, he has a nasty EP of heaviness out and you need to go buy it.
MAKE sure you visit http://newstedheavymetal.com/for everything Jason Newsted! Tourdates are listed below as well!
Newsted are appearing in these U.S. Cities!
4/24 Fresno, CA @ The Starline
4/26 Sparks, NV @ The Alley
4/27 Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
5/1 Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
5/3 Las Vegas, NV @ Vinyl
5/4 Mesa, AZ @ KUPD Ufiesta / Quail Run Park
5/15 Battle Creek, MI @ Planet Rock
5/17 Pontiac, MI @ The Crofoot
5/18 Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
5/21 New York, NY @ Highline Ballroom
5/22 Cambridge, MA @ The Middle East Downstairs
5/23 Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony
4/24 Fresno, CA @ The Starline
4/26 Sparks, NV @ The Alley
4/27 Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
5/1 Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
5/3 Las Vegas, NV @ Vinyl
5/4 Mesa, AZ @ KUPD Ufiesta / Quail Run Park
5/15 Battle Creek, MI @ Planet Rock
5/17 Pontiac, MI @ The Crofoot
5/18 Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
5/21 New York, NY @ Highline Ballroom
5/22 Cambridge, MA @ The Middle East Downstairs
5/23 Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony