[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_2l9lLbxnQ[/youtube]
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Jason Newsted. The onetime Flotsam and Jetsam bassist was plucked from relative obscurity to play bass for Metallica following the death of Cliff Burton in 1986. His fifteen-year run in the band saw him tackle one of the most technical albums of the band’s career (1988’s …And Justice For All) and their most successful (1991’s The Black Album). After leaving the band to play his own music, Newsted formed Echobrain, and also played with Voivod and Ozzy Osbourne. But for the most part, he’s been pretty silent. That’s all changing now.
Newsted has launched his own website, Newstedheavymetal.com, and with it will come new music. The bassist stopped by Eddie Trunk’s Friday Night Rocks to talk about the decision to officially launch his online presence. During the interview (transcribed by Blabbermouth) he spoke about his decision to re-emerge.
“I’ve thought about this for a long time, putting my name on a project other than just coming up with a clever name, like Echobrain or Papa Wheelie or something. We have a lot of cool names for projects, but this is the first time with my name and really trying to get out to the people that I played for by the millions in the past with Metallica. I think I’ve waited just long enough, and I think the people are ready, and I’m ready, so I’m gonna try to get some music together and see what I can do for some people. We’ll see what comes about in the next couple of months here.”
“It’ll be called Newsted Heavy Metal Music. Whatever it ends up being — if it’s five songs, 20 songs, 50 songs… I don’t even know what the heck I’m gonna do. I have so much music from over the years. I have a bunch of new stuff, I have so many mixes of projects with people — new players, young players, old-school players like myself — so I’m just trying to figure out exactly what I wanna unleash on everybody first. That’s kind of what it’s coming down to — the timing of things and how I wanna hit people with it, and which stuff [to release first].”
In the short trailer posted above (and on his site), he gives a short preview of the music. It’s pretty rare for any musician to speak so directly to his fans, as Newsted does in the video. And as fans of just about everything he’s been involved in, it’ll be interesting to see what his own project comes out like. Given that his new project has “heavy metal” in it, we’re optimistic that it’s going to be good. He’s already amassed over 23,000 Facebook likes and 2,600 Twitter followers in just five days, so he’s got the masses on his side.
[via Metal Injection]
