Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted made headlines last week after revealing he almost jammed with Alex Van Halen and Joe Satriani as part of a possible Van Halen tribute. Newsted was angry at the writer from The Palm Beach Post for doing a profile article on his career that focused more on his past than his current project and fundraising show with The Chophouse Band. In a lengthy interview with 98.7 The Gater in West Palm Beach, Florida, Newsted also said there’s plans for The Chophouse Band to release its debut album later this year, perhaps under management from Q Prime, Metallica’s longtime management company.
“During my COVID downtime, I was in upstate New York. I wrote about 35 new songs during that,” he said. “I brought it back to my boys. I was sending them the tapes, the demos, sending it up to them to learn them.” Newsted said the musical direction of The Chophouse Band “started out as almost a bluegrass-tinged thing, and now it gets to some places that are as heavy as anything else that I’d been involved with — Voivod Ozzy [Osbourne], Metallica, Newsted band; any of that stuff — it gets to those places now. Now since the last time anybody saw The Chophouse Band, we have a vocal group within the band. Now there are four singers in the band. I have two singers from New York — a female and male singer — that are coming down to join us. And so I’m singing eight or 10 songs, and they’re singing the rest, but I do background vocals and stuff now. So I can actually really concentrate on playing the guitar and then singing that background stuff. And there’s screaming and some [growling] also. So I still haven’t lost that. And it lets people know that there’s still one foot in that place. You can take the boy out of the metal [but] you can’t take the metal out of the boy; it’s just the way it’s always gonna be. So I’m excited for people to be able to witness what we have been working so hard at. I put a lot — a lot — of energy into these new songs.”
Newsted said the band plans to begin recording in early May, and he is optimistic it will be handled by Metallica’s management. “Actually, it’s possible — very possible — that I’ll be back into the Q Prime fold with that kind of backing, like a real-deal thing.” The Chophouse Band performed on Saturday in Jupiter, Florida for a benefit event for the Goldner Conservatory, a professional conservatory that offers artistic education to students of all ages.
