Former Metallica Bassist Shares Feelings On “St. Anger” 

Former Metallica Bassist Shares Feelings On “St. Anger” 
Original Photo Credit: Achim Raschka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted made headlines earlier this year 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. 

In a new interview with Metal Hammer, Newsted was asked when the last time he listened to a Metallica album that was released after he left the band. “Never,” he said. “I heard the one where they made the video in prison [for the ‘St. Anger’ title track]. I heard one song with my dad while we were riding in the car in Michigan, because the radio is still pretty wed to Metallica, and it went on for-f*cking-ever. It was eight minutes on the radio, and I went, ‘What the f*ck are they doing?’ No disrespect, but I didn’t get it. It was maybe harking back to the longer songs and the aggression and the tempo. And that stuff takes a lot of energy to play, and with James [Hetfield, Metallica frontman] going up and down the fretboard like that, no one can touch it. I have a lot of respect for that thing, but I am quite a distance away from that type of music now.”

“I still like my heavy songs, but I sing for real now,” he continued. “I play the bass right up high, sing those backing vocals way up high. I still love Sepultura and stuff… but it really isn’t the way that I used to. I’d be happy to join them to do that stuff if they wanted me to. I still talk to Lars [Ulrich, Metallica drummer] a fair bit, and I send him my stuff and he’s always super-supportive. I really appreciate it, and I respect his opinion. If he called me and asked if I wanted to throw down, I’d say yes, but I’m not sure if I’d say yes to anyone else.”

Newsted previously revealed he wasn’t much of a “St. Anger” fan. “I feel [‘St. Anger’] could be a bit more listenable,” he told WAAF 107.3 FM in 2003. “I just think that for them… They make statements like this is the record I would have wanted to make [had I stayed in the band]… I think that’s not [really the case]… Guess again on that. When you have that much production at your fingertips and you have the means to do anything and you’ve proven before over the years that you can make the best-sounding metal records that have ever been made, then why couldn’t you do it again?” he continued. “It doesn’t sound, to me, like the team effort that they claim that it is.”

Newsted played with the band from 1986 to 2001 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the group in 2009.

B.J. LISKO
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