Former Metallica bassist Jason 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. The accomplished musician spoke recently in a four-part video series with the Metallica fan club’s “So What!” magazine about the 30th anniversary of the “Black Album.” Newsted chatted about Metallica’s rigorous tour schedule, adjusting to fame and working on songs with guitarist/frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. He also revealed the effect that an Aug. 8, 1992 pyrotechnics accident had on the band. Hetfield was inadvertently burned by a pyro charge during the song “Fade to Black” in Montreal during the Guns N’ Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour.
“That accident brought us together to a place that I don’t think would have ever happened unless an incident like that … James was f*cking heroic, dude,” Newsted said. “Straight up, he was heroic. You know how one little burn from the teapot hurts? That was his whole f*cking arm. Come on. It really is a moment that somehow saved and refueled our band.”
Newsted revealed that the rest of the band were distraught when Hetfield was taken to the hospital. “Kirk and I were tripping,” he said. “Lars wasn’t even in the dressing room (after). He just had a towel over his head. Kirk and I were trying to still be upright. We were wondering, wondering, wondering.” The band’s manager Tony Smith provided an update on their frontman about four hours later. “He’s going to be fine, he’s going to be okay, he’s tough as f*ck,” Newsted said Smith told them. “The only thing he wanted to know was when we’re playing again. We didn’t even know if we’d ever get to play again with him. Yeah, he was on morphine and whatever the f*ck else, but he was still him … his gumption, his toughness, that insisted that we get back to the people right f*cking now.”
Newsted said the band regrouped in support of Hetfield “through brotherly love. Absolute brotherly love. It was more important that he was well than anything else, but he already came out, ‘Let’s fucking go.’ He was already there. There was no ‘poor f*cking me.’ Because of that—because our leader showed that kind of fire—we were more than happy to get behind him like never before…I knew I was going to have to step up and do a couple more things. We all knew that and we stepped right into it.”
