The album sessions that made Jason Newsted leave Metallica
By the end of the 1990s, Metallica had turned themselves into a well-oiled machine. After making some of the most aggressive thrash music of the 1980s, they set their sights on mainstream success in the next decade with producer Bob Rock, making one of the most celebrated albums of the genre with 1991’s The Black Album. Although the band may become a heavy metal institution by the end of the decade, something was lurking in the background that wasn’t being addressed.
As Metallica entered a new decade, they were also parting ways with one of the foundational pieces of their sound. After making their magnum opus Master of Puppets, longtime bassist Cliff Burton was killed in a bus accident that would drastically change the band’s approach to songwriting. Since Burton was integral to the band, introducing harmonies to their sound, anyone replacing him would have enormous shoes to fill.
Although Jason Newsted would fit like a glove when it came time to audition, he ended up bearing the brunt of the band’s ridicule. Taking out most of the anger on the young bassist, Newsted would often be the butt of every joke that the band had to offer, doing anything they could to belittle him every time he took to the stage.
While Newsted may have gotten hazed more than most, he did contribute more than a few great riffs to the table. Even though James Hetfield had been known as the master of every melodic fragment of Metallica, songs like ‘Blackened’ and the Black Album cut ‘My Friend of Misery’ sprung to life through Newsted’s riffs, often celebrated as some of the band’s most impressive cuts.
Despite Newsted getting to flex his creativity in the band, he felt that his music wasn’t being given the proper time of day in Metallica. Instead of fighting for space with Hetfield on the album, though, Newsted thought it would be better to pour his creativity into various side projects, including working in the rock outfit Echobrain.
While Newsted was fulfilled creatively, it drove a wedge between him and Hetfield, who often looked down upon any side projects the group had. As the band settled in to create their answer to the nu-metal movement with St Anger, Newsted would leave the sessions with a middle finger raised high.
As recalled later, Newsted felt he wasn’t being respected and called Hetfield out during the proceedings, saying, “Echobrain’s music was so different from Metallica’s music. I didn’t think that it could change the fanbase of Metallica in any negative way. I told James, straight up, ‘Dude, you can’t be in a band with me if I do Echobrain, right?’. He said, ‘Yes’, and I said, ‘Well, then I have to go’”.
Newsted’s decision was also compounded by the group therapy sessions going on during St Anger, recalling in Some Kind of Monster, “I actually said, ‘This is really fucking lame’. That we can’t work this out. The biggest heavy metal band of all time. And we can’t get over this?”. Then again, Newsted’s departure would be the first of many pitfalls for the band, including Hetfield going to rehab to work on his issues before returning to the band.
Although St Anger would often get ridiculed by the metal community as one of the sore spots in the band’s discography, there’s a reason why it ended up resonating with the band. While it could have been an epitaph for metal’s greatest band, St Anger was a testament to Metallica’s endurance while showcasing the aftermath of Newsted’s absence.
