Jason Newsted

Jason Newsted was born in 1963 in Battle Creek, Michigan, and learned bass after becoming a fan of Gene Simmons of Kiss.

After high school, he moved to Phoenix, Arizona and formed a thrash metal band called Paradox, then Dogz, and then Flotsam And Jetsam. This band became a cult success thanks to its ferocious 1986 debut album, Doomsday For The Deceiver, but Newsted gained worldwide recognition when he joined Metallica the same year, replacing that band’s late bassist CliffBurton, who had lost his life in a coach crash in Sweden.

Newsted’s 15-year stint with Metallica, now the biggest heavy metal band in the world, was commercially successful but also creatively inconsistent. While his bass playing was always exemplary, delivered on a range of basses including his beloved Sadowskys, he was inaudible on the 1988 album ...And Justice For All, while other, less assured records such as Load (1996) and Reload (’97) divided the fanbase. Still, 1991’s self-titled LP—the ‘Black Album’—was a massive success, selling over 30 million copies worldwide, and Newsted’s post-Metallica albums with cult Canadians Voivod and as a solo artist were acclaimed. Now a fine artist as much as a musician, he lives in what appears to be happy semi-retirement.

MUST-HAVE ALBUM

METALLICA

Metallica (1991)

Like Back In Black or Hotel California, Metallica’s so-called ‘Black Album’ is just too big to be ignored, although whether it’s their best work or not is endlessly debated. The simple truth is that it’s a rather good, well-crafted heavy rock record rather than a metal album. It sounds clean, cared-for, and thought-out: Radio and TV loved it, fans worshipped it, even non-metal fans turned towards it, thanks to its chunky sound.