Jason Newsted about his new record

After long years of supporting giant metal acts like Metallica, Voivod or Ozzy Osbourne’s band, Jason Newsted now fronts his own group which in a short period of time put out a debut EP and LP records. We had the opportunity to ask the musician about his new releases.

TopGuitar: How would you describe your new material? Is it just straightforward “heavy metal music” or is there a catch somewhere?

Jason Newsted: Yes, definitely heavy metal music. There’s no false advertising, it is what it is: the „Metal” EP is metal and the LP is “Heavy Metal Music” just as the title says. Not every song is fast and not every song is slow, but every song is heavy, every song is metal and every song is music, so that’s kind of what it is. I think that a lot of bands out there can play heavy, a lot of bands out there can play metal, but not all of them really play music. So that’s what’s important to each one of those tracks to contain all three of these elements.

TopGuitar: Are you fully responsible for the music and lyrics on that album?

Jason Newsted: They’re all my seeds as initial skeleton construction compositions. I put them all together in a Garage Band application – I did drum programming, rhythm guitars, bass, vocals, lyrics. I gave it to the boys, they came back and we harvested the fruit. The EP is made by a power trio: Jessie Farnsworth, Jesus Mendez and myself, and the LP is made by the four of us including Mike Mushok. The band is a four-piece that has been together just over four months now. Now we have a 60-70 show world tour going on, we got an EP out, we got an LP out and more shows on the way and we’re only four months old, so things are happening pretty fast…