Metallica’s former bassist Jason Newsted is quite impressed by the band’s latest album Hardwired… To Self-Destruct.
His thoughts on the throwback sound of Metallica’ new material were first made apparent last August when he enthused on SiriusXM about the album’s lead single, ‘Hardwired’, telling DJ Eddie Trunk, “I can’t believe how wicked it is. I heard it a couple of times. Somebody played it for me in a car, and I brought it home and listened to it a little bit. I like its nature. I like its teeth, man. It’s great.”
Now Newsted has expanded on these thoughts, telling Ultimate-Guitar.com: “[Hardwired… To Self-Destruct] is a bit different than the other efforts that led up to it. Robert [Trujillo: Newsted’s replacement] is a great fuckin’ bass player and he’s always been a great bass player.
“I’ve known him for 25 years at least”, he continues. “He’s always been good and I owned all the Infectious [Grooves: Trujillo’s old band] records and I wore Infectious t-shirts. I’m down. That guy has always got my respect. He got in there and he can hang with those guys and make it sound like it does? Peace, peace, power to you.”
“This last [album], I feel they’ve kinda come back into stride and there’s something of substance here.”
Newsted left Metallica in 2001 after he proposed the band take a year-long sabbatical in order to allow members to work on side-projects. This plan was rejected, and Newsted quit.
