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“They did it to get a reaction out of him”: …And Justice For All producer says Metallica turned down Jason Newsted’s bass parts as he was a “fan” who “never disagreed with anything”
“I think they were waiting for him to kind of state his place in the band…”
Metallica in 1986. Credit: Koh Hasebe/Getty
The producer of Metallica‘s fourth album … And Justice For All has presented his theory for why Jason Newsted‘s bass parts on that album can barely be heard.
Upon its release in 1988, one of the most common complaints about the album that spawned hits such as One and Harvester Of Sorrow was that the newly-inducted Newsted’s parts were too low in the mix to be audible. And Justice For All was the first Metallica album Newsted played on after he joined the band to replace the late Cliff Burton, who was killed in a bus crash in 1986.
Producer Flemming Rasmussen addresses the situation in a new interview with Daniel Sarkissian, suggesting that the rest of the band attempted to get a reaction out of Newsted so he would speak up more instead of going along with everything they did.
“I think – but this is purely speculation – I think that they did it to get some kind of reaction from Jason. Because what they hated the most about Jason was that he was a fan,” he says [via Metal Injection].
“He was never disagreeing or anything, or stating his own opinion. I think they were waiting for him to kind of state his place in the band… I think they probably did it to get a reaction, and when it didn’t come, that was the way the album turned out.”
By contrast, Newsted’s version of events is very different. In a 2022 interview, he voices the opinion that the mix hadn’t been meddled with intentionally.
“I love people’s enthusiasm, their determination, their love and their appreciation. If the Justice album had been mixed like a regular record, we wouldn’t be talking about it to this day,” he says. But because that isn’t the case – and I don’t necessarily think that’s that big a deal – we’re still talking about it all these years later.”
“I don’t even think they realised, in their drunken stupor, what they were doing, but they made the best garage band album ever. Black Keys, White Stripes, whatever power duo, garage rock stuff you wanna mention, James and Lars were the original garage rock duo, as far as that goes.”