January 17, 2001, was the Ides Of March for Metallica.
On that day, bassist Jason Newsted marched into a meeting with his three brothers-in-arms of 14 years and declared that he was quitting the band. It was an announcement that rocked the ostensible thrash metal monolith from within, swiftly followed by years of in-fighting and therapy, as well as singer/guitarist James Hetfield’s admission into rehab. Heavy music’s most formidable empire got close to toppling itself.
Although Jason’s departure stunned Metallica into a battle for self-preservation, the writing had long been on the wall in the then-37-year-old’s mind. His residence in the band had been built on shaky foundations. When he auditioned to join in the autumn of 1986, James, drummer Lars Ulrich and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett were still grieving over the death of bassist Cliff Burton in a traumatic bus crash mere weeks prior. The trio were young up-and-comers in the ’80s metal scene, and management urged them to work the pain away rather than stamp the brakes of the locomotive.
Jason quickly became the outlet for his cohorts’ unexpressed anger as a result.
“For him and for us, it was difficult,” James reflected in a 2018 interview. “Psychology 101 will tell you that all our grief and sadness got directed at him, and quite a bit of it was that he was an easy target. […] He was goofy enough to take it, which was a positive for him, and he was such a fan, and we hated that. We wanted to ‘unfan’ him.”
We were brothers, and I was trying so hard to keep that that I was choking Jason. That’s how I was taught to control things: through intimidation and rage.
James Hetfield
Jason always took the hazing in good stride, however. It was some worthwhile adversity, he’s since argued, considering he joined a band that had already worked their way into metal’s highest echelons without him there. Plus, as the Michigan-born metalhead forged his own identity, pranks like making him think he’d be paying for the whole entourage’s restaurant dinners began to wane.
Jason never became a principal composer in Metallica: his near-decade-and-a-half stint yielded just three co-songwriter credits. Where the burgeoning fourth horseman proved himself was in the live arena. He was an animal onstage, to the point that his basses had to be tested underwater because of how much sweat cascaded from him on a nightly basis. Before long, Jason was taking lead vocals on performances of Whiplash, and the band still snarl his improvised backing vocals to Creeping Death (‘Motherfucker, die!’) at their shows.
“Jason really developed into ‘the live guy’,” James gushed on VH1’s Behind The Music in 1998. “He is the neverending connection with the fans. He’ll stop a fan and go looking for people to sign autographs for!”
Yet, around the time that James was singing Jason’s praises in TV documentaries, the frontman was also stifling his long-serving bassist. ‘Side-project’ had always been a four-letter word in Metallica, which left Jason, with such infrequent musical contributions, frustrated. His intention to moonlight with new alt-rockers Echobrain during the thrashers’ turn-of-the-millennium downtime was warmly welcomed by management… yet, the second James heard of it, that interest suspiciously vanished.
“We were brothers,” James reflected in a 2003 MTV interview, “and I was trying so hard to keep that that I was choking Jason. […] That’s how I was taught to control things: through intimidation and rage.”
“The person I respect the most disrespected me the most,” Jason summarised.
As a result, the bassist knew he was out the door well before January 2001. He made the choice on September 27, 2000: 14 years to the day after Cliff’s death. Metallica convened to film a documentary on the making of their blockbuster Black Album, and Jason started handing out CDs of Echobrain music. James was not impressed.
An argument erupted, and it would be the last time Metallica’s four members were in the same spot for the remainder of the year. Well, except for one occasion. November 30, 2000: Jason Newsted’s last stand on a Metallica stage.
The scene was the My VH1 Music Awards: a new ceremony by the namesake TV network, among the first to use the fledgling internet and let fans vote on which nominees take home trophies. Metallica interrupted their unofficial hiatus to attend, 1998 live album S&M having been shortlisted for the “Best Stage Spectacle” prize.
At the start of the evening, the band were prophetically divided in two. James, Kirk and Lars took their assigned seats in the auditorium for the ceremony, while Jason remained backstage, waiting in the wings in case he needed to walk out and pick up the award.
“He was just in his own cocoon,” Kirk said in 2003. “Very incommunicado.”
Lars added, “He basically just showed up. He didn’t sit with us or hang or anything. It was just like, ‘OK.’”
When Metallica won “Best Stage Spectacle”, the quartet reunited. Jason blanked James and Lars as they came together, yet squeezed Kirk in a bearhug. The lead guitarist was the only one who truly appreciated Jason’s seriousness about vacating the most lucrative act in heavy metal history.
“September 27, I told him that night,” Jason remembered on Scuzz Meets in 2013. “[Kirk replied,] ‘You better think about that for a while. You really better think about that.’” Although Lars was also forewarned by the bassist, the drummer allegedly quipped in response, “I’ll beat you out the door.”
Following an acceptance speech where Jason was uncharacteristically quiet, Metallica returned later the same night to perform Fade To Black for the cameras. The bassist was languishing in visible misery, keeping mostly to himself throughout the seven-minute ballad while decked in black and gazing downwards at his instrument.
Jason’s most animated moment came when James howled the lyric “Now I will just say goodbye!” At that exact second, the bassist gazed up at a camera crane and waved: a literal farewell from a man already mourning the death of his dream.
The plan was, after the performance, for Metallica to meet behind closed doors and finally attempt to revive their flagging momentum. However, Jason no-showed.
“We had told him that we needed to talk after the show,” said Kirk in 2003, “but Jason wasn’t around.”
The bassist later reasoned on saving the discussion until January: “I wasn’t gonna screw up anybody’s Christmas.”
Although Jason Newsted’s chapter as a performer in Metallica ended on that wintry November night, the story mercifully has a happy ending. The band hardily weathered the following struggles, emerging with new bassist Robert Trujillo and a number-one (if controversial) album in St Anger. As for their ex-bassist, he now lifts his former colleagues up onto a pedestal at every opportunity and holds zero regrets.
“[I’m] better friends with the Metallica guys now than I probably ever was,” he told The Guardian in 2021. “Obviously [leaving Metallica] was the right thing to do, because they’re still fucking crushing and I’m here smiling at you.”
