If Metallica plans to reissue …And Justice for All in the next few years to celebrate its 40th anniversary, Jason Newsted doesn’t want the bass to be remixed.
In addition to spawning legendary songs such as “One” and “Harvester of Sorrow,” …And Justice for All is also iconic because Newsted’s bass is practically inaudible throughout it. In fact, it’s one of the most heavily discussed bits of Metallica lore along with the pinging snare drum on St. Anger and the intraband dysfunction displayed in Some Kind of Monster.
Why Doesn’t Jason Newsted Want More Bass on ‘…And Justice for All’?
Speaking with Eddie Trunk during an appearance on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation, Newsted explained why he hopes Metallica doesn’t have his bass remixed on the album if they decide to reissue it for its 40th anniversary.
“Nah, man. No. It’s what it is. I don’t think that you should go back and mess with things like that. I don’t agree with it. I know other fans and stuff have done approaches or examples of what it would be if there was bass louder on the record, but I just don’t spend time like that,” Newsted said [via Blabbermouth].
“It’s been 35 years or something; that’s more than half of my life. I don’t really pay too much attention to it,” the bassist continued. “What I’ve come to with all this, because people still like to bring it up and I’m pretty happy that they do, because if it hadn’t been so f—ing bizarre then we probably wouldn’t be talking about it 35 years later with any kind of interest.”
Newsted noted that Lars Ulrich wrote “Turn bass down on stereo” on the original cassette tape of Metallica’s 1982 No Life ‘Til Leather demo, suggesting that the drummer preferred hearing his band’s music that way from the very beginning.
The rocker compared Ulrich and James Hetfield to other iconic rock duos and said that he and Kirk Hammett were the “embellishment” of that duo. He then declared, “…And Justice For All is the largest-selling garage duo album of all time.”
Newsted previously admitted that he was “f—ing livid” after hearing the album for the first time because he thought he played really well on it. Over time, though, he realized, “They mixed it how it was supposed to be mixed.”
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