NEWSTED, the new band led by former METALLICA, VOIVOD and FLOTSAM AND JETSAM bassist Jason Newsted, will release a four-song EP, entitled "Metal", exclusively via iTunes on January 8, 2013. Pre-orders begin on Tuesday, December 18.

"Metal" will contain the following tracks:

* Soldierhead
* Godsnake
* King Of The Underdogs
* Skyscraper

By purchasing all four songs, you will receive a copy of Jason's handwritten lyrics.

NEWSTED will film its first-ever video on Saturday, December 15.

In a recent interview with Eddie Trunk's "Friday Night Rocks" radio show on New York's Q104.3 FM, Newsted stated about his plans to release original music via his newly launched official web site, "Whatever it ends up being — if it's five songs, 20 songs, 50 songs… I don't even know what the heck I'm gonna do. I have so much music from over the years. I have a bunch of new stuff, I have so many mixes of projects with people — new players, young players, old-school players like myself — so I'm just trying to figure out exactly what I wanna unleash on everybody first. That's kind of what it's coming down to — the timing of things and how I wanna hit people with it, and which stuff [to release first]."

Asked how he plans to release his music, Jason said, "I see a couple of the old avenues still being there that will always be there in the purest form — making the vinyl and everybody having the special-edition vinyl to be able to read the lyrics, stuff like you and I loved the most, that's the closest to us that's the most endearing and the most personal. So that's always gonna be there and I never wanna dismiss that, so that will be percentage of it for the fans that really dig the real American kick-ass guitar music … And then the newest avenues that I'm just really now learning about as I expose myself to all this stuff… I saw a piece of one of ['That Metal Show' espisodes on VH1 Classic] and somebody talked about DOWN and some other bands doing four tracks at a time in EP form every few months, letting people have some fresh metal. I think that's a pretty good concept, a pretty good formula — I'm hip to that, [and] I'd like to warm up to that. Since it is new territory for me, I'm really open to that idea; I think it's a good way to spread stuff."