JASON NEWSTED Doesn't Believe METALLICA's 'Justice' Album Should Ever Be Officially Remixed: 'I Don't Think You Should Go Back And Mess With Things Like That'

During a May 12 appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", ex-METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted spoke about whether he is aware of any plans for the band to remix the "...And Justice For All" album for a possible 40th-anniversary expanded reissue in 2028. While "...And Justice For All" is considered one of METALLICA's classics, it has been criticized almost since the day it was released in 1988 for the lack of any bass guitar on the record. Newsted's playing is virtually buried in the mix — and many fans feel that drummer Lars Ulrich, who had very specific ideas for how he wanted his drums to sound, is to blame. Regarding whether he was hoping "...And Justice For All" would get the remix treatment at some point, Jason said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "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…. 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.

"What I've come to with all this, 'cause people still like to bring it up, and I'm pretty happy that they do, because if it hadn't been so fucking bizarre, then we probably wouldn't be talking about it 35 years later with any kind of interest," Jason continued. "If it was just the record, there was a record and there's an album and it goes like this, then we probably wouldn't be saying anything else about it until the unboxing came. But since people still bring it up…

"On the cassette of 'No Life 'Til Leather', the original demo of METALLICA, and it's handwriting in a blue ballpoint pen, in Lars's handwriting," Newsted added. "And it says, 'METALLICA 'No Life 'Til Leather' demo', and then in parentheses, 'Turn bass down on stereo.' In his handwriting. Okay, that was the demo — the very first time anyone was going to hear their band. He was already in that mode. So it's 1982. That's where the playing field is, that's where we start. So as you go through things, and the way that any of the records were created, especially the trilogy of godliness, the first three, set the blueprints for our style of music, period. There are other bands that have come along and done quite well, but not like that, and not being that innovative or that important. There are many bands that exist, but there's only a few important ones, and that's an important one, and those are important albums. All of them, all the way through when we were rolling in fucking money, [were written the same way], in a 12-by-12 cave with a drum set and Marshall stacks that just about touched the roof and two people with a TASCAM cassette recorder, eight-track. And they go in and they make the albums that change the world. Two people, and Lars plays [his drums] with the guitar out of the monitor, not the bass. It's always been that. Before there was THE BLACK KEYS, before there was THE WHITE STRIPES, before there was FLAT DUO JETS or whoever those guys are, before there was those kind of bands with no bassist, there was [METALLICA guitarist/vocalist] James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich as the original garage duo. The other ones that came in — [late METALLICA bassist] Cliff [Burton], [METALLICA guitarist] Kirk [Hammett], myself — are the embellishment of the garage duo. If the garage duo chooses to put bass in their duo, then they do. If they don't, they don't. '…And Justice For All' is the largest-selling garage duo album of all time."

Asked how he felt about METALLICA's more progressive musical direction on "…And Justice For All" compared to the more straight-ahead nature of some of the band's earlier material, Jason — who ho was FLOTSAM AND JETSAM's bassist from 1981 to 1986, when he left the latter band shortly after the release of their debut album to join METALLICA — said: "Well, it was far more reminiscent of FLOTSAM music than it was of METALLICA music. So it was kind of just in stride for me as far as the style. FLOTSAM was very much the busy, up-tempo craziness like that, very progressive. So I think they kind of just fit right in it for me."

Seven years ago, Hetfield defended the sound of "...And Justice For All", saying that he and his bandmates simply "wanted the best-sounding record" they could make. "It was not all about, 'Fuck [Jason]. Let's turn him down.' That's for sure," he said. "We wanted the best-sounding record we could make. That was our goal. We were burnt. We were frigging fried. Going back and forth [between touring and mixing the album]. Playing a gig. No earplugs, no nothing. You go back into the studio, your hearing is shot. If your ears can't hear any high end anymore, you're gonna turn it up. So we're turning the high end up more and more and more and all of a sudden, low end's gone. So I know that played a bigger part than any hazing or any ill feelings towards Jason, for sure. We were fried. We were burnt."

Hetfield also addressed some of the criticism leveled at METALLICA by one of the "...And Justice For All" album mixers, Steve Thompson. In a 2015 interview with Ultimate Guitar, Thompson suggested that Ulrich was the culprit for the lack of any bass guitar on the record, claiming that Lars wanted his drums to sound a certain way — even if it meant cutting out the bass.

"We wanted it tight," James explained. "We wanted it fucking tight. That's what we wanted. We wanted the snare, we wanted the guitar, we wanted everything up front and in your face and really tight. And we thought we got it. And, you know, we kinda know what we want to sound like. Can we sit behind a desk and make it happen? No. We ask people to do it, and they do it. So [Thompson] did his job. He's got nothing to apologize for or point fingers at. No one's to blame for 'something.' It is a piece of art. It happened and it ended up the way it is for a reason. And for reasons we were just talking about. We were burnt. We're traveling, we're playing a gig, our ears were fried. We were not sleeping. He doesn't need to defend himself. He was a part of an awesome album in history, so I think he should be maybe be a little easier on himself."

James also once again dismissed calls for METALLICA to remix "…And Justice For All" so that Newsted's contributions are more audible.

"All this [bass discussion] is after the fact, and it's, like, who gives a shit, man, really?" Hetfield said. "And why would you change that? Why would you change history? Why would you all of a sudden put bass on it? There is bass on it, but why would you remix an album? You can remaster it, yes, but why would you remix something and make it different? It'd be like… I don't know. Not that I'm comparing us to the Mona Lisa, but it's, like, 'Uh, can we make her smile a little better?!' You know?! Why?"

In a 2008 interview with Decibel magazine, METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett attempted to explain the lack of bass on "…And Justice For All", saying that "the reason you can't hear the bass so well is because the bass frequencies in Jason's tone kinda interfered with the tone that James was trying to shoot for with his rhythm guitar sound, and every time the two blended together, it just wasn't happening. So the only thing left to do was turn the bass down in the mix. It was unfortunate, but for some reason or another, that album is known for the low end being there without the bass being very high up in the mix. It was an experiment, too — we were totally going for a dry, in-your-face sound, and some people really like that sound. A lot of the newer-generation bands, especially, think that album sounds great. But at the end of the day, it was an experiment. I'm not really sure it was 100 percent successful, but it is a unique sound that that album has."

In the Ultimate Guitar interview, Thompson said that he spoke out because he was tired of being blamed for the lack of bass. He remarked: "They flew us out [to METALLICA's Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 2009] and I'm sitting with Lars. He goes, 'Hey, what happened to the bass in 'Justice'?' He actually asked me that. I wanted to cold cock him right there. It was a shame because I'm the one getting the shit for the lack of bass."

Ulrich told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that fans were extremely vocal about the sound of the album at the time of its release. "I mean, it was unbelievable, you know, '...And Justice For All', " he said. "People were saying, 'That's the worst-sounding record, where's the bass, and it sounds like it was recorded in a garage, and...' But, you know, listen, you do the best you can in the moment and then you move on."