JASON NEWSTED: Early SUPERNOVA Music Is Sounding 'Quite Powerful'

Chad Bowar of About.com recently conducted an interview with former METALLICA and current VOIVOD/SUPERNOVA bassist Jason Newsted. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

About.com: How did you get selected to be part of the TV series "Rock Star" this year?

Jason Newsted: "Tommy had gotten together with the TV people and told them he wanted to put together a television supergroup thing. Mark Burnett, the producer, was all over it. He wanted to put a band together of these rock legends and then scour the globe for the best singer. Tommy was given lists of musicians to choose from and he picked Gilby because of his purity to the old rock and roll. They gave him a list of bass players and he handed back the list and asked, 'Where's Jason?' They called me in February, the same day that Sharon Osbourne had called me for the Ozzy gig three years ago to the day. It is true that the stars line up for me. It's a weird thing that through my career so far I've had my heroes become my peers. METALLICA was my favorite band and I was in it for fifteen years. Ozzy asked me to play. VOIVOD I've worshipped since day one and always looked up to them. Somehow it all lined up that I got to play with my heroes, and here we go again. I always dug Tommy. MÖTLEY always had a killer show. They always took it farther. You've got to give them that much. As far as Tommy as an individual, he always went over the top. He's always able to deliver with a serious backbeat. There's no question. He keeps aware of contemporary music and does turntable stuff on weekends. He's very hip to what's happening. We have all those elements coming in to make this music. So far it's quite powerful."

About.com: What will you be looking for in a frontman?

Jason Newsted: "It's frontperson, Chad. (laughs) We have as many girls contending as guys contending. There are some very tough rock chicks. It's really cool. It surprised me. After two days of auditions in March, I opened my mind. These chicks were kicking the crap out of the guys. They're all buff, but still beautiful. They bring it and are knowledgeable. They play bass, they play keyboards and write music. We went to 20 different cities around the globe and nearly 20,000 people tried out. We're down to 15 now. It's been a long process so far and these are the cream of the crop. Any of the talent you've seen on TV for any of the music shows pale in comparison to what we have here. I have all confidence in saying that. There's nobody on any of the shows you've seen that comes close to our lowest-grade person."

About.com: What is your fondest memory of Piggy [late VOIVOD guitarist]?

Jason Newsted: "It's something he said at the very beginning when they let me come and play with them. We were walking into the studio after we had done some pre-production and were getting down to the serious business of making tones. Piggy asked me where was the Marshall (amplifier) for the bass. I told him I play on an SVT and use a stop box for distortion. He said you don't use a fifty dollar stop box for a fifty million dollar sound. What kind of crap is that? He said we need a Marshall head and a Marshall cabinet. We're plugging the bass in and that's the VOIVOD bass sound. So I plugged my rig in the way I always do but then added that. So I still had the boom, but then added that on top. On that record it's just sick. He wanted me to turn it up. It had been a long time, if ever, that I can remember that people in a band I was in wanted me to turn up the bass. He wanted to hear uglier, growlier and louder. I knew we'd get along just fine. That's the memory I have. He encouraged me to crank my stuff up and get scary and growly again."

Read the entire interview at HeavyMetal.About.com.