JASON NEWSTED Says He's Open To FLOTSAM AND JETSAM Reunion, Denies Calling METALLICA A Joke

Former METALLICA and current VOIVOD bassist Jason Newsted says that he is "absolutely" open to doing a reunion tour with his pre-METALLICA band FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. "I think that would be cool," Newsted told Foundry Music in an interview conducted earlier this month. "I saw [the FLOTSAM AND JETSAM guys] at Christmas time and I still feel like a good friend to all those guys. And I think they would say the same about me . . . We had drinks hung out and listened to the new VOIVOD record, you know. So that was the whole thing. I went to Phoenix. Everybody still has their hair and everybody's still in shape so my answer [to the possibility of a reunion] is yes. I think someday absolutely do that kind of thing and I think they'd be jumping out of their skin to be able experience something like that. It would have to take my commitment. Can't just snap your fingers and we're in the same town with equipment and a road crew. It takes some time, takes money and some logistics. These people have families and that kind of shit. It's easily said and sounds fun. Putting it together would take something. You would never say never on something like that because it could be fucking great. We'd just play the stuff we wrote together. It would have to be the original shit. If you want a reunion tour play these songs and the older. It could be fucked up! Just long enough, fifteen songs together pull out the old ones and play a few MAIDEN songs and fuck everybody up! TANK songs."

In the same interview, Newsted addressed a comment he made in early February about METALLICA's decision to embark on a summer tour with LIMP BIZKIT and LINKIN PARK in which he referred to his former band as a "joke" and called the move calling the move "an obvious cash thing." Asked if the media had twisted his words or taken them out of context, Newsted responded, "I don't know where… well, I actually know where this shit comes from. Right now I'm in the middle of doing 20 or 30 interviews a week for the VOIVOD album. And if I talk to somebody that is unprofessional, and they ask me a certain question about METALLICA, I talk to them honestly about it. Trusting their judgment or whatever. And if they… I heard the one thing you are speaking of in particular. This guy — I ask him about what he thought about the announcement that METALLICA made. It was time for me to interview you, and he said OK. I think it was for Rock Sound in Britain. He said, for me, since 19, whatever he said, that METALLICA was a joke. Well, it's not for everybody now, they've done their thing and made their way. It would have been better for me if they made albums more often and all that kind of thing. It would be great if they could spearhead the new rising metal just like they did with the original metal movement and be at the front of that again. Wouldn't that beat friggin cool for them to take out STRAPPING YOUNG LAD and VOIVOD and prominent metal bands, you know. It would be fantastic. And they didn't really see could actually change. They're gonna draw as many people where they are the radio darlings and the hugest American metal band there's ever been. Why wouldn't they draw people anyway? Just kinda diluting the purity of METALLICA that we always tried to stay true to and it just seems kinda weird to me. To put rap rock bands with that just cause, for the obvious reason that you want to sell more tickets. It's strange and cool because they are in a commercial different market and I realize that's all good if I didn't know myself. That's exactly how it happened and they decide to put it on a web site where I might have agreed with what they said. And that's how that all goes. I don't look at the computer. The only way I knew about what you were talking about is because somebody else in an interview told me about it. I do not look at the computer. I don't fuck with it. I have people that do that for me that know it much better than me. I'm still very much an analog person. I write everything down with pen and paper. The notes I write to people I send today, as I did for you and IR8 in 1994, I do today and write a little note. Be cool with this, respect and protect this music because I do remember whom I do send it to. If it ends up someplace I don't want it, I'll come and kick your ass. I still have to keep that personal touch, right? That's very important to me. So however people misconstrue my shit, I know what I said and I speak the truth."