METALLICA's Former Producer On Lack Of Bass In '...And Justice For All' Mix: 'I've Asked Them A Thousand Times. I Do Not Know.'

In a new interview with Chile's Futuro, METALLICA's former producer Flemming Rasmussen once again discussed the sound of the band's "...And Justice For All" album. 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. Jason 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.

Rasmussen, who produced "Justice", as well as "Ride The Lightning" (1984) and "Master Of Puppets" (1986),told Futuro: "Lars has a thing that every time they've done an album, he comes and plays it to me. And he always hopes that I nod and say, 'That's a good lad.' And when he came and played '…And Justice For All' for me, I just looked at him and said, 'What's that?' He said, 'That's the mix.' I said, 'No, it's not. You forgot the bass.' But there's no bass on there."

Flemming continued: "I had to say no to doing that album [at first] because I was booked. So they started it out with Mike Clink. And then three weeks into January, after they'd been in the studio for three weeks, Lars called me up and said, 'Oh, Flemming, when can you come?' And I put all my sessions together and postponed some of them. And I went over there 14th of February and recorded for five months. And by the time I got there, they already got some hotshot Los Angeles mixers, Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero, to mix it. And the story is that METALLICA flew in, listened to what they'd done, and they went, 'No, no, no.' 'Where's my drum sound?' 'Where's my guitar sound?' And actually Lars said, 'Now take the bass down so you can just hear it.' They did that. You can see it on YouTube. There's plenty of videos of Steve Thompson telling about this. And then once they've done that, he said, 'Take it three dB [decibels] more down.' So, it's Lars and James [Hetfield, METALLICA frontman] that decided, and why they did that, I've asked them a thousand times. I do not know."

Noting that "…And Justice For All" marked Newsted's first full-length recording of original material with METALLICA after the passing for former METALLICA bassist Cliff Burton, Flemming said: "[Jason and Cliff were] two very different bass players. Cliff was more free and was composing a lot more. I don't think Jason was part of any of the composing on '…And Justice For All'."

Rasmussen continued: "But I think the reason why they turned the bass down is, like 50% of it is because they were on tour with VAN HALEN [at the time], I think, and they flew in and heard the mix. And I think that's the point where Lars and James realized that, 'We don't have Cliff anymore. It's not his bass. It's a totally different sound.' And I just think they couldn't relate to that at the point. That's probably half of it. But this is just me; I don't know if it's true or not. But the other half is what they hated most about Jason was that he was such a METALLICA fan, so every time they asked him anything, he just did it. So I think they took it down just to piss him off, 'cause they were expecting him to say, 'Can you turn the bass off?' And he probably never did. That's why the bass is so low. But I don't know. I mean, I don't know."

Flemming added: "The funny thing is that, in hindsight, I read somewhere recently that '…And Justice For All' is the number one album in the world that people say is the reason why they started their own band. So '…And Justice For All' has created more new bands than any other album in the world. So if you wanna start a new band, don't be a bass player."

Back in July 2024, Rasmussen was asked by Chris Akin Presents if he was mad when he first heard the "...And Justice For All" mix. He said: "Yeah, I was. Lars came and played it to me, and I looked at him and I said, 'What's that?' He said, 'It's the mix.' I said, 'No, it's not.' And he was, like, 'Yes, it is.' I said, 'What? There's no bass.' He said, 'Yeah, there it is. You can hear it. It's in the bottom of the guitars.' I was, like, 'No.'"

Flemming continued: "You're gonna have to ask Lars and James why they took the bass down, 'cause I didn't mix it. Because I came in so late, they had already hired Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero to do the mixing. And I mean, just go online, [and] you can get the story from the horse's mouth what happened. There's no reason for me to retell that. It was Lars and James. And why they did that, I'm not even sure they know themselves."

In a separate interview with Daniel Sarkissian, Rasmussen offered a different theory as to what happened in the studio, saying: "I think — but this is purely speculation — I think that they did it to get some kind of reaction from Jason. Because what they hated the most about Jason was that he was a fan. He was never disagreeing or anything, or stating his own opinion. I think they were waiting for him to kind of state his place in the band… I think they probably did it to get a reaction, and when it didn't come, that was the way the album turned out."

Six 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."