Watch: Former METALLICA Bassist JASON NEWSTED Performs Acoustic Set In Tequesta, Florida

Former METALLICA bassist and some of his friends played a benefit concert on February 11 at Lighthouse ArtCenter in Tequesta, Florida.

Newsted, who played acoustic guitar and sang, was joined by Jessie Farnsworth on acoustic guitar, bass and vocals, Carl Schmid on violin, Kalika Osgood on vocals and Chris Scianni on electric and acoustic guitars.

From January 19 through March 1, 2023, Jason and his wife Nicole Newsted returned to Lighthouse ArtCenter with "Like Mind", an exhibition showing their individual large and small-scale work.

A six-time Grammy Award winner and Rock And Roll Hall OF Famer, Jason is famous for his contributions to METALLICA from 1986 to 2001. Beyond his many musical achievements, he is a self-taught multi-media artist. His first visual art exhibit was in May of 2010. Newsted has shown successfully at Art New York, Art Miami, Art Basel and in duo exhibits with his wife at Lighthouse ArtCenter. His work mixes iconography, sometimes including guitars with abstract geometric and biomorphic forms, using a raw, expressive style. His paintings are highly textural, with otherworldly subjects and layered with meaning.

"Mending from disjointed pandemic years, we reconnect in 'Like Mind' to share again," said Jason. "Images built from opposite influences and common attractions bring us closer; they're bright and previously unseen works developed and created through our journey together."

Nicole Newsted is a talented painter who studied art on scholarship at Arizona State University. Her paintings are in collections across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Nicole's paintings on canvas use brilliant colors that depict maximalism in a minimalist setting. Her work is characterized by escapist and endearing subject matter, including brightly colored candies, donuts, and care bears that evoke comforting childhood memories.

"My work is an ongoing survey of the objects, landscapes, and people around me: both past and present," she said. "I am drawn to the overly saturated, the kitschy, and the saccharine. My paintings are meditations on objects made of plastic, polyester, and artificial flavoring."

Jason left METALLICA back in 2001, but was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, along with Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and the man who replaced him, bassist Robert Trujillo, in 2009.

Nine years ago, Jason shelved NEWSTED, the heavy metal project he operated between 2012 and 2014, saying that it cost him "an awful lot of money — hundreds of thousands of dollars." He added: "I couldn't continue because the business is such a harsh thing now and so different than what I had known."

Last month, Newsted told the Gator 98.7 FM radio station that he "spent six months of last year putting together THE CHOPHOUSE BAND 'Volume 1'" with his long-running project. He added: "THE CHOPHOUSE BAND has been together [and] making music since 1992. So it was our first album after 30 years. I spent a lot of time on that. And then, once I got that under my belt, I'm kind of stepping back into the heavy now. So the last couple of weeks I've been auditioning guitar players for a heavy project. I'm back on bass and singing with a metal drummer — double bass, you know; getting' loud again. So I've got a couple of irons in the fire. I'm putting two new projects together right now — but loud."