Jason Newsted is Bringing His Metal Project Newsted Back for At Least One More Show
Years after falling off the face of the Earth due to financial issues, Jason Newsted’s heavy metal project aptly named Newsted is back. In a surprise announcement earlier today, the short-lived band was revealed as having a gig on Saturday, May 20 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Dubbed “An Evening with Newsted,” the concert is ostensibly going to be just Jason Newsted, original Newsted members Jesus Mendez Jr. and Jessie Farnsworth, and new guitarist Humberto Perez ripping through some of the band’s songs from their only album Heavy Metal Music and maybe some Metallica or Ozzy covers. At least that’s what a Newsted concert was like way back in 2013.
For those that don’t remember, Newsted was a solo project that promised some kick ass heavy metal tunes and while their initial EP Metal was lacking in substance and kinda boring, I personally found their LP Heavy Metal Music to have some serious bangers. Seriously, listen to “Nocturnus” below and tell me that shit isn’t heavy.
They toured for a while, hitting all the European festivals during the summer of 2013 before unceremoniously dropping off of Australia’s Soundwave festival. At the time, Newsted said it was because of “private and personal circumstances,” but we eventually learned that the entire project was insanely expensive for Newsted.
During an interview with Ultimate Guitar back in 2017, Newsted said he found it incredibly difficult to keep the band going since he had to “wear all the hats and doing the writing, singing, playing and paying for everything.”
“It cost me an awful lot of money — hundreds of thousands of dollars to take the Newsted band around to the 22 countries we played. But it was worth it for the lessons I learned and the respect that was shown to us and the camaraderie of the band. But I couldn’t continue because the business is such a harsh thing now and so different than what I had known.”
Here’s hoping that this is the start of something new for the band Newsted. If this is what Jason Newsted was hinting at back in February when he said he was working on something new and heavy, then I’m excited to hear what’s coming next.
