Jason Newsted

Jason Newsted was Metallica's bassist between 1986 and 2001 — fourteen years, the longest tenure of any bassist in the band. Born in Battle Creek, Michigan, he arrived from Flotsam and Jetsam, an Arizona thrash band whose Doomsday for the Deceiver (1986) he had essentially written and produced himself. He joined under impossible circumstances: weeks after Cliff Burton's death, replacing a musician the band loved and the audience treated as irreplaceable. He was subjected to heavy and prolonged hazing by the other three, and the most discussed episode is on the record itself — on …And Justice for All (1988) the bass was mixed so low as to be nearly inaudible, a decision still read as an extension of that hazing. Newsted carried on regardless, and his live delivery, with relentless headbanging and aggressive physical presence, became part of the band's stage identity through its most popular era. He left in January 2001, after Metallica opposed his side project Echobrain — a rupture filmed in Some Kind of Monster (2004). He went on to play in Voivod, passed briefly through Ozzy Osbourne's band and released work of his own as Newsted, from Heavy Metal Music (2013). He also paints, an activity that has become his main occupation. He was inducted with Metallica into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.