In 1988, legendary thrash metal act, METALLICA, released their fourth studio album entitled “…And Justice for All”, which was an immediate hit with fans and the rock media. Despite the loss of their beloved bassist Cliff Burton while on tour in 1986, the band turned in one of the best metal albums ever. That all being said, Burton’s replacement, Jason Newsted, a diehard fan of the group before he won the job (due to the fact that he already knew how to play all of their songs) was not accepted with the same open arms within the band.
In fact, the utter disrespect shown to the man over the years became so disgraceful he finally walked away in 2001. His dynamic bass parts were all but buried on ‘Justice’ as the story goes, dimmed so low you can hardly hear his playing or they were simply removed completely. The producer of the album has gone on the record recently stating he wishes that James and Lars would have allowed “bass” more prominently in the final mix.
Flemming Rasmussen, who co-produced the record with the group, praised bassist Jason Newsted’s work for the release in an interview with Rolling Stone conducted to celebrate the 30th anniversary of 1986’s Master of Puppets.
“Jason is one hell of a bass player,” the producer says. “I’m probably one of the only people in the world, including Jason and Toby Wright, the assistant engineer, who heard the bass tracks on …And Justice for All, and they are fucking brilliant.”
Rasmussen went on to say he still doesn’t know why the tracks were “nixed in the mix,” as the mixing duo Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero had been attached to the project prior to his arrival. “It’s not on them, that’s for sure,” the producer says. “It was Lars and James who said to turn the bass down. I know that for a fact because I asked them.”
Overall, the producer feels that the band did not give Newsted the respect he deserved. “He always more or less was the new kid,” Rasmussen says. “I actually had him practice bass when me and Lars would be doing drums. And I’d ask Toby to do some bass sounds with Jason to run it through a few times, and we’d go, ‘This is great. This is not great. Do this, do that.’ And we’d let them bang it out after we’d left for the night. While we went to sleep, he was actually doing some of his bass tracks. We’d listen to them the next day. … I feel and I think the general feeling in the band is that he was never treated with the respect that he deserved.”
Nothing was ever done, they just turned a cheek like they always did when it came to their new bass player. And for decades now fans have always wondered what an epic song like “One” would have sounded like with “bass” included as it should have been done originally.
Now the time has come. Engineer, Randy “Rocket” Cody, has remixed and remastered a 2017 version of “One” via THE METAL DEN Productions in Fort Worth, Texas.
Rocket of TMD comments:
“Hands down, I feel my cut is 10 times better than the original album version. Newsted’s bass
is what truly makes this song kick so much ass, even in a bigger way than I ever imagined. I am proud to present to the metal fanatic the proper mix of such an iconic song in rock history. I punched up the speed a bit from 106 BPM to 120. There is a special ‘bass outro’ added to the end that is killer. This ONE is for Jason Newsted, you rock forever dude!! Real metal heads appreciate all the hard work and effort you put in while bassist for the biggest metal band ever!!”
Hit the play button below and buckle yourself in for one awesome ride. Take note of the updated version’s much more visceral sound that you will undoubtedly feel in your guts!!
Listen BELOW!!
https://metallica.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/jasonnewstedofficial
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