Over the years many Metallica fans feel that former bassist Jason Newsted got the short end of the stick during his stint in the group; especially during the recording of the band's fourth studio album ...And Justice For All when he first joined; replacing recently deceased bassist Cliff Burton. After all these years, even the album's producer Flemming Rasmussen agrees.
...And Justice For All has been infamously notorious since its release in 1988 for its low bass mix. This has been since been revealed as a decision from singer/rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone Rasmussen dishes on the details of it and gave his own thoughts.
Rasumussen says:
"Jason is one hell of a bass player. 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 f***ing brilliant. It was Lars and James who said to turn the bass down. I know that for a fact because I asked them. He always more or less was the new kid. 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."
Fans of course have made "remix" versions of ...And Justice For All over the past three decades, but they in my opinion aren't quite what the fans and Newsted deserve. Would be nice if somehow Metallica would get their heads out of their asses and have it properly remixed with the bass parts present. Of course, knowing them such a thing will never come to be. At least those who really care know how rad Newsted really is as a bassist.
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