Jason Newsted to Record Project
Outside Metallica
"You didn't really think we were taking a whole
year off, did you?" says Metallica bassist
Jason Newsted, laughing. In the midst of a
Metallica vacation and the recent Napster
controversy, Newsted has found a little calm
away from the publicity storm by booking a
Marin County studio for the entire month of
May. While the group was taking an unofficial
"year off," Newsted has been spreading his
creative wings with a new power trio called
Echo Brain. The Echo Brain project comes on
the heels of an April 13 session Newsted did
with the Moss Brothers (eleven-year-old
guitarist Rueben and fourteen-year-old
drummer Evan), six songs from which will
appear on their debut North Side of the Tree
"Lars may have said it at the time, but he
certainly didn't believe it -- at least I didn't,"
Newsted says of the band's intention to rest
for a year. "We had a good clean three months
off. Nobody messing with us. I think the other
guys were pretty happy with the vacations, but
I couldn't take it. I'm good for a few weeks, but
after that I have to be doing something. I really
did try for a couple of weeks. I sat down and
had a few beers by the pool, but that's not for
me."
Instead, Newsted has been filing up his time
recording in his home studio with
twenty-year-old guitarist Dylan Dokin and
twenty-two year old drummer Brian Sagrafena.
"I met Brian at a Superbowl party about six
years ago," Newsted says. "During the
commercial breaks, everyone would take turns
at a drum set he had set up in his living room.
And Brian gets on, and he's only sixteen, and
he jammed. I asked him what his favorite band
was, he told me Tower of Power. I was so
impressed I had him in my home studio the
next week." Newsted and Sagrafena continued
to play together over the years, adding Dokin
on guitar, finally completing their sound.
So what is that sound? "To me it's tomorrow
music. It's real fresh, real contemporary,"
explains Newsted. "If you were going to mix it
up in a bowl, it'd be Chris Cornell, Jeff
Buckley, Jane's Addiction and something like
Status Quo. Dylan is a great singer and that's
our weapon. My girlfriend and I truly believe
that he has a piece of Jeff Buckley in him.
Dylan has never heard Jeff Buckley. Still, if
you closed your eyes you'd swear it's Jeff's
brother. It just melts you, man. I've done a lot
of stuff with other people over the years, but
I've always wanted to do something on my
own, and when I heard what Dylan was coming
up with I thought I couldn't turn this down. Jeff
Buckley is so close to my own art, I could not
pass this up, I wanted to share this with
everyone."
While Newsted doesn't have a label deal for
Echo Brain yet, he's not worried. "It's not
something that is my big concern. I'd like to do
it on my own label and have somebody cool
distribute it. I imagine Elektra will probably
want it, they have the right to refuse it. I'd like
to keep it in the family. I'd either go with the
guy with Metal Blade records, from back in the
day, or I'll go with Elektra. They're cool with
us. It's hard for me to think they'd turn down a
project from a member of their biggest band."
Newsted didn't say whether any of his
bandmates would make an appearance on the
disc, but did reveal that the principal violinist
and the principal cellist from the S & M gigs
will be on the record.
On an unrelated matter, when asked to
address the heat Metallica has received in the
wake of filing its lawsuit against Napster earlier
this month, the bassist says he thinks the
resulting backlash has been good for the
issue.
"I think the backlash is healthy," he says.
"The more [attention] that's churned up, the
more questions that are asked and the more
awareness that's brought around is all for our
benefit. The more the ignorance is quashed,
the more people are gonna realize that we are
right. It's not a free speech issue; it has
nothing to do with that at all. If you're dad is a
doctor or a bricklayer, is he going to get up at
6 a.m. and work ten hours a day and come
home with nothing to show for it? I don't think
he would. We have to be the ones to step up.
It's for everyone, and it's for the future of music
on the computer. Period."
JAAN UHELSZKI
(April 29, 2000)
