''Metal'' is the debut EP by heavy metal band Newsted. The band was formed by American

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), keyboard bass (synth bass) or a low br ...

Jason Newsted Jason Curtis Newsted (born March 4, 1963) is an American musician, best known as the bassist of heavy metal band Metallica from 1986 to 2001. He performed with thrash metal band Flotsam and Jetsam for the first five years of his career before ...

in 2012. The EP was released on January 8, 2013, under Newsted's own record label Chophouse Records. The EP was recorded at the Creation Lab studio in

Turlock, California Turlock is a city in Stanislaus County, California, United States. Its population was 72,740 at the 2020 United States census, making it the second-largest city in Stanislaus County after Modesto. History Founded on December 22, 1871, by pr ...

Background

From 1986 until 2001,

was the

for heavy metal band

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

. During the 1990s, he met

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western music ensemble, bands that play Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, or Contemporary R&B, R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeepi ...

Jesus Mendez Jr., who helped out at the Metallica headquarters and later served as a drum tech on a tour for Newsted's former musical group Echobrain. In the late 2000s, Newsted met

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

Jessie Farnsworth; the trio began working on music and writing songs. In the meantime, Jason Newsted was guest at Metallica's 30th-anniversary concert and performed onstage with the band. He said that those shows, along with the fans, inspired him to do another record. Newsted began writing songs in August 2012, before giving them to Mendez Jr. and Farnsworth to learn. In October 2012, the band began recording songs and later recorded another set in December 2012. The band recorded a total of eleven songs which they planned to release during the first six months of 2013. The result would be the album ''

Heavy Metal Music Heavy metal (or simply metal) is a Music genre, genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and United States. With roots in blues rock, psychedelic rock and acid rock, heavy metal band ...

'', released August 6, 2013. The album was produced by Jason Newsted, with help from associate producer, Frank Munoz. The EP was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Anthony Focx at the Creation Lab Studio from October 5−12, 2012.

Release

On November 15, 2012, Jason Newsted announced the launch of his official website for information on his projects. On November 16, 2012, Jason Newsted was interviewed on

Eddie Trunk Edward Scott Trunk (born August 8, 1964) is an American music historian, radio personality, talk show host, and author, best known as the host of several hard rock- and heavy metal-themed radio and television shows. Biography Trunk was born o ...

's ''Friday Night Rocks'' radio show. He revealed that he would be releasing music under his own self-named band. On December 7, 2012, Newsted announced that his band was just finishing off their first record. On December 11, 2012, Newsted announced that the band had finished their first batch of songs, and that they were working on a second batch. On December 14, 2012, Newsted revealed the track listing and release date for a four song debut EP, titled ''Metal'', available on January 8, 2013, via

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

. On December 15, 2012, a music video was filmed for the first song "Soldierhead". On December 17, 2012, "Soldierhead" premiered on the Eddie Trunk Live show on

Sirius Satellite Radio Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio ( SDARS) service that operated in the United States and Canada. Sirius launched in 2002, and primarily competed with XM Satellite Radio, until the two services merged in 2008 to form Sirius XM. Li ...

. On January 10, 2013, Newsted announced that physical

CDs CDS, CDs, Cds, etc. may refer to: Finance * Canadian Depository for Securities, Canadian post-trade financial services company * Certificate of deposit (CDs) * Counterfeit Deterrence System, developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence ...

of the EP would be available to order from January 15, 2013. The album sold around 6,200 copies in its first week of release and debuted at number 62 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' 200. "Soldierhead" and "King of the Underdogs" were later featured on the album ''Heavy Metal Musics track listing while "Godsnake" and "Skyscraper" were made available as bonus tracks on Deluxe Editions of the album.

Track listing

Personnel

;Newsted *

− bass, lead vocals, guitars * Jessie Farnsworth − guitars, bass, backing vocals * Jesus Mendez Jr. − drums, percussion ;Technical personnel * Jason Newsted − production * Frank Munoz − additional production * Anthony Focx −

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

, mixing, mastering * Chris Lascano − photography * Mark Devito − cover layout and design

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2013 debut EPs Newsted EPs