It’s no surprise that Metallica have gone through some very sad moments in their long and very illustrious career that has seen them brought up in ‘greatest of all time’ conversations. One need not be reminded of the horrible tragedy that cost the life of Cliff Burton. This caused so much mental toll on fans and then band alike. While the band took care of business by bringing in Jason Newstead – there were still many demons that were not taken care of behind the scenes. Enter James Hetfield who has a very storied past with alcohol.
In a recent interview with Jason Newstead, he had opened up about what it was like to go from an everyday guy from Arizona making $3 an hour to being a megastar filling the shoes of one of the best bassists the metal world had ever seen. Jason described it as a very intense time since he was coming in to replace Cliff Burton. Jason was more than happy to be there because of the positive changes that had just happened in his life coming from the 9-5 lifestyle that he had just days previous. The band was torn apart. The fans were irate. Jason was happy as ever, but no one else around him seemed to share the same ideology.
In a recent interview, Jason spoke on what kind of toll was taken on everyone else with Cliff no longer being with them.
Jason states as he arrives to practice for one of the first times: “James has had, I don’t know, between 10 and 16 beers.”
Jason says to himself: “They’re still f***ing self-medicating, grief-stricken [after Cliff’s death], running from this process that they know they have to be forced into.”
Jason then goes in-depth to talk about how he had felt deep down: “So already the ground is shaky, I’ve been awake for two days because I’ve been thinking about this moment.”
