Metallica’s Jason Newsted Criticizes Robert Trujillo’s Bass Playing

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Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted was asked if he’d change anything about his replacement Robert Trujillo’s bass delivery on post-Newsted Metallica records in a new Ultimate-Guitar interview. Jason replied:

“When I saw Sam Dunn [Canadian film director] interview Robert, he pulled up a part from a song [it was the ‘Spit Out the Bone’ bass lead section].

“He pulled up a part from the song – it’s like four or seven seconds of just bass playing a transition. It’s kind of like a distorted thing and trying to get to that Lemmy sound and almost trying to get to – oh I’ll say it, the Jason sound with Marshalls for bass amps and shit.”

Newsted continued: “If you don’t play with a pick – this is where I’m gonna swing heavy, and I’ve always got crazy pushback because of not playing with my fingers as a bass player – look at the scoreboard.

“When it comes to playing with a pick and the aggression and tone that can come from the attack, you can’t get that with fingers. There are a lot of places you can do with fingers that you can’t do with a pick as well and I appreciate that.

“But to get that sound right there [makes aggressive noise] chang chang chang gunka gunka with the attack and the fuckin’ teeth and shredding paint, that has to come from a certain effect on a bass string through a certain amplifier with a certain drive and you can’t fake it with Fenders. It sounds fine but it could be [in announcer’s voice] rawk and rollll.”