After a period of prolonged absence, Jason Newsted has recently returned with an acoustic band called Jason Newsted and The Chophouse Band. He also recently stated that he's gone acoustic because he just doesn't want to try and out-heavy today's bands, and acoustic music makes him happy. So isn't it at least a little crazy that Newsted, after going acoustic, coming back from a hiatus, and most importantly for this context not having been in Metallica for over 15 years, is talking to Lars Ulrich again?
During a recent episode of Eddie Trunk Live on SiriusXM Radio, Newsted says he's got a call with Ulrich this Thursday and that he's excited and proud of what the band's doing. At this point in the conversation, this is just Newsted discussing talking to Ulrich, and no hints of collaboration have been made.
"I've got a call with Lars coming up on Thursday here. I've been talking to him every couple of weeks. As they're coming out with their new record, there's a lot of stuff going on within the underpinnings of it all, or whatever you wanna call it, so we always are in touch. And now we've actually been doing voice-to-voice, which is nice, and I'm hoping to be able to get person-to-person before long. But they do have quite a bit to do here with this new record. So I'm excited for 'em, man. I'm proud of 'em."
Trunk then asked Newsted if he was talking to Ulrich as friends, if it's business-related, or if it's about some sort of collaboration, and Newsted responds that it's "all of those three."
No other information was given, but wow… what the hell could this possibly be? Newsted's last public appearance with the band was in 2011 during Metallica's 30th anniversary shows in San Francisco.
