JASON NEWSTED Says He’s Been ‘Really, Really Frugal’ With His METALLICA Earnings: ‘That’s Why I Still Have Them’

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In a recent interview with the METALLICA fan-club magazine So What!, the band's former bassist Jason Newsted was asked how he dealt with the huge commercial success of METALLICA's 1991 self-titled album — better known as the "Black Album" — when it first happened. He said: "All of us experienced some kind of swelly head at different levels for different amounts of time through this three-year span. [It was] inevitable and impossible for it not to happen… I remember me personally, when I went shopping with [METALLICA guitarist] Kirk [Hammett] in Paris, and he took to me a couple of nice, nice stores, and I threw down a lot of money for some nice clothes and shoes and stuff. I'd never done that before. And I thought I was the shit… So I did get caught in the moment. I think that I've been really, really frugal with my earnings, and so that's why I still have them. But I did have a couple of moments there. But that was the time — dropping all this money for wine and fancy shit… And I think it lasted for about — I'd say five to six months, for myself, that it was just that 'walking on air.' Everywhere that you went, in the 55 countries that we played in, they're waiting for you when you fucking there… What are you supposed to do?" When asked how he "caught himself" before going off the deep end, Newsted said: "I think when I came back home on the one break to be with my girl again, I just realized that that's not who I am. It just is not who I am. I pretended I was gonna get this fancy car and all that shit. I'm, like, 'Dude, you know that you'd rather have a '65 Mopar, '68 Mopar than you would that fucking Lamborghini bullshit anyway.' But those guys were driving Porsches and fancy cars and stuff, and I'm, like, 'I can afford that too.'" You can now watch So What!'s entire one-hour interview with Newsted in four parts below. Jason left METALLICA in 2001 but was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, along with guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, Hammett, and the man who replaced him, bassist Robert Trujillo, in 2009. The Black Album is one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed records of all time. Its 1991 release not only gave METALLICA its first No. 1 album in no fewer than 10 countries, including a four-week run at No. 1 in the U.S., its unrelenting series of singles — "Enter Sandman", "The Unforgiven", "Nothing Else Matters", "Wherever I May Roam" and "Sad But True" — fueled the band's rise to stadium headlining, radio and MTV dominating household name status. The album's reception from the press was similarly charged, building over the years from the top 10 of the 1991 Village Voice Pazz & Jop national critics poll to becoming a constant presence in the likes of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. The album's impact and relevance continue to grow — as proven by one indisputable fact: The Black Album remains unchallenged as the best-selling album in the history of Nielsen SoundScan, outselling every release in every genre over the past 30 years. To commemorate its 30th anniversary, the Grammy-winning, 16-times-platinum-certified Black Album received its definitive re-release in September via the band's own Blackened Recordings. Last year, Newsted sold his ranch in historic Sula, Montana. The listing price was $4.95 million but the final sale price wasn't disclosed. Newsted and his wife Nicole have been longtime residents of Jupiter, Florida. In October 2020, Newsted bought a home on Skaneateles Lake in the village of Skaneateles, New York for $6.1 million. In late 2019, Jason sold his Walnut Creek, California house for $2.3 million.