Heavy metal, power, US power, epic, progressive metal, doom, hard rock e tutte le sue sfaccettature (AOR, glam, hair metal, street, sleaze, christian ecc...)
In 1994, Jason Newsted shared a home demo with two friends. The next day, James Hetfield accused him of betraying Metallica.
Jason Newsted had gotten very good at accepting things.
He'd accepted that joining Metallica in 1986 meant going from ringleader and primary songwriter of Flotsam and Jetsam to having "zero say" in creative decisions. He'd accepted being the "new kid" for eight years, the whipping boy who took the grief for Cliff Burton's death. He'd accepted recording his bass parts for the Black Album alone in a room with a coffee-fetching engineer while the rest of the band was somewhere else entirely.
But Jason hadn't accepted giving up on music that was actually his.
In 1992, he'd begun built his own studio - The Big Rigor Chophouse. By late 1994, he finally had all the gear, and he invited Devin Townsend, a 22-year-old guitarist from Steve Vai's band, to come record. Tom Hunting from Exodus would play drums.
They called the project IR8. As in, "irate."
Devin showed up and turned into an absolute maniac. An hour and a half of sleep per day for a whole week. Every time he picked up a guitar: wild technical runs that seemed to come from nowhere. Raw production. No overthinking. Just drums, bass, Devin's mad guitar solos over the top, Jason screaming the vocals. Done.
Six songs. One week. Jason's first real project in his own studio.
Jason wasn't trying to start a band or tour or sell merchandise. He was just sharing some metal with his friends. He burned a couple copies of the demo. He gave one tape to a guy in L.A. and another to a guy in Ohio.
By the next afternoon, the songs were playing on KNAC, the popular Los Angeles hard rock station.
Within hours, Lars called. "You gotta come up to the house."
Jason had no idea what it was about - so much so that he grabbed his bass and headed over, assuming they were going to jam on some ideas for the next Metallica record.
They weren't.
"Dude, you know you're in Metallica now, don't you? You can't just be making music and sending out tapes to whatever person with whichever person. You do understand that, right?"
Jason was blindsided. "Oh! I didn't realize at all! I didn't know about the politics - I was just sharing some metal with my friends!"
But James Hetfield wasn't interested in the explanation. To James, when one guy jams with somebody else, it messes with Metallica. And this wasn't just jamming - Jason had recorded music, and now the world was hearing it.
To James, a side project wasn't creative expression. It was infidelity. "It's like cheating on your wife in a way."
But worse than the cheating metaphor was the structural one.
"The fist is no longer four fingers," James told him. "It's not as strong."
James decreed that Jason would not be allowed to release any of this music. It would weaken Metallica's fan base. It signaled divided loyalty. Where would it end? Would Jason start touring with it? Selling shirts? Making it his real band?
For James, who viewed the band as a "perfect family, almost mafia style," stepping outside meant betrayal.
Jason pretty much broke down that day in front of Lars and James.
"I'm sorry, it won't happen again!"
That was the first time James shut down a side project. But it wouldn't be the last.
Jason and Devin had already started talking about a follow-up project they were calling Fizzicist - something they claimed would be "heavier than Strapping Young Lad." That project died the moment the IR8 tape leaked. Unable to continue working with Jason, Devin eventually wrote and recorded the material himself, calling it Physicist instead.
The IR8 demo - six songs, one week of work, two copies given to friends - never saw an official release until 2002, a year after Jason left Metallica for good.
Years later, Kirk Hammett would admit the truth: "Back then, with Jason, the excuse was that we didn't want it to dilute the effect of Metallica or whatever. At this point, nothing can dilute what we have. We all now realize that, and see each other as just four guys who are artists, musicians that want to express themselves."
But in 1994, standing in Lars's house with James staring him down and tears in his eyes, Jason Newsted learned a lesson that would take seven more years to fully sink in:
In Metallica, James Hetfield had the last word on everything. Even on music Jason made in his own studio, with his own friends, in his own time.
"Me ne frego!"
Dalla parte sbagliata della storia.
«Niente è tanto incredibile quanto la risposta a una domanda che non si pone»
