20 Years Ago: Jason Newsted Leaves Metallica
“It wasn’t easy to walk away from them,” ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted told me almost nine months after he left one of the biggest band in metal on Jan. 17, 2001. “The first couple months were real fucked, and then I slowly came out of my depression and got back on the horse with my new band Echobrain.”
At the time of his departure, Newsted said he left Metallica because it was impossible for him to play a more creative role in the band and that Metallica was spending too much time fighting Napster and not enough time working on new music. But most significantly, he said he needed time to recover from neck and back injuries he sustained from headbanging.