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.
Marsha Zazula, âMetal Matriarchâ of Metallica and Others, Dies at 68
She and her husband founded Megaforce Records and introduced the world to heavy metal bands that became major stars.
Marsha Zazula around 1990 with her husband, Jonny. Their success with a small flea-market record shop led them to start the influential heavy metal label Megaforce.Credit.Gene Ambo
Jan. 16, 2021
Marsha Zazula, who with her husband, Jonny, founded Megaforce Records at the front end of a heavy metal wave and gave Metallica, Anthrax and other pivotal bands their start, died on Jan. 10 at her home in Clermont, Fla., about 20 miles west of Orlando. She was 68.
30 Years Ago: Def Leppard Guitarist Steve Clark Dies
On the morning of Jan. 8, 1991, Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen received a phone call from his manager Cliff Burnstein, bearing news he had been dreading for close to five years. His best friend, co-guitarist Steve Clark, had died while sleeping on a couch. He was 30 years old.
An autopsy revealed the Clark died from an unintentional overdose of alcohol, Valium and Codeine. “He had been drinking and he cracked a rib earlier on,” Collen wrote in his biography
Adrenalized. “The doctor told him not to drink while taking his pain medication. He drank anyway. The coroner’s report, I believe, read that it was due to a swelling of the brain.”