FLOTSAM AND JETSAM guitarist Michael Gilbert recently told Metal Army America they have teamed up with their former bassist Jason Newsted for the first time in 26 years for the songwriting sessions of their upcoming album “Ugly Noise”, which arrives in late 2012/early 2013. You can listen to the chat below.
About the songwriting process, Gilbert states:
I worked with Jason Newsted on a few songs, and he’s given me some tips about some things and opened my view up towards how I look at my music and how I want the listeners to perceive the points I’m trying to make.
He added:
[Jason] is really passionate about music, so when I called him and talked to him, I just wanted him to help out with some lyrical stuff and hear some of the music I was writing. He’s a great songwriter, too. I’m not sure if everything that he got to do in Metallica, if he was restrained a little bit, I’m not sure about all that sort of stuff, but as far as with me, anytime he wants to write with me, he’s got full rein and he’s got absolute say-so in everything that happens. It’s a 50-50 relationship, as it would be with Eric [‘A.K.’ Knutson], our singer, writing music with us, or Kelly [David Smith], our drummer.
Newsted was the original bassist of FLOTSAM AND JETSAM and played on their 1986 classic debut album “Doomsday for the Deceiver” before he left the band later that year to join METALLICA as a replacement for the late Cliff Burton and remained with them until 2001. Newsted co-wrote some of the songs on their 1988 follow-up “No Place for Disgrace“, but didn’t play on that album.
