As one might imagine, then-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted was very pissed off the first time he heard the mix for …And Justice For All. Mostly because it was largely devoid of all bass. In a new interview with Metal Hammer, Newsted he was "fucking livid" the first time he heard the record, especially because he thought he played well.
"I was fucking livid! Are you kidding me? I was ready [to go] for throats, man! No, I was out of my head, because I really thought I did well. And I thought I played how I was supposed to play."
Newsted continued, saying that drummer Lars Ulrich and guitar and vocalist James Hetfield are essentially the original garage rock duo, and that it's pretty hard to argue with them given their success.
"Lars and James were the original garage band duo, as far as that goes. They always made the records that way, from No Life 'Til Leather, it was Lars and James, guitar and drums. On the original No Life 'Til Leather cassette – if you happen to ever see a real copy or a photo of a real copy – in Lars' handwriting, in ink pen, on the label of the cassette, [it reads] 'Turn bass down on stereo. On No Life 'Til Leather!
"They mixed it how it was supposed to be mixed: there's the bass and there's the guitar from all the way back. But Lars didn't want [that] because it messed with his drums somehow, so when he sends the demo out to fucking Combat Records and wherever, [his instruction is] 'Turn the bass down before you even listen to this.'
"Before you even get it going, just turn the bass down. Right from the get go. Before you even start. That's where he's been his whole goddamn life, so why would it be any different when it came to …And Justice For All? They made Kill 'Em All that way, they made Ride that way, they made Master that way, all of them. Those two guys in a room, that's the way it always happened. [For] the most successful metal band of all time. So you argue with this shit? I'm not really sure.”
"Now it's become the best garage band album ever [for artists such as] Black Keys, White Stripes, Flat Duo Jets, the different 'power duos' of garage stuff."
Now in a 2019 interview with Metallica fan magazine So What!, Hetfield says that Newsted probably did approach he and Ulrich about the lack of bass at some point. Hetfield adds that it wasn't a shot at Newsted either, but the result of the band being genuinely burnt out.
"He probably did. I don't know what my answer was then, but it was kinda done. I mean, I will say, it was not all about, 'Fuck him. Let's turn him down.' That's for sure. We wanted the best-sounding record we could make. That was our goal. We were burnt. We were frigging fried. Going back and forth [between touring and mixing the album]. Playing a gig. No earplugs, no nothing. You go back into the studio, your hearing is shot. If your ears can't hear any high end anymore, you're gonna turn it up. So we're turning the high end up more and more and more and all of a sudden, low end's gone. So I know that played a bigger part than any hazing or any ill feelings towards Jason, for sure. We were fried. We were burnt."
In an interview for the band's Youtube channel in 2018, Ulrich defends the album's production by saying it's "all about balances" and "the result of instinctive choices." Ulrich backs up the "balances" comment by saying the choice "was not necessarily about the big picture," which sounds accurate, but then adds that "it was about the way that it could all coexist without anybody having to take a back step." Which does not seem at all accurate.
"It's all about balances. So we found a way to get — I guess primarily James and I — to have our voices in the writing, in the parts, in the sonics. And it was not necessarily about the big picture, but it was about the way that it could all coexist without anybody having to take a back step, or it was like we were all chained together. And so we would move forward. This was the way it worked."
"We didn't sit there and go, 'A year from now, we're gonna have a record that sounds this particular way.' I don't know if the word 'accidental' [applies], but it's just the result of instinctive choices that were made along the way to make it work, to keep people at bay — all that kind of shit."
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