JASON NEWSTED Interview
By Erik Fong

If you think you're busier than Jason Newsted, then congratulations on being absolutely wrong. After joining Voivod and playing musical chairs with Rob Trujillo, Jason's "real" fun has only just begun. In mid-April, Voivod will hit the road with Sepultura for a month, then the Canadian thrash legends immediately head north to Canada to open for Ozzy (Newsted will pull double duty). In June, U.S. fans can see Jason continue to perform twice every night at Ozzfest - once with Voivod on the second stage, and again to close the show with Ozzy. And that's not taking into account the hours that Jason puts in promoting the new self-titled Voivod album, adding to both official Voivod web sites (www.voivod.com for current info and www.voivod.net for archived band info), and keeping the wheels churning at his new Chophouse Records label (http://www.chophouserecords.com).

We managed to chat with Jason and get a status update on his snowballing career. We're pretty lucky to have gotten time with him - word on the street is that he's so busy, he's scheduling his craps three weeks in advance.

Shock Waves: These are exciting times in the life of Jason Newsted. I've seen an insane number of interviews with you lately.
Jason Newsted: Yeah? Am I good? Do I have myself together?

SW: Yeah, you sound very excited. Are you completely sick of interviews yet?
JN: No, man. I like interviews. I always learn; other people get me to look at things differently. If I were to count how many I've done in my career, it'd easily be in the thousands. But I've always learned something from people because everyone's got a different way of looking at shit. So interviews are cool with me.

SW: How are you feeling?
JN: I'm pretty energized. I've been playing a lot of bass, so I feel good about that. Whenever I can put in at least a few solid hours in a day on my instrument, then not much else can go wrong. There's a lot of demand on my time right now.

Click Here For JASON NEWSTED Interview Page 2