Jason Newsted Is Not Happy About His Leaked Comment On Van Halen Tribute Show

Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted recently spoke about a leaked reveal of a Van Halen tribute tour and stated how disappointing that was.

Jason Newsted recently made it to the news by revealing a tribute concert for the iconic band Van Halen which disbanded after Eddie Van Halen’s death in 2020. The supposed tour included Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen and guitarist Joe Satriani. However, it caused some problems that the news got out there before technicalities were settled.

Since there are usually so many ideas revolving in the music industry, it’s always safer for artists to settle things before announcing their projects. However, things don’t always go as planned, and sometimes musicians’ comments can be exposed by the interviewers, like in Jason Newsted’s case. This accident made him feel ill toward journalists, and most recently, he talked about his intentions for that interview.

He talked and opened up about his benefit project, The Chophouse Band, which deserved decent news coverage. Nonetheless, the journalist focused on the Van Halen reunion, which he revealed in a moment of excitement. He explained this situation in his recent interview with Gater Bites and admitted having second thoughts about doing interviews in the future.

Here is what Newsted first said about the leak:

“That was bad, dude. I’m not happy about that. I’m not happy about that. I don’t do very many interviews anymore, and I agreed to do that to promote the show for the kids. We do benefit shows to put paintbrushes and guitars in kids’ hands. That’s what I’m doing now. The Metallica ‘Black Album’ did so well, and it still does to this moment, and because of that, I’m able to do what I want with whatever projects I have going.

The Chophouse Band is the longest-running project. The things that we do five to six times a year. We do benefits, period, for art programs for kids. That’s it, music classes and art programs. That’s why I agreed to do that interview, which was to forward the information about the Goldner Conservatory at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre that’s going to have classes for kids and do exactly what I said.

So if I go to talk about that, and I mentioned two little things over here about the calls that I’ve received in the past 20 years from whoever it is, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, whatever; man, whatever. I was just listing a list of the calls that I received over time that never went anywhere.”

He continued:

“I only said yes to a couple of the 30 that I received, and I mentioned a couple of them that impressed me. People that if I didn’t have their records, I wouldn’t play the way I do. They called me on my home phone and said, ‘You wanna come and jam with us?’ I’m off the ground; I’m levitating. I’m, like, ‘Why would Aerosmith call me?’ That’s a big frickin’ deal to a kid. Just a kid from a farm in Michigan, and a guy from Aerosmith calls and asks me to play bass?

However, many years later, when you stole that album from your brother’s collection. It’s frickin’ huge. That’s all I was doing. I talked about two seconds about that, and that’s what they chose to go for. They didn’t talk about the Conservatory, the kids’ classes, the things that we’re doing, The Chophouse Band, and why we do that we do. That really rubbed me wrong. I don’t know what interviews I’ll do again. I’m not sure if I’ll say yes to anything. She got disinvited to the show. She probably doesn’t give a sh*t. I don’t really know, and I don’t really care.”

You can watch the interview below.