Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted has teamed with Reverb to sell instruments from his personal collection, including some integral items from the heavy metal band’s history.
Among the instruments for sale at the Official Jason Newsted Reverb Shop, opening on July 24, are basses used on the band’s tour in support of LPs …And Justice for All and the “Black Album,” as well as ones used in the recording of Metallica’s music.
“I’m teaming up with Reverb to sell some pieces from my collection for the very first time. The last 30 or 40 years as I’ve traveled around playing music for people, I’ve gathered some cool shit,” Newsted said in a statement.
“I traveled the world to collect these pieces and many of these pieces have traveled the world with me. I’d like to get them into the hands of other players because I can only play so many at once, and wonderful guitars such as these should not live in cases forever…they deserve to be enjoyed!”
Metallica released their sophomore album, Ride the Lighting, 40 years ago today. Read our retrospective essay below, and grab the album on limited-edition electric blue vinyl. Also catch Metallica on tour this summer.
The first four Metallica albums are among the genre’s most powerful and enduring documents, and while the band’s debut LP, Kill ‘Em All, was a landmark for thrash metal, Ride the Lightning presented a quantum leap in terms of songwriting and structure.
Kill ‘Em All leaned heavily on elements of boogie beats nabbed from ’70s Judas Priest and the heavy swung feel to fast-paced riffs that Dave Mustaine would eventually take with him to Megadeth, but Ride the Lightning, released July 27th, 1984, almost wholly struck the swung-boogie vibe from its mostly slower-paced riffs, focusing instead on a near neo-classical sense of grandeur plucked more from the pages of groups like Rush, Rainbow, Blue Öyster Cult, and even Priest’s more grandiloquent epics than bands like Sweet or even the more rock ‘n’ roll end of hardcore punk, a genre whom the members of the band were vocal fans.
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