Recently talking to Metallica’s fanzine So What!, former bassist Jason Newsted was asked how he dealt with the huge success of Metallica’s 1991 ”The Black” album.
Here’s what he said:
“All of us experienced some kind of swelly head at different levels for different amounts of time through this three-year span. [It was] inevitable and impossible for it not to happen… I remember me personally, when I went shopping with [Metallica guitarist] Kirk [Hammett] in Paris, and he took to me a couple of nice, nice stores, and I threw down a lot of money for some nice clothes and shoes and stuff. I’d never done that before. And I thought I was the s*it…
”So I did get caught in the moment. I think that I’ve been really, really frugal with my earnings, and so that’s why I still have them. But I did have a couple of moments there. But that was the time — dropping all this money for wine and fancy s*it… And I think it lasted for about — I’d say five to six months, for myself, that it was just that ‘walking on air.’ Everywhere that you went, in the 55 countries that we played in, they’re waiting for you when you f**king there… What are you supposed to do?”
He was also asked how he “caught himself” before going off the deep end, saying:
“I think when I came back home on the one break to be with my girl again, I just realized that that’s not who I am. It just is not who I am. I pretended I was gonna get this fancy car and all that s*it. I’m, like, ‘Dude, you know that you’d rather have a ’65 Mopar, ’68 Mopar than you would that f**king Lamborghini bull**it anyway.’ But those guys were driving Porsches and fancy cars and stuff, and I’m, like, ‘I can afford that too.'”