Ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted covered Bob Seger’s Turn The Page with his Chophouse Band as their North American tour kicked off on Wednesday (July 1).
The group, where Newsted handles vocals and guitar, performed the 1972 track as part of a covers-heavy set at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, Massachusetts. They also played tracks by Neil Young, Blue Öyster Cult, John Baez and more.
No Metallica original made the cut, but according to setlist wiki setlist.fm, the band jammed the bridge of Creeping Death during a musical rendition of Mark Twain’s poem The War Prayer. Turn The Page was also famously covered by Metallica during Newsted’s time in the band, making the tracklisting of 1998 covers project Garage, Inc..
Watch footage of Newsted’s live take below.
Newsted joined Metallica in late 1986 – shortly after the death of the band’s previous bassist Cliff Burton in a bus accident, aged 24 – and stayed in the lineup until early 2001. He played on four studio albums of original material, including 1991’s blockbuster Metallica, which made the metal giants a household name and has sold upwards of 30 million copies worldwide.
Newsted quit Metallica due to mounting personal and creative tensions within the group. He initially attributed the exit to “private and personal reasons and the physical damage I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love”.
In subsequent interviews, he elaborated that he was banned from pursuing outside musical projects by singer/guitarist James Hetfield.
During a 2001 Playboy interview, Hetfield reasoned, “When someone does a side project, it takes away from the strength of Metallica … Where would it end? Does he start touring with it? Does he sell shirts? Is it his band?”
But, two years later, the frontman admitted that he had been “choking” his longtime bass player.
“We were brothers,” he reflected, “and I was trying so hard to keep that that I was choking Jason … That’s how I was taught to control things: through intimidation and rage.”
In May, Newsted revealed that substance addiction also contributed to his departure.
He told YouTuber Dean Delray: “The reason I left Metallica is because I was a horrible addict. I was way up against myself, and if I didn’t get some kind of help, I was going to die. And so I just said, ‘You guys, can I have a minute? Please give me a minute.’ And they said, ‘No.’”
He also revealed that he had recently undergone treatment for throat cancer and been given the all-clear by doctors.
“May 8 of 2025, I underwent a procedure for throat cancer,” he remembered. “And so they took a bunch of shit outta here and then they went in with lasers this way and took a bunch of shit out. So the cavern inside my head is different than it was, but we got it early.”
The Chophouse Band, named after Newsted’s personal recording studio in San Francisco, will continue their North American tour at Mickey’s Black Box in Lititz, Pennsylvania tonight (July 3). From July 9, the band will support Blackberry Smoke on a string of US shows.
Meanwhile, Metallica are gearing up to play the last two shows of their three-year-long M72 world tour in London, UK tonight and on Sunday, July 5.
