Nearly four decades after its release, producer Flemming Rasmussen is still trying to solve the mystery of the missing bass on Metallica‘s 1988 classic, …And Justice For All. In a new interview, the legendary producer recounted his own shock at hearing the final mix and offered his long-held, two-part theory for why Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield buried Jason Newsted‘s parts: it was a combination of grief over Cliff Burton and a cruel hazing of the new guy.
Speaking with Chile’s Futuro radio, Rasmussen, who also produced the band’s iconic Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets albums, recalled the moment drummer Lars Ulrich first played him the final album.
“When he came and played …And Justice For All for me, I just looked at him and said, ‘What’s that?’” Rasmussen recounted. “He said, ‘That’s the mix.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not. You forgot the bass.’ But there’s no bass on there.”
Rasmussen explained that after he recorded the album with the band, they hired mixers Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero. According to the story he’s heard, Ulrich and Hetfield directed the final sound, first instructing them to “take the bass down so you can just hear it,” and then demanding they “take it three dB [decibels] more down.”
Over the years, Rasmussen has developed his own theory for this infamous decision. The first part, he believes, was an unconscious reaction to the grief of losing their original bassist, Cliff Burton, two years prior.
“I think that’s the point where Lars and James realized that, ‘We don’t have Cliff anymore. It’s not his bass. It’s a totally different sound.’ And I just think they couldn’t relate to that at the point. That’s probably half of it,” he speculated.
The other half, he suggests, may have been a brutal form of hazing for the new bassist, Jason Newsted.
“But the other half is what they hated most about Jason was that he was such a Metallica fan, so every time they asked him anything, he just did it,” Rasmussen said. “So I think they took it down just to piss him off, ’cause they were expecting him to say, ‘Can you turn the bass up?’ And he probably never did. That’s why the bass is so low. But I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know.”
He concluded with an ironic observation about the album’s powerful but bass-less legacy. “I read somewhere recently that …And Justice For All is the number one album in the world that people say is the reason why they started their own band,” he said, before adding with a laugh: “So if you wanna start a new band, don’t be a bass player.”
