Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted has revealed that he’s working on two new “heavy” projects.

Speaking with Gator 98.7 FM‘s “Gator Garage,” Newsted opened up about his latest musical endeavors and his return to heavy music. After re-tooling his long-running bluegrass-based group The Chophouse Band to feature elements of metal, Newsted is now going full-on heavy with two new as-yet-unnamed projects.

“I’m kind of stepping back into the heavy now,” Newsted said. “So the last couple of weeks I’ve been auditioning guitar players for a heavy project. I’m back on bass and singing with a metal drummer — double bass — you know, getting loud again. So I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire. I’m putting two new projects together right now — but loud.”

In addition to the new projects, he also worked on the first Chophouse Band album. “I spent six months of last year putting together The Chophouse Band Volume 1,” he said. “The Chophouse Band has been together making music since 1992. So it was our first album after 30 years. I spent a lot of time on that. And then, once I got that under my belt, I’m kind of stepping back into the heavy now.”

Back in April 2022, Newsted hinted that he was moving back toward his roots while discussing the new Chophouse album on Gator 98.7 FM, saying that it got to “places that are as heavy as anything else that I’d been involved with — Voivod, Ozzy, Metallica, Newsted band, any of that stuff.”

He added: “I can actually really concentrate on playing the guitar and then singing that background stuff. And there’s screaming and some [growling] also. So I still haven’t lost that. And it lets people know that there’s still one foot in that place. You can take the boy out of the metal [but] you can’t take the metal out of the boy; it’s just the way it’s always gonna be.”

The bassist previously formed the eponymous band Newsted, releasing an EP and and album in 2013 before abruptly ending the group.

Stay tuned to Heavy Consequence for updates on Newsted’s new projects. In the meantime, you can check out fan footage from one of The Chophouse Band’s 2022 concerts.