Jason Newsted, who joined Metallica as their bassist in 1986 after the tragic death of Cliff Burton and remained with them through 2001, is now selling some of the iconic gear he used during his time in the band on Reverb. “I’m teaming up with Reverb to sell some pieces from my collection for the very first time,” he says. “The last 30 or 40 years as I’ve traveled around playing music for people, I’ve gathered some cool shit. 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!”
The gear he’s parting ways with includes the 1992 Alembic Europa Custom 10-string bass that he used on the Black Album tour, of which he says: “This is a very special piece of metal history and it’s one of one. This thing is a beast…you have to be a straight badass to carry it, let alone play it.”
He’s also selling the 5-string fretless Zon bass that he says was used to record “Until It Sleeps” and still features the settings marking tape from the studio sessions. “This is a piece of metal lore right here,” he says. “You have the song in your collection [and] that’s the bass that played it.”
Other items he’s selling include his 1989 20th anniversary Alembic bass (numbered 6 of 200) that he says was one of his first Alembic basses and can be seen in the A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica documentary, a rare cherry sunburst-finished PRS bass that he used on the …And Justice For All tour, a 1937 resonator guitar, a 1928 mandolin, a few guitars that were hand-painted by Newsted, and more.
See all the gear he’s selling at Reverb and watch a video of Jason showing a bunch of it off and talking about all of it below.