Ex-METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted has hit out at Lars Ulrich for stating in a recent radio interview that Newsted seemed "lost" by accepting the job as OZZY OSBOURNE's new four-stringer.

"If Lars was good enough he would have joined OZZY, too," Jason told Greek magazine Rock On. "Lars can kiss my ass. I think that he doesn't remember which band was opening the shows for OZZY back in 1986 [referring to METALLICA's opening slot with OSBOURNE—ed.]."

Jason Newsted, who is still a "full-time member" of VOIVOD, will pull double duty both on this summer's Ozzfest and the BLACK SABBATH singer's Canadian tour in June.

OSBOURNE with special guests VOIVOD start the Canadian tour June 1 in Vancouver. Ozzfest 2003 begins June 28 in San Antonio.

OZZY OSBOURNE drummer Mike Bordin says that he is excited about working with his band's newest member, former METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted. "It's exciting to me, I mean, I've known [Jason] for 15 years," he said. "I've known him since he replaced my friend [Cliff Burton]. That was my friend in METALLICA that died. I mean that was the first person I've ever played music with was Cliff. So, I've known the guy. I'm comfortable. I've seen him coming 14 years now, so I think I'm ready."

Osbourne's former bassist, Robert Trujillo, ironically enough, has just joined METALLICA's lineup, which Bordin thinks is sort of like a baseball trade. He says: "It's (Red Sox shortstop) Nomar (Garciaparra) for (New York Yankees shortstop) Derek Jeter. There's no (Texas Rangers shortstop Alex Rodriguez) A-Rods here."

Trujillo's last gig with Osbourne's band was Friday (March 14th). Trujillo had been Ozzy's bass player since 1995.

Metallica has named former Suicidal Tendencies/Ozzy Osbourne band member Rob Trujillo as its new bassist. Trujillo replaces Jason Newsted, who departed in early 2001, and will appear on the quartet's upcoming studio album, "St. Anger," due June 10 from Elektra. Longtime producer Bob Rock has played bass at sporadic concert experiences and in the studio with Metallica since Newsted's departure, and the group had been vague as to whether or not it was seeking a full-time fourth member.

Earlier this month, Metallica announced its North American Summer Sanitarium tour with Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park, but evaded questions on the open bass position. The band's connection to Trujillo stretches back to 1993, when Suicidal Tendencies toured with Metallica, and a post on the band's Web site implies that Trujillo was present for much of the new album's recording sessions.

"When Rob came to San Francisco the first time and jammed with us, we all felt this incredible magic between the four of us," the band writes. "It was just something we could not describe, we all just knew it."

Additionally, drummer Lars Ulrich writes, "The last two years of just being the three of us have taught me soo [sic] much about myself, about James and Kirk and about Metallica. To welcome Rob into Metallica in 2003 after all the growth and soul searching we've been through for the last two years, feels ... awesome. Being at full strength again is at this moment indescribable."

Meanwhile, the band has confirmed 16 dates for the Summer Sanitarium tour, including a July 26 performance at the Hawthorne Racetrack in Chicago and an Aug. 9 date at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Among the cities still awaiting dates and venues are New York, San Francisco, and Toronto. Updates will be posted on Metallica's Web site.

Metallica will embark on a brief tour of the European festival circuit before its North American outing, and continue to sprinkle in overseas dates throughout the summer. The group is pegged to play dates June 6 at the Rock Im Park festival in Nuremberg, Germany, and will travel between continents until a pair of gigs Aug. 22 and 24 at the U.K.'s Reading and Leeds festivals.

As for Newsted, the bassist has become a official member of veteran metal act Voivod. He also produced the band's upcoming self-titled album, which is due March 4 via Newsted's Surfdog imprint Chophouse Records.

-- Todd Martens, L.A.

The forthcoming VOIVOD CD, "The Multiverse", sounds "exactly like METALLICA meets VOIVOD," according to former METALLICA and current VOIVOD bassist Jason Newsted, who has just finished mixing the album for a tentative Mar. 4, 2003 release. "I have retained the distortion, the constant bass distortion — a little tighter — but it's still there for VOIVOD the way it always was as far as VOIVOD goes," Newsted told Canada's Chart Attack. "But, added to it, is the girth of the METALLICA bass, the 'Black Album' bass sound, those kinds of things that sound huge, huge, huge, an enveloping low end. So both things exist, something that was never there before for a VOIVOD album. Everything else is still intact. Drumming is still fucking crazy, double bass drums every song, Snake is back a full 110 per cent and Piggy's fucked up tunings, Piggy chords exclusive to Piggy… all of that is still absolutely alive."

With regards to the upcoming album's lyrical content, Newsted explained, "It's [Snake's] own thing because of the translation from French. The direct translation cuts through all the shit. The thing is that no person that speaks English as their first language would write it that way because of the way we've been programmed. And when we hear it back so plainly, it's kind of like Yoda-speak, but way more intelligent. Because he doesn't use the little in between words that you would know from knowing the English language first — ands and ares and all these things — he goes boom, boom, boom. All the words next to each other, they can create sentences and/or phrases that mean five different things. On one of his best vocal performances, he says 'It's so good to see you again.' And I know what he means and we all know what he means. He's actually singing about the power of the music and what it does to people. But when he says that line, he's saying it to Michel, he's saying it to me, he's saying it to the crowd, he's saying it to the music, he's saying it to the microphone, he's saying it to his mind, he's saying it to the paper and pencil. I mean it's fuckin'... it's like that."