The producer tells Rolling Stone: "Jason is one hell of a bass player. I'm probably one of the only people in the world, including Jason and Toby Wright, the assistant engineer, who heard the bass tracks on �And Justice for All, and they are f***ing brilliant. It was Lars and James who said to turn the bass down. I know that for a fact because I asked them."

Newsted was hired to replace Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident in 1986. He'd previously played with thrash outfit Flotsam and Jetsam on their record, Doomsday For The Deceiver.

Rasmussen admits that, on hindsight, the band feel they did not give the bassist the respect he deserved. He says: "He always more or less was the new kid. I actually had him practice bass when me and Lars would be doing drums. And I'd ask Toby to do some bass sounds with Jason to run it through a few times, and we'd go, 'This is great. This is not great. Do this, do that.' And we'd let them bang it out after we'd left for the night.