Artisan News caught up with NEWSTED/ex-METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted to chat about his new album, Heavy Metal Music, at Looney Tunes in West Babylon, New York yesterday (Tuesday, August 6th).

Jason also talks about a rumored jam with Dave Mustaine or MEGADETH, covering some old Metallica tunes on Gigantour.

"We're at the end of Gigantour now - we've been about a month. And what you're speaking of is a rumor that started that we were gonna play some old Metallica songs, or maybe an old Metallica song together - Dave Mustaine and myself. But it was mostly created by kind of rumor and agents and managers and things like that, early on when we were putting together the structure of this tour, that "maybe you and Jay can play a song". It was never something that I said or that Dave said, teh managers said to us, and now Dave and I have spoken of it. But the way that this tour is going, it's just kind of crazy and we haven't gotten to that point yet. So we've traded lyric sheets, we've traded downtuned versions of 'Phantom Lord' and 'Metal Militia' to try to figure out what song we're gonna play, but it has never come to fruition, and we only have a few shows left. So I'm not sure if it actually ever is. I'm open to jam with anybody whenever anybody wants to jam... I think that's not really a secret or nothing... so if dude calls out 'Phantom Lord', I'll sing it or play bass guitar or whatever he wants; that's all fine. But I'm just not sure it's going to happen. As a fan, jamming with Dave, coming from back here… 'cause I was a fan of Dave before we were brothers and peers and stuff like that. So, man, if he wants to jam, I'm open to that, of course. I WANT TO JAM DUDE!"

Watch the video interview below:

Remaining Gigantour dates, featuring Megadeth, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, DEVICE, HELLYEAH, and Newsted, include:

August

7 - Manhattan, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom
9 - Camden, NJ - Susquehanna Bank Center
10 - Montreal, QC - Heavy Metal 2013
11 - Toronto, ON - Molson Canadian Amphitheatre