The group, dubbed Newsted, released their debut EP Metal in January of this year as a power trio with drummer Jesus Mendez Jr. and guitarist Jessie Farnsworth. A few months later, they added Staind guitarist Mike Mushok, and released their full length, Heavy Metal Music.

Although Newsted has gotten on the mic before, notably in his short-lived band Papa Wheelie, most fans have never seen him as a frontman. He tells Radio.com that he didn't put too much thought into getting on the mic.

"It was not a grand plan, or anything that was over-thought," says Newsted. "It's something that just transpired. In August of 2012 I started making some demos. And we recorded six songs in October of last year [for the Metal EP] and 'Soldierhead' got played on the radio, and next thing you know, it got a lot of attention. The word was out that I was gonna try something again � and I hadn't planned on doing anything else again. It got attention. I got Mikey [Mushok] in the band. And the reason that I decided to go for the vocal thing myself: [It was] my own lyrics, for the first time, my voice fronting the band, it felt appropriate to put my name on it."

"The singing thing has been coming for a long time," he continues. "Echobrain [his first post-Metallica band], I started trying to sing a bit instead of just growl. Once Voivod happened, I started taking lessons from Snake [frontman Denis B�langer], learned how to sing a little bit better and weave words and everything. And then Papa Wheelie, I started playing guitar and singing, and actually starting to sing in a singing voice. For ten or twelve years, I've been working on my singing voice. And I think it was probably ready for these songs now. It's appropriate that I write the lyrics and sing to this stuff because of the way the songs are built, it's pretty much a call and response kind of trip. 'Cause I can't really play busy bass parts while I'm trying to sing. So it's riff, sing, riff, sing. Like Mot�rhead!"

He had a similar approach to the entire Newsted project: "It was a really organic thing, there was no grand plan. We were just gonna put it on iTunes and see if anybody gave a s***. And then a bunch of people cared."

When Newsted enlisted Mushok, the band filled out. One guitar became two, and their sound grew from power trio to a full on metal band. It But before Mushock joined, he � and many other fans � heard the song "Soldierhead," a lean and powerful, song both musically and lyrically.