With a metal “Geeks of Doom”, ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted is ready to talk. After 15 years with the world’s biggest metal band – and spells with Voivod, Ozzy Osbourne, Echobrain, and Flotsam and Jetsam – the extremely talented Newsted is clearly a member of rock royalty.

Back with a new band that he fronts, Newsted, and a new four-song EP entitled simply Metal, out on iTunes today, he is hungry to get back out there and play the music he loves and we need to hear.

“Kicking the ass” of a holiday bug, I caught up with Newsted on the eve of the release of Metal to discuss his new EP, getting back out on tour, and why James Hetfield is “untouchable.”

Geeks of Doom: Tomorrow is the day. Do you always feel the same way on the eve of an EP or an album release, or does this feel different, does this feel special?

Jason Newsted: It’s always exciting. I mean like the nervous excitement and that kind of thing. Putting yourself out there like that always kind of gives the nervous excitement. But it is different this time, it has been a long time since I had this feeling [laughs] and it’s magnified a bit because it’s my name, I wrote all the songs, all the parts myself, and created pretty much all [the music] and then put it together with my boys [guitarist Jessie Farsnworth and drummer Jesus Mendez Jr.]. So it is the first time I’ve done that. I mean, I wrote stuff in Flotsam [Flotsam & Jetsam] back in the day on bass and then we kind of made compositions out of it, but I constructed all these songs on guitar and I composed all the pieces.

With all the talk in the last few years of the “˜Big 4′ of thrash metal and their all-conquering tour, it might be easy to forget where it all began. The U.S. heavyweights of the genre have reigned almost uninterrupted for nearly 30 years. But it might not have been that way had it not been for a metal sub-genre created in the UK.

British director Josh Callis-Smith has spent the last few years speaking to everyone involved in the UK thrash scene, from pivotal musicians to young upstarts, collating them for his documentary, A History Of A Time To Come – The Story Of UK Thrash. As a member of the band Pitiful Reign at the turn of the century, he was perfectly placed for the “˜second wave’ of British thrash that we are seeing now.

I caught up with Josh to ask him about his film, the current UK thrash scene, and how British band Venom was pivotal to the entire genre.

Geeks of Doom: What was it about UK thrash that drew you to make a film about it?

Josh Callis-Smith: It’s interesting really because I had a friend that used to roadie for Re-Animator and I remember when I first started getting into metal I went round [to his house] and I was like, Check this out – [Metallica album] Master of Puppets! He was like, You like Master of Puppets? Check this out! and he gave me Deny Reality [EP] by Re-Animator and Moshkinstein by Acid Reign. That got me interested in UK thrash bands; that’s where it came from. [Some time later] I was trying to research these bands and not being able to find much about them made me think, Why don’t I just go out and talk to them, actually find out what happened? That was the idea where the film came from.

There is no question who the Queen of Metal is. Famous for heavy metal anthems such as “All We Are,” German goddess Doro Pesch has been supplying heavy metal to the world for nearly 30 years.

With a bulldozing new album, Raise Your Fist and a European and U.S. tour to follow, Doro sat down just long enough to talk about her music, her fans, and the legendary Ronnie James Dio.

Geeks of Doom: You have a European tour starting soon, followed by a U.S. tour – are you excited?

Doro Pesch: Very excited, very excited! The guys of the band arrived [in Germany] yesterday. Today is the first rehearsal, Wednesday we start. All over England and France and Germany and Spain…we’re heading for the UK tour on the 20th November…and then the beginning of January we’re going to America and doing the 70000 Tons of Metal cruise ship. You’ve probably heard about it, so much fun! And we’re doing the same in May, it’s for the Europeans, it’s called the Full Metal Cruise and it goes from Hamburg to Paris to London to Amsterdam and back to Hamburg. So yeah, lots of exciting stuff!

Geeks of Doom: And this is all in support of your new album Raise Your Fist – what has the reception been like so far?

Beacon Theatre: Live From New York
Joe Bonamassa
Provogue Records
September 25, 2011 US: CD | MP3
September 24, 2011 UK: CD | MP3

Albums with Black Country Communion, a duet with Beth Hart, a solo album, and inspired guest appearances with the likes of Lesley West and Derek Sherinian has seen majestically talented blues rock singer and guitarist Joe Bonamassa finally start to get the recognition he deserves. After over 12 years he has been slowly improving over his 14 solo albums and the last year or so has seen him in a rich vein of form.

During this time the king of modern blues rock recorded his fourth live album, Beacon Theatre: Live From New York on November 5, 2011. It’s an impressive 2-disc set with some of Bonamassa’s finest recent work including “When The Fire Hits The Sea,” “Dust Bowl,” “Blue And Evil,” and striking covers of Gary Moore’s “Midnight Blues” and Rory Gallagher’s “Cradle Rock.”

Hammered: Heavy Tales From The Hard-Rock Highway
By Kirk Blows
Plexus Publishing Ltd
Available now US | UK

In the 1980s the rock journalist’s life was one of sharing long bar tabs, exotic substances, and stinging hangovers with our music heroes. Coupled with the nefarious activities conducted in the tour buses, clubs, and just about anywhere on the sunset strip, theirs was a life we would marvel at in our favourite magazines with jealous glee.

This was the life Kirk Blows lived in his 20s as a writer for the eminent rock rags Metal Hammer, Raw, Guitar magazine, and contributor of a slightly more saucy article to Penthouse on numerous occasions. Blows has talked, toked, and toiled with bands in tour buses, clubs, and hotels across the world. Hammered: Heavy Metal Tales From The Hard Rock Highway is a collection of some of his funniest, most enlightening interviews and encounters with rock stars big and small from the 1980s and ’90s, presented it in all its colorful glory.