Six years elapsed between the release of the band's last album, Reload, and their recording of the album, which began in 2002. Many factors contributed to this delay, the two most important being the departure of bassist Jason Newsted, and because of the amount of time spent by vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield[?] in rehab.
Jason Newsted cited several reasons for his leaving the band, the most important being Hetfield questioning his loyalty to the band, due to his participation in other bands. Producer Bob Rock played bass for the recording of the album, and a permanent replacement has since been found—Rob Trujillo, formerly of Suicidal Tendencies and Ozzy Osbourne's band. Jason Newsted has now become Ozzy Osbourne's new bass player.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump