Physicist took several years to come to fruition. Townsend had previously played with Metallica's then-bassist Jason Newsted, in a short-lived thrash metal project called IR8. After the creation of an IR8 demo tape, Townsend and Jason Newsted began work on a new project called Fizzicist, which they claimed would be "heavier than Strapping Young Lad". When the IR8 tape was leaked, Newsted's Metallica bandmates James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich learned of the project. Hetfield was "fucking pissed" that Newsted was playing outside the band, and Newsted was prevented by his bandmates from working on any more side projects. Unable to continue working with Newsted, Townsend instead wrote the album himself, entitling it Physicist. Townsend assembled his bandmates from his extreme metal side project Strapping Young Lad. This was the only time this lineup was featured on one of Townsend's solo albums. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.