How many artist can you link?

Sort of like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

I'm going to link singer/bassist Jason Newsted to singer/bassist Tom Araya at least nine times.

• Jason's first band Flotsam and Jetsam would release their first album (which he played on) on Metal Blade Records, who had signed Slayer for their first 2 albums, a live album, and an E.P. 3 links.
• Jason appeared on Tony Iommi and Ian Gillan's charity super group, WhoCares, along with Mikko Lindström, of HIM. Ville Valo would sing vocals on Apocalyptica's 2007 Self-Titled Album on the song "Bittersweet." Dave Lombardo of Slayer played guest drums on the same album for the song "Betrayal/Forgiveness." 4 Links.
• Jason would play in Metallica for 13 years, whose guitarist Kirk Hammett had formerly played in Exodus. Long-time Exodus guitarist Gary Holt would fill in for Jeff Hanneman on tour, and go on to record guitar-parts for Slayer's upcoming 11th album. 4 links.
• After Jason's departure, Metallica would record Death Magnetic with Rick Rubin, long-time producer of Slayer. 3 Links.
• Robert Trujillo, Jason's replacement in Metallica would play bass on Jerry Cantrell's Degradation Trip, post Alice in Chains (he also has played with Ozzy Osbourne's band, and had Ozzy's vocals featured on the Infectious Grooves song "Therapy," the importance of which I bring up below). Alice in Chains featured Tom Araya on their album Dirt in the "Iron Gland" hidden track. 3 Links.
• Metallica's first two albums were released through Megaforce Records, also holding the band Testament. Testament would record their Return to the Apocalyptic City E.P with Paul Bostaph, who would go on to play two tenures in Slayer. 6 Links.
• Jason's band Echo Brain was signed to Surfdog Records, who released the Music for Our Mother Ocean benefit compilation, featuring a contribution of "Netty's Girl" by The Beastie Boys, who would feature Kerry King of Slayer playing a guitar solo on "No Sleep till Brooklyn" on their Licensed to Ill album (also, both Slayer and the Beastie Boys were signed to Def Jam records). 5 Links.
• Jason's newest band simply called Newsted features guitar-work by Mike Mushok of Staind. Staind's Dysfunction album was produced by Terry Date, who also produced Primitive by Soulfly, which featured guest-vocals by Tom Araya on the track "Terrorist." 5 Links.
• Here's the longest one of them all (prepare for a run-on sentence): Jason took part in Rock Star Supernova with Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe, who started Methods of Mayhem, a band containing Marty O'Brien, a session bass-player later hired to play in We Are The Fallen, an off-shoot of old Evanescence members, who currently contain Will Hunt on drums, a session drummer who has played for Black Label Society, known for being started by Zakk Wylde of Ozzy Osbourne's band, who has at one point contained Mike Bordin of Faith No More on drums, a band fronted by Mike Patton, who also started Fantômas, a band containing Dave Lombardo of Slayer on drums. If I wanted to make that shorter, I could cite the Rock Star Supernova being released on Epic Records, who also have Ozzy Osbourne on their roster. I could also go into Marty O'Brien filling in on touring bass for Disturbed, whose front man started a side-project called Device, containing Will Hunt on drums and featuring Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath on one track (Ozzy's old band). Overall, it tops out at about 15 links.

This is without repeating any path-ways (unless you count Tom's band-mates as pathways).

I'm not including tours, live appearances and covers, since that can make plenty of vague relations.

I think in general Mike Patton is a good candidate for Kevin Bacon of rock vocalists. With drummers, it'd probably be Dave Grohl or Josh Freese.

Just because I think it's hilarious that it's possible (and remarkably easy at that), I will now link GG Allin to Kelly Clarkson in a mere three steps:

• GG Allin's Hated in the Nation had J Mascis on lead guitar. J Mascis produced the fIREHOSE album Mr. Machinery Operator and contributed backing vocals, guitar, and bass to certain songs on the album ^note  Alternate links between J Mascis and Mike Watt: J Mascis played on the Mike Watt solo album Ball-hog Or Tug Boat, and the two also collaborated on a cover of "What We Do is Secret" for a tribute album to The Germs. fIREHOSE bassist Mike Watt also played bass on Kelly Clarkson's album My December.

edited 6th Feb '14 5:17:38 PM by MikeK

Two fun ones, both long but intriguing:

• Colin Newman of Wire plays in Githead with Robin Rimbaud, alias Scanner, whose most recent album features contributions from Michael Gira of Swans fame; Gira, in turn, has recorded with or produced the music of a plethora of strange people, including Low, Devendra Banhart, Akron/Family, James Blackshaw, St. Vincent, Annie Anxiety, and sundry members of Test Dept, Prong, Shearwater, Pain Teens, Transmission, Sonic Youth, Ritual Tension and god only knows who else; through James Blackshaw he is tied to Current 93 and thus Sunn O))) and Andrew W.K. (who also toured with them), the latter of whom was part of the same Ann Arbor noise scene as Wolf Eyes; said band has collaborated with jazz great Anthony Braxton as well as the aforementioned Sonic Youth who, like Gira and several other Swans members, were involved in Glenn Branca's guitar orchestras; Branca emerged out of the same downtown minimalist scene as Philip Glass, yet was also involved with the No Wave scene documented by Brian Eno; Eno, in turn, often rode the train with Colin Newman during his art school days and discussed art theory, and later collaborated with Wire member Graham Lewis on a solo outing.
• The eccentric but successful Scottish pop group Associates had a drummer by the name of John Murphy, who moonlighted as an industrial musician and played with Nurse With Wound and Whitehouse; one early Whitehouse alumnus was Kevin Tomkins, who in addition to his SJ work founded a rather strange rock band, yclept Bodychoke; one of Bodychoke's drummers was Manu Ros, also formerly of Cranes, who toured with The Cure; and The Cure's first bassist, Michael Dempsey, after being ousted circa 1979, went on to join the Associates.

edited 6th Feb '14 9:09:11 PM by JHM

Lemme try:

• Nujabes has a song called "Mystline" which samples a song called "Here's That Rainy Day" by Paul Horn.
• Gang Starr's "In Memory Of..." from their album Moment of Truth samples the same song.
• The song "Betrayal" from the same album samples War's "Deliver the Word" from the album of the same name.
• The song "H2 Overture" from the same album is sampled on The Avalanches' "Summer Crane" from the album Since I Left You.
• Their song "Flight Tonight" contains a De La Soul sample.
• On their album Three Feet High and Rising, the song "Me, Myself, and I" samples the George Clinton-headed Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep".
• For some time, Bootsy Collin's was the bassist for many of Clinton's music.
• Bootsy Collin's "I'd Rather Be With You" was featured in Grand Theft Auto V.
• D-Train's "You're the One For Me" was featured in the same game, on the same station, no less.
• The main riff in "You're the One For Me" is interpolated somewhat in Morning Musume's "Love Machine".
• "Love Machine" came out in 1999, the name of a Prince song.
• "1999" came out in 1982, the same year Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" was released.
• Afrika Bambaataa made a song with James Brown.
• James Brown contributed a song for the movie Black Caesar, which gets shouted out by Public Enemy on "Burn Hollywood Burn".
• Public Enemy would later go on to release a song called "Get Up, Stand Up", which shares its title with a Bob Marley song.
• Bob Marley's youngest son is Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, who has contributed vocals to the Skrillex song "Make It Bun Dem".

And that's how I connected Nujabes to Skrillex. How'd I do?

edited 7th Feb '14 7:44:41 PM by PhysicalStamina

Marty O'Brien worked on Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway album, which ties GG Allen to everyone in the OP. This could probably make one hell of a massive chart.

I feel like sampling is stretching quite a bit, in the same way I chose not to include covers, or venture outside the music medium.

edited 12th Feb '14 3:20:55 AM by Alucard

IIRC there's a webpage that finds the links between two artists.

I can connect Khanate, Merzbow, Public Enemy, Neil Young, Flying Lotus and Andrew W.K. with relatively little effort.