There has been a lot ofmudd slung in Dave Mustaine's general direction recently, and shockingly, he's kept relatively quiet. After guitarist Chris Broderick and drummer Shawn Drover announced they were leaving Megadeth, speculation ran rampant that the classic lineup of the band, which featured drummer Nick Menza and guitarist Marty Friedman would be getting back together. It almost happened but then the financial couldn't get figured out and Menza went on to publicly trash Mustaine.
For his part, Mustaine kept pretty quiet, until today. Mustaine was featured in a lengthy Rolling Stone interview where he addressed the progress of the new album: drums are done, rhythm guitar is done… there are 13 songs and two covers and it's expected to be released at the end of the year. Overall, in the interview, Mustaine tries to take the high road and not say anything controversial, which is a pleasant change for the guy that once said women in Africa should put in a plug in their vaginas to stop having babies. Here are some other highlights:
Mustaine gives his side of the story on trying to reconcile with Nick Menza and Marty Friedman:
Yeah. And contrary to all the scuttlebutt that's going around, I wish those guys the best. But their recollections of the events that led up to it and happened after are considerably different from my recollection. But here's the thing — a lot of people, they either love or hate me. If I tell anybody what happened it's not gonna change the way they feel about me. But it'll probably change the way they feel about them. And I don't want to hurt anybody. All I can say I think they're both tremendous musicians and talented guys.
On what happened when Mustaine tried to reunite the band for the first time, in the early 2000s:
After my arm was injured in 2001, if you remember at that time, we had Al Pitrelli playing guitar with us, because Marty had had a nervous breakdown and had left the band. Then my arm got hurt and I said, "Look, I'm done." I didn't touch a guitar for 17 months. My arm was so damaged I couldn't even hold a cigarette. But when I decided to come out of retirement I did reach out to David and Marty and Nick and talked to all of them about doing this again. But it just wasn't meant to happen. I think there was so much bitterness because of the people that were managing us at the time. If you poison the well you can't expect there to be an area of clean water anywhere. Everyone gets poisoned. Everyone was upset and they looked to me to blame. And I am responsible for a lot of the decisions that we make.
On drummers he considered filling in on this record:
Our hopes were to have a permanent drummer, but the option to do a record with Chris was really exciting to me. So I thought, "Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. We'll figure out what we're gonna do about live shows, who's gonna take the drum throne." And we've looked at a lot of people. I talked with my friend [ex-Dream Theater drummer] Mike Portnoy, who I think is an amazing talent. I talked to [ex-Slayer drummer] Dave Lombardo. [Current Dream Theater drummer] Mike Mangini's name has come up. But there was just something telling me to pause, saying, "Really think about who you're gonna play with, Mustaine. Make sure you're going to do something that's really going to excite people and that is not predictable." But we do have some live shows coming up and we have a drummer committed to our dates so far this year.
But one of the things that was great about having Chris come in was he's been a fan for 30 years and he was able to say, "Well, this is the stuff I like about my Megadeth." And it was "OK, cool." Because you know, when we started we were a thrash and speed metal outfit, and as we got more successful and got more critical acclaim melody seeped in.
Dave Mustaine addressed new guitarist, Kiko Loureiro and admits what we basically criticized him about… that he says every guitarist is the best he's played with:
You know, that's something that has been kind of a go-to statement for me whenever I get a new player. I usually say, "Oh, they're great, they're great," right? Because of the enthusiasm and stuff. It's like, you get a new car, you have that new car smell. But there's a difference between a guy that has talent, and a guy that has talent and personality, or a guy that has talent, personality and a sense of humor. And, you know, I wasn't really close to Chris [Broderick]. Going from Chris to Kiko, we have a bond right now where we laugh and we joke and we do stuff together.
Overall, it's a very fair interview, but the highlight for me was this out of context quote:
And there was one musician that I wanted to meet but he made me wait for an hour and a half in Japan and now he can go fuck himself.
Read the whole interview here.
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