After four decades on the frontlines of thrash, Megadeth are preparing to take their final bow. And as we look ahead to what will no doubt be an epic, global goodbye, we sit down with mastermind Dave Mustaine for an exclusive farewell interview, reflecting on the band’s rollercoaster ride, lessons learned the hard way, and why their music will never truly be gone…
As you’ll no doubt be aware by now, Megadeth’s forthcoming 17th and final album includes a version of Ride The Lightning, a song that Dave Mustaine, perhaps keen to emphasise his status as one of its architects, casually refers to as “RTL”.
That’s not the only role he played as guitarist for Metallica before his firing in April 1983. As well as being their lead guitarist, he had another function for the fledgling Los Angeles outfit back in the day.
“I was the one who always went to go get us paid,” recalls Dave, his voice quiet enough to test the limits of a K! writer’s transcription software. “I don’t know if it was because I was the one at the front of the line, or if I was the one who had the appearance of somebody who would be able to go in and get the band’s money. I’m not a fucking hitman or anything like that, but that’s what I did. And I learned a lot from doing that.”
While we’re relieved to hear that Dave isn’t a killer for hire, the prospect of an audience with one of the progenitors of thrash metal, and a man who has the distinction of having been in two of The Big Four, as Megadeth prepare for a lengthy victory lap, comes with a certain amount of trepidation. This is, after all, someone who’s almost as famous for not suffering fools as he is for authoring classics like Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? (1986), Rust In Peace (1990) and Countdown To Extinction (1992); and known to grind axes to dust throughout the past four decades.
Nerves aren’t necessarily helped by fact the three other members of Megadeth, hanging out at a photo studio in the shadow of The O2, are absolute sweethearts, which lulls one into a false sense of security. Virtuosic Finnish guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari – a mere kid at 38 – has been in the ranks for two years, and while he doesn’t say a great deal, he’s happy to let his music, including some blistering new solos, do the talking.
Belgian drummer Dirk Verbeuren is coming up on a decade of service, having formerly sat behind the kit for Swedish melodic death metallers Soilwork. Tall and willowy, Dirk is also incredibly modest, describing his contributions simply as being “part of the engine that drives this machine”.
Bassist James LoMenzo, meanwhile, has enjoyed two spells in the engine room – the first between 2006 and 2010, and the second since 2021 following the well-publicised sacking of Dave Ellefson. James’ drawl is warm and knowing, and the majority of the laughs today originate from him. His shades remain on throughout the afternoon and that cool extends to diffusing the odd prickly moment.
When Paul McCartney wrote the song When I’m 64, it’s unlikely he pictured a figure like Dave Mustaine. While, being in his seventh decade, Megadeth’s leader probably wouldn’t be the first person you’d send to a promoter to extract an outstanding payment, he’s intimidating rather than imposing, beginning with the fact you absolutely couldn’t mistake him for anyone else, or anyone else for him.
He looms into view, that mane of red hair contrasted by white stubble on a face adorned with deep lines either side of his mouth that create a permanent scowl. Meanwhile, his eyes narrow in the middle of several questions over the course of the next hour, which is somewhat disconcerting to this interviewer, especially when that scrutiny is magnified by the glasses Dave puts on as he sits down with his bandmates.
Are those Dave’s interview glasses, we ask by way of an icebreaker…?
“It’s so I can see your face and you don’t look like a big thumb,” he replies.
We’re not sure the glasses are going to make a difference there, we joke, hoping self-deprecation might grease the wheels of a potentially bumpy ride.
“Okay… more like a big toe, then.”
Yowzer. Strap in, this could get spicy…
“We’re easily talking about touring for another three to five years”
While a certain frisson never quite leaves proceedings, it’s par for the course. Dave is a no-bullshit guy, you see, so if you ask him something that’s a little too delicately worded, such as a round-the-houses inquiry as to why this is to be the end of Megadeth rather than his arm injury in 2002 or his 2019 cancer diagnosis, he will push you to be as direct as he is, which is fair enough.
“I think when things happen like the throat cancer, or my neck being fused, or the saturnine palsy in my arm, most people would stop,” suggests Dave, who’s had bronchitis for the past three weeks of shows on this current tour in support of Disturbed. “Most people would be terrified, and I did step back and regroup,” he says of his health challenges. “But this is what I love doing, and I know that at some point the time is going to come for our last show.”
By Dave’s reckoning, though, if the touring cycle for this new record is anything like the ones for the past couple of albums – 2016’s Dystopia and 2022’s The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! – that final show is going to be some way off.
“We're easily talking about touring for another three to five years,” suggests Dave. “And if we're going to be doing it for that long then, shit, I'll be looking at the birthday I don't even want to think about!”
Despite not being thrilled at the idea of turning 70, given that Dave has overcome addiction to drugs and alcohol and his cancer recovery is “ongoing”, it's a prospect that's surely worthy of celebration. “I'm not caught up in longevity and stuff like that, and being one of those guys who can play until he's in his 80s,” he says.
Ever the pragmatist, his focus is simply on ensuring he's operating at the best he can right now.
“I have to remember that people live and they die,” Dave says matter of factly. “And I need to take good care of myself.”
There was no one epiphanal moment that led to this being Megadeth’s final album, but a collection of realisations that pointed towards going out on top and on their own terms. “We all have family lives and home lives that need us to be there,” reasons Dave, who’s been married to his wife Pamela Anne Casselberry since 1991. “I think a lot of times when people chase success, they may already be in a relationship, and they throw it by the roadside to follow fame. That, to me, is a tragedy.”
As the recording progressed, the conversation about this becoming the full-stop on Megadeth’s studio career began in earnest, which, according to the frontman, made the importance of ensuring this was “a great fucking album” even more of a priority. That served to keep things fresh, as does having Teemu in the band, as he’s experiencing their creative process, and the wealth of touring to follow, for the first time. “That makes it a new experience for all of us as we share in that,” says Dave.
Reaching this point has given the band’s leader cause for reflection, though. There is much that Dave has loved about playing in the UK and Ireland over the years. When he became a touring musician, he knew that performing across the pond in front of discerning audiences “spoiled” by the wealth of music they were treated to was essential. Megadeth’s first-ever show in Europe was at London’s Hammersmith Odeon – now the Eventim Apollo – on March 6, 1987.
“It was such a big deal because of the Motörhead [live] record,” Dave says of No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith, though we’re loathe to point out that none of the tracks on it were recorded at that venue, and the tour it was predominantly captured on – the Short Sharp Pain In The Neck Tour – didn’t actually stop in London.
“When I saw pictures of the venue, I had the kind of reaction I expect people have when they see pictures of [New York’s iconic] Radio City Music Hall. We always made time to go and talk to the headbangers outside [the venue]. And we’d hang out with the other bands, because we were broke, we were starving, and we had nothing to drink. And by showtime, we’d made a lot of friends, been fed, got fucked-up and ready to shred.”
Dave’s inaugural trip to England coincided with his first exposure to Strongbow cider, leading to at least one instance of debauched mischief.
“I ended up pissing in my roommate’s suitcase,” he grins mischievously. “The band was split into twos at the time and the person I was rooming with had left, and I didn’t know how to work the light switches over here, so I couldn’t see and I couldn’t hold it anymore. I felt something that felt like a toilet, lifted the lid, peed inside it and went back to bed. I heard about that the next day!”
He pauses for a moment. “Then there was the famous incident in Antrim…”
The moment he refers to, but doesn’t elaborate on today, is more aptly described as ‘infamous’. On May 11, 1988, Megadeth played a show at the Antrim Forum in Northern Ireland that would, for many years, leave a black mark on the band’s reputation.
Thanks to an interaction Dave had with a man selling bootleg T-shirts before the show, not to mention a skinful of Guinness throughout the day, he ill-advisedly introduced a cover of the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK with the words: “Give Ireland back to the Irish. This one is for the cause.”
‘The cause’ is a euphemistic term for either Irish republicanism or loyalism, though in the context Dave used it, it was the former. The atmosphere that night 37 years ago immediately turned tense and even violent, as a crowd initially united by their love of metal was suddenly divided into Catholics and Protestants by their responses to what Dave had said, resulting in Megadeth having to leave the town post-show in a bulletproof bus.
It was a dangerous gaffe, though one that Dave has shown contrition for in the years since, blaming his lack of knowledge on the subject for his error in judgement. ‘I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded cool,’ he explained in his 2020 memoir Rust In Peace: The Inside Story Of The Megadeth Masterpiece (the episode and the resulting furore having inspired the track Holy Wars… The Punishment Due from that album).
It’s Dave’s words on record we’re interested to learn more about, though. With this being the final album, it’s arguably even more important to look at them through an autobiographical lens, as frustrations are exorcised and scores are settled. The opening track Tipping Point, for instance, features the lyrics, ‘I will invade your mind / Make you fear the sound / Of voices that aren’t there / With no-one else around,’ which sounds a lot like you plan on haunting someone…
“I think that’s a great idea,” grins Dave, which suggests he likes the interpretation but it’s not necessarily on the money. “I don’t think I had anybody in mind. Sometimes when you write a song about somebody, it’s not so much the person as the behaviour, the injustice. It takes a lot for me to have a friendship with somebody and throw it away, although there have been a lot of songs over the years that have a lot to do with people that were in the organisation – whether they were players or managers or the label.”
Sometimes those barbs weren’t subtle. Megadeth’s 2000 greatest hits compilation, for instance, was called Capitol Punishment – which was aimed at their former label, Capitol Records, the band’s home for seven records. Dave considered signing with them in the mid-’80s to be a dream come true, an iconic organisation that seemed to be everything that was to be desired in the music industry. That impression didn’t last.
“They got a new president there named Gary Gersh, and he just fired everybody and wanted to sign the next Nirvana, because he was the guy that signed Nirvana,” recalls Dave. “We were being mistreated towards the end and it became so unenjoyable being there that we left. I heard [Gary Gersh] fired a reggae band and they came back with machine guns and shot up the front of the [Capitol Records] building.”
Talk turns to I Don’t Care, which lists the many things Dave couldn’t give a fig about, and begins with the words: ‘I don’t care if I’m out of line / I don’t care ’cause this life is mine / I don’t care; you don’t like what I say / I don’t care and I won’t obey.’ Does this represent something of a credo after the slings and arrows he’s faced, and dispensed, over years?
Turns out he’s simply exercising his punk side, to produce something in a similar vein to Overkill’s 1995 track Fuck You. And while he stops short of sharing that sentiment in his song, he doesn’t hold back too much, with a later refrain addressing ‘A hater and a thief, a maggot in dead meat / A traitor and a creep, a jack-off and a sheep’, which creates quite the mental image.
Megadeth’s punk influences have long been evident, which is part of the beauty of the band, says Dave, and part of the rich tapestry of styles that has long been incorporated into their sound.
“We have a pretty expansive catalogue of different music, from the very first song that was written, Set The World Afire,” he says. “Everything that followed went to the right, to the left; it was jazzy, it was classic, it was punk, it was metal. But it was always Megadeth. You always knew when you heard my voice, our riffs.”
“Our music was always Megadeth. You always knew when you heard my voice, our riffs”
Indeed, Dave’s inimitable voice is probably best described with the words ‘hated, adored, never ignored’. It’s a vital component of their sound, an unorthodox and divisive but seriously characterful instrument that’s by turns rasping and rageful, scorching and sarcastic. Its iconic status may be assured, but it’s something even the man behind the mic has had to get used to.
“You’re naked when you’re singing – what you got is what you got,” he suggests. “When I heard myself sing the first time I thought, ‘Wow, that doesn’t sound like a singer at all – that sounds like somebody who’s yelling.’ I was never someone who sang into the hairbrush in my bedroom, but I kept with it, though the guitar came first and the singing came second.”
Has he grown to accept his voice now, given what it’s brought him?
“It’s taken time,” he nods. “Because a lot of the times when I evaluate myself singing, I think of the live performances, not the great work we’ve done in the studio, like the stuff on Countdown [To Destruction], which has some of the most grown-up singing of my career on it. From that point, I started to learn to sing and how important singing is to someone listening to the music. There’s a bit in the movie Purple Rain when a club manager goes up to Prince and says, ‘The only one that understands your music is yourself.’ Well, I don’t ever want to be that guy. I want our music to be fun!”
We need to talk about Ride The Lightning, then. As today’s chat nears its end, having probed much of Dave’s history, we’d be remiss not to ask about Megadeth’s version of the Metallica classic, which is a bonus track on the new album and finds him revisiting his past in a profound way.
It’s a suitably blistering interpretation, which will come as no surprise, even if it’s a creative decision that will confound many. That being said, it’s not necessarily a surprising one. Dave’s relationship with his former band, and his decades-long attempt to re-evaluate the circumstances and fallout from his departure, can verge on the obsessive, as anyone who’s read his past interviews or watched the 2004 documentary Some Kind Of Monster can attest.
For Dave, however, tackling a song he had a hand in the writing of is simply a case of going back to where it all began, of “closing the circle” and “a matter of showing respect to where this all started”.
“If you’re going to do a cover song,” explains Dave. “You’ve got to do it at least as good, if not better.”
Would he call it a ‘cover’ version, then?
“No. Because I wrote the song too. I think other people will say that, but if you’re asking me, I don’t think it’s a cover song.”
And do you think it’s better?
“When it was done, we played it for a couple of people, and a lot of people we know are fans of that band and that song, so they knew what they were listening to, A vs. B, and the consensus has been pretty much the same – that we did a fitting homage. I think we did it at least as good – it’s a little faster.”
He may well be right, but the question for listeners to ponder is how they feel about Megadeth’s final musical document, a celebration of their legacy, sharing the spotlight with another band – especially that one.
“We feel like things did back when it was organic in the beginning”
Bringing things more up to date, and even into the future, when that final show comes in a few years’ time, does Dave think he’s leaving metal in safe hands? His eyes narrow again, not because of the question but because of the answer. He shakes his head.
“How long has it been since you heard an album like Nevermind or Appetite For Destruction or Rust In Peace or Master Of Puppets?” he asks. “You just don’t hear records like that anymore. You get maybe one good song on a record now, and people are so used to skipping tracks. That saddens me, because there are a lot of our songs where, if you listen to them multiple times, you’ll hear there’s a lot more to them.”
Indeed, listening to Megadeth, the album, there are dense layers to pore over and pick at – sublime musicianship and pointed lyrics that raise a lot of questions. That includes the final track, aptly titled The Last Note, on which Dave reflects upon what his band has achieved, with the closing sentiment encapsulating a career characterised by hard-fought success: ‘They gave me gold, they gave me a name / But every deal was signed in blood and flames / So, here’s my last will, final final testament, my sneer / You came, I ruled, now I disappear.’
“When you look at those words: ‘I came’, of course I did… ‘I ruled’, well, we had a really tough go at it,” says Dave of his band’s legacy. “And Megadeth has been successful for 40 years.
“If these are the last dates we do,” he adds of these remaining shows with Disturbed, “then we’d be going out on top. We’ve got the best record, I think, that we’ve made in decades. We feel like things did back when it was organic in the beginning, in the days when metal fans used to trade fanzines.”
He's being hypothetical about these being the final shows, of course. But does Dave think, as his lyrics suggest, that he can just disappear when this is all said and done? Turns out he means it more in the mortal sense.
“The body will disappear,” he says of the fate that awaits us all.
“But the legend will remain. And the music will go on forever.”
Megadeth's self-titled album will be released January 23 via BLKIIBLK. Get your limited-edition green splatter vinyl now.
