Chris Broderick talked about leaving MEGADETH back in 2014, telling Eon Music:
“[The fact that drummer Shawn Drover and I left Megadeth the same day] was not a coincidence, but it was an individual decision for each of us.
“I had honestly been thinking about parting ways for probably a year and a half. It was a heavy decision, and there were a lot of considerations.
“What tipped the scales was when Dave had called us and wanted to start working on the next CD, because for me, personally, I just knew my heart wasn’t in it.
“I could just tell that I wasn’t ‘there,’ and I knew it was time to go off and do my own thing.
“And apparently, Shawn had pretty much the same feelings, because when he left, he actually quit six hours before I did, and when he did that, I knew he had made the right decision, so I decided to leave as well.
Asked on how he started working with Drover on Act of Defiance, Chris replied:
“It was pretty quickly after the fact, because Shawn and I were talking about why we left; you know; ‘What were the main reasons for you leaving?’, and we talked about the ideas that we had, and we wanted to get them out.
“And then that quickly became; ‘Hey, let’s just do a CD and get out these ideas,’ and then from there, it quickly went to; ‘Well screw it, let’s just put together a band and make a real go of this.’ That’s how Act Of Defiance got formed.
Asked if the poor reception of “Super Collider” contributed to his departure, Broderick replied:
“It did, yes, because, for me, it wasn’t musically where I wanted to be. But Megadeth, ultimately, was never about musically where I wanted to be; you know, Megadeth is ‘Megadeth,’ and that’s basically it, that’s the band.
“It’s not like I had any real say in how that band sounded or anything like that, so ultimately, that did contribute to my departure.
“I think a few of us had called [the bad reviews] out, and knew that it was going to be received that way. We anticipated that that was going to be the review, long before it was released.”
Asked on why he thinks “Collider” “failed so badly,” Broderick replied:
“I quite honestly think it was the perceived sense of change in direction. But, to Dave’s credit, he labored hard over that CD. He really worked hard to make that CD sound the way that it did, and whether you agree with that or not, you should give credit to where credit is due when somebody puts a lot of work into it.”
Singling out the highlights of his time in the Deth fold, Chris replied:
“The highlights for me were really the fans, and the crowds.
“One of the highlights was, there’s this venue in the San Francisco Bay Area called the Cow Palace, and I remember sneaking out to the line of fans and just interviewing some of them kind of incognito, and interacting with them.
“And then of course, the Big Four shows, they were just unreal. They were almost incomprehensible to this day, how cool and awesome that was. To me, it just all revolves around the fans and the moments when we were playing on stage, and the fans were just a big part of it.”
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