MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine revealed his cancer diagnosis last week on social media. He said that he has already begun treatment as part of a plan that his doctors feel has a “90% success rate.”
But that can not stop MegaDave from recording a follow-up to 2016’s Dystopia as the band’s drummer Dirk Verbeuren posted a photo of Mustaine already back in the studio and working on the album. See the photo below.
MEGADETH’s bassist David Ellefson has been interviewed by The Classic Metal Show, where he spoke about Mustaine‘s condition.
He says: “We were bracing for the bomb today, knowing that we had to get an announcement out. Thoughts and prayers are always welcome. Dave has started his treatment. We’ve been in Nashville for the last month and a half working on the album, so we were watching this all unfold before us.
“Dave has begun treatment, so things are moving forward. It just became a reality where it was, like, ‘Look, in order to do this treatment properly, follow the doctor’s orders, Dave can’t be undergoing treatment for cancer and be out playing big rock concerts.’
“So we had to say, ‘We’ve got to just stop. We’ve got to clear the decks and put this as the number one priority,’ which is what the announcement was – just addressing it and giving everybody a heads up that some shows are going to have to go away until this all gets worked out.”
Ellefson adds: “Dave and I have been through our share of the sh*tshow: Ups and downs, drug addictions, breakups and makeups and everything else in between. This is another one.
“We’re optimistic about the treatments and the success rate is usually pretty good on this one, so I think there’s a lot of optimism at the end of this whole thing.”
He continued: “Other cases have shown that throat cancer is treatable. It’s at a place where it’s certainly, I don’t think, beyond a point of repair.
“That’s why I think shutting down right now – at least the touring side of it – is good, because I think if we tried to continue to go out and force Dave to sing and perform, that may not have such a good outcome.”
“Dave’s a warrior, he’s a fighter, and he’s got pretty good sensibilities about when to hit the gas and when to hit the brake. So it’s what it needs to be right at this exact time.”
The band was forced to cancel all of their 2019 dates with the exception of Megacruise which is still going according to plan.
In February, Mustaine talked about the new album with Kerrang.
“We’re trying to keep with that real heavy thing.” Dave said. Dystopia was more of us doing what makes us feel good; there’s a lot of super-heavy, fast drumming at the end of some songs.
“My son was in here two days ago, and when we were doing Dystopia, he was listening to the songs and making comments, and the ones he commented on were the ones that got the best response. When he came over this time, we were working on a song that has the tentative title ‘The Dogs Of Chernobyl’, and the intro riff has kind of a Hungarian guitar part, kind of like something MERCYFUL FATE did on ‘Into The Coven’. The song comes in super powerful and strong, and my son goes, ‘Oh god, that’s heavy as hell!’ and I just started laughing.”
MEGADETH‘s latest album, Dystopia opened with 48,000 copies, marking MEGADETH‘s highest-charting album since 1992’s Countdown To Extinction debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the chart dated August 1 of that year. Dystopia also logs the group’s best sales week since 2007, when United Abominations landed at No. 8 with first-week sales of 54,000.
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