MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine has hinted that his band might include a special nod to his past during their upcoming tour. In a February 4 appearance on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Mustaine spoke about recording METALLICA’s “Ride The Lightning” for MEGADETH’s final self-titled album, Megadeth, and the possibility of performing it live.
The 1984 METALLICA track, which Mustaine co-wrote with James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and the late Cliff Burton, holds a unique place in Mustaine’s history. Following his 1983 departure from METALLICA, the song was reworked for METALLICA’s catalog, and Mustaine now revisits it on MEGADETH’s latest release.
Regarding the decision to record the track, Mustaine explained (as transcribed by Blabbermouth): “Well, we were past the halfway point in the album. ‘Cause that song ended up being song number 13. And when the time came to do that, we were talking about — what we usually do is a rendition of somebody’s song that we like or something like that, or a remake.
“And when I was talking with [my son] Justis [who is part of the MEGADETH management team], he had said, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Ride The Lightning’?’ And I kind of looked at him like, ‘Hmm.’ And then I thought about it. I said, ‘That’s probably a good idea.’ And I said, ‘Let’s try it.’ We tried it. It was cool. And I said to the band guys, ‘Okay, if we’re gonna do this, let’s make sure that we do it as good as the original or better.’ ‘Cause we gotta do that. If we’re gonna honor those guys by doing a new version of the song that I did with James [Hetfield], I think it’s important to make it as good or better. And what we did was we sped it up a little bit, and the drum fills at the very end, I told Dirk [Verbeuren, MEGADETH drummer], ‘Have fun there. And you can beef it up if you want’.
“And I talked to Teemu [Mäntysaari, MEGADETH guitarist] and I said, ‘The guitar solo that’s in there, try and stay close to it, if you can.’ ‘Cause it really is Kirk [Hammett] doing an improvisation of what I was doing. ‘So, let’s have fun with it.’ And the solo was a little different — close to the original that Kirk did, but it was a little different. And then there was the singing. James and I have instantly identifiable voices, but they’re not at all alike. And I was listening to James sing, and it was fun for me to be able to listen to his vocal parts and break it down and hear how he sings, and then to go back and approach the song and try and sing in my style, which I do believe I put my DNA on that.”
“It would’ve been different if I would’ve done a song by a band I was in that I didn’t write,” he added. “That’s kind of like doing a weird nepotistic cover song. But this is one of my songs. So, yeah, I loved doing this. I loved writing it with James, and I loved playing it with MEGADETH.”
When asked about whether “Ride The Lightning” could appear in MEGADETH’s live set, Mustaine left fans intrigued: “Oh, s**t, Eddie. You don’t have to ask me that. [Laughs] Maybe. Maybe. We do play ‘Mechanix’.”
“Mechanix” itself carries a storied history. Originally written by Mustaine and later adapted by METALLICA as “The Four Horsemen” for their 1983 debut Kill ‘Em All, Mustaine recorded the original version with MEGADETH on 1985’s Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good!.
The release of Megadeth marked a career milestone for the band, becoming their first No. 1 album in the U.S., debuting at the top of the charts with 73,000 equivalent album units in the week ending January 29, according to Luminate. Pure album sales drove the majority of that total, with 69,000 physical and digital copies sold.
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