MEGADETH frontman Dave Mustaine recently reminisced about the band’s collaboration with producer Max Norman during an interview with Jeremy White.
Norman mixed the band’s iconic album Rust in Peace and produced three consecutive albums, beginning with Countdown to Extinction in 1992. Mustaine revealed that the band was somewhat pressured to make their music more “glittery and glossy” like other metal bands, a similar situation to what happened when they hired Norman.
“Some people would argue that that happened with Max Norman. I thought Max was great because he did Ozzy’s stuff,” Mustaine said. “When Ozzy first went solo, Diary of a Madman and Blizzard of Ozz, Max Norman had done [them]. And Max mixed Rust in Peace which was a great mix.”
“And when we did Countdown [to Extinction]… Countdown was our biggest record ever,” he continued. “So stands to reason I’m gonna think this guy is our best guy. So we did Countdown and the next record we did was Youthanasia and the fans started to get bummed.”
“And why was that? Well, it was because the songs slowed down and they all started taking on radio track structure,” Mustaine added. “MEGADETH didn’t have songs that were based on verse-chorus-solo [structure]. It was beginning of the song, talking about bunch of s**t, do a bunch of jam and trading solos, do like yelling at the end and then balls out to the end of the song.”
“It’s kind of like what we were doing then. Then you start thinking verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, chorus, out, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, chorus, out… It’s sucking the life out of our creativity. And that’s why we made some management changes.”
