MEGADETH frontman Dave Mustaine has opened the door to the possibility of a solo album once the band completes their farewell tour. In a recent interview with Poland’s Teraz Rock, Mustaine reflected on past thoughts of recording solo material and shared his current perspective on the idea.
The conversation took a trip down memory lane when the interviewer reminded Mustaine that he had once considered making a solo record over two decades ago. Mustaine recalled (as transcribed by Blabbermouth): “I think it was The System… Was it [MEGADETH‘s 2004 album] The System Has Failed? Yeah. That was the one that I’d injured my arm and I contacted the band guys and said, ‘I can’t play anymore. And I need to break up the band.’ So some time went by and my arm started to heal, and my godfather Alice Cooper contacted me and asked if I would do a benefit for somebody that worked for him and that also worked for me, who had just died and left his wife and a daughter with nothing. So, I hadn’t touched a guitar for 17 months — not even pick it up and set it down. I just didn’t touch it. And so I said, ‘Look, I can barely play guitar right now. And I’ll come and I’ll do something, but it’s not gonna be great.’
“So I went and we played and somehow the pilot light was reignited and the fire inside of me started burning again and I wanted to play,” he continued. “And when I called up Marty [Friedman, former MEGADETH guitarist] and Nick [Menza, former MEGADETH drummer] and David [Ellefson, former MEGADETH bassist] and talked to them, it was non-negotiable. We were not meant to get back together again. And I’ll leave all the nasty details out, but that’s when I went into the studio with some other people — [drummer] Vinnie Colaiuta, who is amazing, and this guy named Jimmie Sloas who played bass on the record, and he was really good too.”
Looking ahead, Mustaine addressed whether a solo album might actually happen in the future: “I might. I don’t think so. I might. I might. Right now, things are going so great for us, we’re not even really thinking about the end. We’re thinking about the beginning of this, this campaign [in support of MEGADETH‘s just-released self-titled album], and heading out and, and showing this [new] music to our fans. And we’ve been looking at the tours that we’ve got on our schedule, and everything’s doing really well ticket-wise. Dates are selling out way in advance, and that’s good for us too because in many of the places that we booked, we’ve had to go to a different configuration. Some places will be set up for, say, for example, 7,000 seats and they’ve got some seats up in the top that they’ve blocked off. And a band comes in and they keep selling tickets, they’ll open up those areas. ‘Cause a lot of times they don’t open those areas up because it looks bad for bands that don’t sell out the venue. And we’ve had a lot of concerts already that has — it’s gone to a bigger-size venue.”
The band officially closed the chapter on their studio career with the release of Megadeth on January 23, issued via Mustaine’s Tradecraft imprint in partnership with Frontiers Label Group’s BLKIIBLK label. While this marks the end of new studio albums from the iconic thrash outfit, Mustaine has emphasized that the band’s touring schedule is far from over.
While Megadeth will mark the end of new studio albums from the legendary thrash metal outfit, Mustaine has made it clear that the band is not slowing down when it comes to touring. In a previous interview with Kerrang!, he suggested that MEGADETH’s farewell run could last several years. “We’re easily talking about touring for another three to five years,” Mustaine said.
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