In a recent interview with The Big Takeover, MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine was asked if, when he first started in the Los Angeles music scene over forty years ago, he had any idea that his career would unfold the way it has.
“In my heart, I had hoped that I could continue playing for as long as I live,” he responded. “The question was, how long was I going to live? We were all in this [L.A.] scene at the time that everybody was living super fast and dangerous. People like [MÖTLEY CRÜE singer] Vince Neil getting in a car crash and the drummer for HANOI ROCKS losing his life, that whole period around then — everybody was just dangerous. We had to get away from that. All I wanted to do was just play my guitar. I didn’t want to hang. I was not one of those guys that would go over to people’s houses and party all night. If I was doing anything, I would do it by myself in the house and play guitar. Not that I was alone in my house, but you know.”
“For me, I didn’t have a Plan B. And I didn’t want to have a Plan B because my Plan A was all that mattered,” Mustaine continued. “And I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Growing up homeless, growing up a poor kid, that does something to you. So yeah, being a poor kid and going from house to house to house, and wearing hand-me-down clothes all the time, and living in a car for as long as I did, that changed me. And that’s what I think drove me to want to be successful because I didn’t want to be that guy. I didn’t want to be stuck in a situation of being homeless and living in a car. I was not going to settle for that. So that’s why I worked as hard as I did. Some people will say I was callous with the [MEGADETH] lineup changes and stuff like that, but with every one of the lineup changes we had, there was a really legitimate reason that we made a change.”
In 2012, Mustaine discussed the reasons behind MEGADETH‘s numerous lineup changes in an interview with AL.com. “That’s the problem when you start a band. You have to pick the right guys,” Mustaine said at the time. “But things happen. … We have our lineup and everything’s working, and one guy says, ‘I want more money.’ Or ‘I want to write more songs.’ The truth of the matter is that it’s hard to write songs. You have your whole life to write your first album. After that, it’s hard.”
MEGADETH‘s 16th studio album, The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, was released in September 2022 via UMe.
The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, with 48,000 equivalent album units sold in its first week in the U.S. This achievement marked MEGADETH‘s eighth album to reach the top 10. Of the 48,000 units, 45,000 came from album sales, 3,000 from streaming equivalent albums (SEA), and a negligible amount from track equivalent albums (TEA).
MEGADETH‘s current lineup is:
- Dave Mustaine: Vocals, Guitar
- James LoMenzo: Bass
- Dirk Verbeuren: Drums
- Teemu Mäntysaari: Guitar
Kiko Loureiro, the previous guitarist, has taken an indefinite hiatus.
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.