KERRY KING: DAVE MUSTAINE ‘Can’t Help But Stick His Foot In His Mouth’

Kerry King Dave Mustaine

During an interview on the “Lipps Service With Scott Lipps” podcast, SLAYER‘s Kerry King reminisced about the first time he saw METALLICA in 1982.

“I saw ’em with [then-METALLICA guitarist DaveMustaine,” Kerry said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “And we opened for them. I think Mustaine was still in the band, at the place we used to frequent called the Woodstock [in Anaheim, California].

“When I first saw ’em with Mustaine, I was sitting kind of between [METALLICA frontman] James [Hetfield] and [then-METALLICA bassist RonMcGovney in where the audience is, and I was just blown away watching Mustaine just ripping on guitar and not even looking at his fingers. I’m, like, ‘I can’t do that.’ And to this day, he’s a badass guitar player. But that’s what I walked away from METALLICA [thinking]. And he wrote tons of the riffs in the early days. So, when he branched off into MEGADETH, a lot of the riffs went with him.”

Kerry also discussed his current relationship with the members of METALLICA, as well as with Dave Mustaine.

Mustaine‘s cool, but Mustaine‘s one of those guys that he can’t help but stick his foot in his mouth,” King said. “So, I’ll take my 20 minutes and I’ll bolt just before anything gets uncomfortable.

“It’s funny, James is one of those guys, even though we’ve got basically the same career, different circles, we did the [shows featuring the] ‘Big Four’ [of 1980s thrash metal], he made a point to come say ‘hey’ to us, but it’s funny that it hasn’t occurred in the 40 years we’ve both been doing this that I’ve rarely seen James,” Kerry continued. “Kirk‘s [HammettMETALLICA guitarist] cool, Rob‘s [METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo] cool, Lars [UlrichMETALLICA drummer] is cool. We hang out when they feel like hanging out. Yeah, that’s all of ’em.”

In a 2021 interview with Metal Hammer, King was asked if he had any sense that Dave Mustaine was resentful towards METALLICA while he was briefly in MEGADETH with him. Kerry responded: “Probably. But I looked up to Mustaine ever since he was in Metallica. I was in the crowd with Jeff [HannemanSLAYER’s late guitarist] actually, saying, ‘Look at that dude! He’s just ripping up there!’ He’s got a great style and in the beginning, it helped METALLICA become what METALLICA is. And let me tell you something — to this day, he’s a great guitar player. 

On the 22nd of October, 1982 SLAYER and METALLICA played together at Woodstock Concert Theater in Anaheim, California for what happened to be SLAYER‘s fourth performance ever.

In 1984, Dave Mustaine reached out to King and asked him to join his newly formed band MEGADETHKing accepted the invitation and began performing with them on a few shows while SLAYER‘s future was uncertain. Ultimately though, he chose not to be part of MEGADETH due to his dedication towards staying in SLAYER.

EARLY ACCESS: Kerry King of Slayer on new album! the “big four”! Beastie Boys! and weird fan autograph requests! by Scott Lipps

Here’s my interview with the thrash metal guitarist. Available a week early, only on Substack.

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