Dave Mustaine Discusses Megadeth’s Final Studio Album – Interview

“We’re gonna go out on a bang and that’s what we’ve always wanted to do.”

On Tuesday (Jan. 20), Dave Mustaine joined Loudwire Nights to celebrate Megadeth‘s final studio album, Megadeth, as well as their upcoming tour. Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

“For Teemu [Mäntysaari] and Dirk [Verbeuren] and James [LoMenzo], I wanted to assure them that these are gonna be the best years of our lives,” Mustaine shared with Loudwire Nights‘ Chuck Armstrong.

“We play better than a lot of the bands that are out on tour nowadays — not all of them, but we can hold our own against a lot of the bands that are out there and we mix our setlist up, so we’re always playing Megadeth’s catalog.”

As Mustaine talked about Megadeth’s tour celebrating not only their legacy but also their last-ever album, he was clearly moved by what this means for him and the band.

“I saw this thing a long time ago where The Police were playing someplace, I can’t remember where it was,” he said.

“They took their instruments off and handed [them] to the guys in U2 and it was really a legitimate passing of the torch. I don’t know who, if that time comes where I take my guitar off and I hand it to someone else, who that would be. But you know, I think the time’s come for there to be a new generation of Big Four members.”

When he said that, he didn’t have an immediate answer to who those new Big Four bands might be.

“I see a lot of bands that are out there and a lot of them are really good, but, are there four? I don’t know.”

Finding the Words For the Closing Track on Megadeth’s Final Album

One of the most powerful moments on Megadeth’s final album is captured in the closing track, the appropriately titled “The Last Note.” Mustaine admitted that he had originally written different lyrics for that song before they decided that this was going to be their last record.

“We didn’t make that decision until we were about halfway through the record,” he said.

“‘The Last Note’ actually had different lyrics before we talked about going out on top and not having the things that befall bands that keep them from maintaining their status as they go into that legacy stage of their career, if they’re so lucky.”

The first version of the song was called “Jumpers” and it was inspired by a shocking moment for Mustaine.

“It was about a clip I saw on Vice and was about people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge,” Mustaine shared.

“I was watching that and I didn’t think anything of it. Then I watched a guy climb over the rail and I thought, ‘What’s that guy doing?’ And then he jumped and I went, ‘Fuck!’ I was shocked. I was shocked. He just committed suicide on film. It was like a snuff flick.”

When Mustaine shared the lyrics with Mäntysaari, he said the guitarist looked at him a little perplexed.

“I guess that’s a little too heavy, huh,” Mustaine realized.

“So I said, you know what, I think I’ll take another swing at the piñata. And I did and that’s when ‘The Last Note’ came in. It was cathartic to get those lyrics out because I’ve been trying to say this in a way that someone can understand my point of view.”

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For Mustaine, it was important for the song to help explain the decision to retire.

“[It’s not that] I’m taking off and that I don’t give a fuck, that I don’t care about how this is leaving our fans affected,” he said.

“I do care. I do care. It’s bittersweet for me.”

What Else Did Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• The full circle moment of recording Metallica‘s “Ride the Lightning” for Megadeth: “That was the beginning of my songwriting career. I had been learning how to play in the latter part of the ’70s, so when the ’80s came out, it was only punk rock and disco. And of course there was pop rock…you know, if you wanted to really, really be heavy, you had to listen to bands like REO Speedwagon. And so doing ‘Ride the Lightning,’ it was kind of completing the circle and I think it’s cool in so much as it’s paying my respects to the band that I first went to the dance with. I’ve always had a tremendous respect for James [Hetfield’s] guitar playing and Lars [Ulrich’s] songwriting is really quite unorthodox and beautiful at the same time. So when we started off together, I honestly didn’t think we were going to last anyway because there was just so much personality. Whether that was combustible or not, I still really respected those two guys … I was talking with my management and they said, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Ride the Lightning,’ and I said, ‘Well, then that would be my version of it,’ because I’m not going to do a cover song. I’ll play it the way that we played it and I’ll speed it up a little bit and we’ll spice up the drum fills at the end and maybe we’ll spice up the solo and the rhythm section underneath it on top of speeding the song up a little bit. Just make it, you know, like how when we were doing those demos, there was this, just, fucking aggression. And I think a lot of that was because of our living environments and that we drank more than we ate. It sure was fun, though.”
• Another bonus track on one of the exclusive releases of Megadeth, “Bloodlust,” a song fans have speculated is a Body Count cover: “No. It’s an original song. We went into the studio and we had these songs that we were planning on completing and then picking once we got done with everything, what songs we wanted. No, that’s not Body Count.”
• Why he’s trying to stay in the moment right now: “I think we’re trying to put all the pegs in their perspective holes so that we know what we’re doing and that we get the most out of our efforts because of the adversity that I’m facing. And I know one thing’s for sure — the fans, they empower me and the band and we can’t help but walk away form every show feeling like we could do this forever. It’s just a matter of, can we? Can we really? It’d be great if there was some kind of crazy surgery or something in the future that I could try, but for now, I’m not going to let anybody fuck around my hands.”

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below

Dave Mustaine joined Loudwire Nights on Tuesday, Jan. 20; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.