Dave Mustaine Shares the Key to Writing a Successful Thrash Song

If anyone knows how to write a good thrash song, Megadeth‘s Dave Mustaine is certainly qualified for the job. During a new conversation on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, the musician shared what he thinks is the key to writing a successful thrash song.

The topic came up as Mustaine was discussing songs that influenced him when he was growing up. He cited Chuck Berry‘s 1958 classic “Johnny B. Goode” and Mott the Hoople‘s 1970 hit “All the Young Dudes” as two of them, adding that the latter was simple, but had a “beautiful melody” — something he believes is extremely important in songs.

“Quincy Jones is a very famous producer here in America, we were making the Rust in Peace record at the time, and had gone to their party and Quincy was there. He’d said to our engineer and producer that the key to successful songs was beat, melody and 10 simple words,” Mustaine said.

“So I guess the most important thing I would like to leave to future generations is to echo what Quincy had said. But to make it my own, I’d say in order to be successful in thrash, you need to have a heavy beat, melody and, I’d say probably 20 simple words because we sing so much faster.”

READ MORE: Dave Mustaine’s Relationship With Lars Ulrich + James Hetfield Is Best It’s Been ‘For a Long Time’

You can listen to the podcast episode below.

Mustaine’s currently on the road with Megadeth in Europe. The tour wraps up in late August, and then they have a handful of North American performances scheduled throughout September and early October. See all of the upcoming dates on their website.

Dave Mustaine Shares the Key to Writing a Successful Thrash Song