THE CLASSIC ROCK INTERVIEW

He was there at the beginning of two of metal’s most influential groups, drank enough to fill the San Diego river, hit the canvas and lifted himself back up and found God, and still has the ambition to make Megadeth the biggest metal band in the world.

Interview: Paul Elliott Portraits: Travis Shinn

Dave Mustaine is alive and well. Two years after doctors gave him the all-clear following treatment for throat cancer, he’s looking good for his 60 years as he sits in his home office in Tennessee talking to Classic Rock about his life and career as the leader of Megadeth. His face has a few creases, his long hair, once flame-red, is now a shade of grey. But after 20 years of sobriety he looks a whole better than he did the first time I interviewed him, back in 1988, when Megadeth were touring the US as the opening act for Dio. In those days Mustaine had the ghostly pallor that comes with an addiction to hard drugs. As he says now, with a thin smile: “That was a long time ago.”

David Scott Mustaine was born on September 13, 1961 in La Mesa, California, a small city east of San Diego. There he endured a difficult childhood; his parents separated when he was four, and his father John was a troubled man whose alcoholism led to his early death. As a teenager Mustaine also developed a taste for alcohol, along with drugs and heavy metal. He was drawn to the raw power of British bands – Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motörhead – and playing guitar came easily to him.

In 1981, when Mustaine was 19, his first band Panic split up after their drummer Mike Leftwych was killed in a car crash. It was a tragedy that had a profound influence on Mustaine’s life. The disbanding of Panic led him to seek out a new opportunity, and he found it in a new group from Los Angeles called Metallica.

“Nobody planned on us having the pandemic, and I certainly didn’t plan on getting cancer.”

Mustaine was in the band as lead guitarist for less than two years, but in that time he played a key role in creating a sound that would revolutionise heavy music: thrash metal. Eventually his violent drunken rages proved too much even for a band that was nicknamed ‘Alcoholica’. Mustaine was dismissed in 1983 as Metallica prepared to record their debut album, Kill ’Em All.

He was replaced by a more stable character, Kirk Hammett. But in Mustaine’s absence the first two Metallica albums included songs he had co-written, most notably The Four Horsemen and Jump In The Fire from Kill ’Em All, and the title track of 1984’s Ride The Lightning. And when Mustaine made his comeback – bringing Megadeth to the global stage in 1985 with their debut album Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! – he declared war. As he said of his former band: “I was out for blood – theirs.”

In the end it was a war he could never win. For all Mustaine’s unique qualities as a songwriter, guitarist and vocalist – as illustrated on classic Megadeth albums such as Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? (1986), Rust In Peace (1990) and Countdown To Extinction (1992) – the band’s record sales of 50 million, while monumental, are nevertheless eclipsed by Metallica’s 125 million. But when talking to Classic Rock today he prefers not to dwell on the negatives.