Megadeth's Dave Mustaine GoesBack To The Start

Thu 18th Aug, 2005 in Features

It’s every band’s dream to have longevity in their careers, but not many bands would dare dream the success of Megadeth. After twenty-two solid years of pioneering thrash metal Megadeth has finally released a Greatest Hits CD/DVD, tilted, Megadeth’s Greatest Hits – Back to the Start.

In order to celebrate their illustrious career, let’s briefly go “back to the start” with Dave Mustaine, to see how the band became who they are today.

1983 – Not only do they have longevity, Megadeth are the ultimate “triumph over adversity” success story. Dave Mustaine formed Megadeth after being booted out of Metallica, instead of quitting music altogether, Mustaine took advantage of his new-found-freedom to front his own band. In the early days, Slayer’s guitarist Kerry King helped Megadeth out by being a temporary member, before they found, Chris Poland. “We have to thank Slayer -they helped us a lot at the beginning, the whole band, not just Kerry… although we’re not so close nowadays, I still sometimes keep in touch with Tom (Araya) but Kerry, not so much – but then again, Kerry doesn’t like that many people…! ”

1985 – Release of debut album, Killing is My Business… And Business is Good! Which features the classic Megadeth/Metallica crossover song, Mechanix. Mustaine wrote this song while he was still in Metallica and when he departed, Metallica altered the lyrics and renamed the song to The Four Horseman, while Mustaine took it and released it on Megadeth’s first album.

1986 -1992 – In this period Megadeth managed to release four albums: Peace Sells But Who’s Buying it (1986), So Far, So Good… So What? (1988), Rust In Peace (1990), and Countdown to Extinction (1992).  During this time, the band accomplished a plethora of classic metal hits like, My Last Words, Peace Sells, In My Darkest Hour, and Holy Wars… The Punishment Due, Hangar 18, Tornado of Souls, Rust In Peace… Polaris, Skin O’ My Teeth and Countdown to Extinction. The title track to the albums, Rust In Peace and Countdown to Extinction are a favourite of Mustaine’s “I can’t really choose a favourite Megadeth song – it’s like choosing between your children! But if I really had to, I would say, Rust In Peace and Countdown, they would have to be the ultimate albums.”

1992 – Mustaine pleasantly surprised some of his fans when he became a correspondent for MTV News during the 1992 Democratic Convention. “Yeah I think it’s important to use your position as a platform to inform people. Not necessary to try and persuade people’s opinion, but just to give them another point of view”.

2002 – 2004 – After six successful albums, the band had a “rude awakening” with the very eminent possibility of Megadeth dissolving came to question when, Mustaine was diagnosed with a compressed radical nerve condition. Doctors informed Mustaine that would never play guitar again, but he defied the odds and worked through his rehabilitation to recover and deliver 2004’s The System Has Failed, two years later. “Doctors told me that I wouldn’t play again, so I did all I could not to give up… I was just determined not to give up”.

2005 – During the eighties, Megadeth stood alongside Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer as one of “The Big Four” of heavy metal -the embodiment of heavy metal. So who better but Dave Mustaine himself to conceive his own metal festival, Gigantour -a showcase of metal bands handpicked by Mustaine to tour with. “Gigantour is something I’ve always wanted to do… we also made sure that our ticket prices aren’t inflated…. I’m pretty comfortable nowadays, so I’m in a position to help give something back to our fans. It’s important to take care of our fans, if it wasn’t for their support we wouldn’t be here”.

These days, when he’s not playing, Mustaine likes to relax with his band mates and family, “A few months ago I took the Drover brothers to play golf at St Andrews -that was great, and they really enjoyed that. And when I’m a home, I hangout with my kids… Justis likes to surf and play music, and Electra, she’s only little but she likes to surf too, she also likes acting, but she only gets small roles. Both of my kids are very much into performing… I guess they get it from me!”

After a multitude of platinum albums, Dave Mustaine has had proved to not only to be a performer, but a prominent member of the metal community. There are many greatest hits albums out there, but not that many that have a tumultuous success story quite like Megadeth’s.