Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Talks Drugs & Metallica on The Joe Rogan Experience: “Kirk Hammett got my royalties for “Metal Militia” for many, many years” – 2022

Posted by On August 23, 2022 0 Comment

Dave Mustaine:

I hope you’re ready for this episode… The Joe Rogan Experience.

What did you do right after Metallica?

I think, in my mind, I went right into Megadeth. But, at the time, I was still kind of trying to digest everything that took place.

Well, you were still only twenty-years-old.

Yeah. The thing that bothered me most was I had all my music, and I left it behind.

I said, “Don’t use my music,” and, of course, they did. They used it on the first record. They used it on the second record. There are parts of my music on the third record.

All the solos on the first record are mine except that they’re performed by Kirk (Hammett). Close but not the same. He’s not a bad guitar player.

Did you get royalties for that?

Most of them, yeah, but Kirk got my royalties for “Metal Militia” for many, many years. He has to see the check, so I know somebody saw that I wasn’t getting paid.

On Band Drug Use:

It wasn’t until Megadeth got going and we met Gar (Samuelson) and some of the people in that circle, where we started to experiment with other stuff.

We had a manager, at the time, who was very, very bad-off. He would always try to keep us loaded, and we ended up having to fire the guy because it was for our own health (laughs), our own safety.

I mean, if I was a cheap bastard and didn’t have any money, I’d say, “This is great.” You get high for free. But the thing was is, the guy was keeping several members of the band sick.

When we got signed to Capitol Records, we went up into the tower. We went up into one of the little rooms up there, and the guy slid his desk open. There were lines everywhere. So, yeah, they gave us a box of Nike shoes and all the blow you could eat.

I heard about a band, with a frontman that I really respected, that wanted to be paid in crack. I just thought, “You know what? I’ve lost all respect for you now.”

Listen to the entire episode on Spotify.

Brand new full in bloom interview w/ Ex-Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland