This is a full in bloom interview with guitarist Jeff Young (Megadeth, Kings of Thrash).
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DESCRIPTION:
PART 1 – Jeff talks about David Lee Roth, Jason Becker, Motley Crue, John Corabi.
Jeff Young Interview Excerpt via YouTube
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During an interview with Guitar World, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine talked about his influence on Metallica and Kirk Hammett’s attempt at recreating his guitar solos.
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Dave Mustaine VS Kirk Hammett – Compare Guitar Solos via Our Previous Post @ THIS LOCATION
WOW! My guitar tech, Bryan Jones found this near mint ‘79 silverburst Les Paul custom to start my vintage collection! What do you guys think? What should I search for next?
Greg Prato: My interview w/ Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine for Songfacts…
Songfacts: Recently, there was talk that you’d like to collaborate again with James Hetfield. Have you actually discussed that with him?
Dave Mustaine:
The last time we talked it didn’t end very well because we have some memory of a couple of things that took place when I was in the band. I remember it one way and he is saying that it happened another. But it’s about somebody else – it’s not even him. He’s talking to me on behalf of “you know who” [Lars Ulrich].
They wanted to release No Life ‘Til Leather [the early Metallica demo Mustaine was on] – 27 songs, posters, flyers, pictures, everything. I said I would love to do this thing, and James said, “Look, we fucked up. The last three things we’ve done failed abysmally.”
He said it was Lulu [Metallica’s collaboration with Lou Reed, released in 2011], something called Orion [a festival called Orion Music + More that took place in 2012 and 2013], and there was one other thing… I think it was a film about a fan or something [the 2013 film Metallica: Through the Never]. I don’t know. I don’t see them as a failure.
But I had said, “Yeah, I’d be interested.” And he said, “We’d like to get everything right with all the history, the publishing and stuff.” And I said, “Good.” Because part of the reason why we haven’t been able to really reconcile is because I had songs that when I left, I didn’t want them to record, and they went ahead and recorded them, but they didn’t pay me what my share of the songs were.
James and I wrote “Metal Militia” and “Phantom Lord” – every note. And somehow, on the record [Kill ‘Em All] it says Lars gets 10%. And on “Metal Militia” that Kirk gets some of it, and he wasn’t even in the band!
So I’ve come to terms with it, and when he said, “We’d like to get this right,” I said, “Great. Let’s do it. I have no problem.” And when I said, “This is what it is,” he said, “No. It’s kind of what it was, and that’s how it is.”
And I thought to myself, you know what? When you guys did that to me before, it was not cool. I said, “Don’t use my stuff” and you did it, and then didn’t give me my fair share. So why would I want to willingly enter into something like that? I wouldn’t. So that’s where we stand right now.
I would love to work with James. I’d like to work with Lars again, too, but I think the real talent in Metallica has always been around the guitar – everybody makes fun of the drums.
Lars is a really great song arranger. And believe it or not, I watched him on a piece-of-shit acoustic guitar write the opening riff to “Ride The Lightning.” [Sings riff, which turns out to be “Master of Puppets”… keep reading. We’ve included the audio below so you can hear it.]
You know what that was? It was a guy with a guitar that doesn’t know how to play, and he’s going [mimics playing a chromatic run] on the neck. It wasn’t anything really mind-blowing by any means. The way James played it made it mind-blowing.
Songfacts: The melody of the riff you just hummed; it sounded more like the song “Master Of Puppets.” Was that the song you meant?
Yeah, whatever that is. I don’t fuckin’ know their song names. I don’t listen to them. I totally respect them; I just don’t listen to them. It’s not out of me not liking them. When they come on the radio in my car, a long time ago I would change the channel, but I don’t anymore. It’s just music, and I’ve been able to put all that stuff behind.
That’s why when I saw James talking bad about himself, I was thinking, “Fuck that, man. Don’t buy into that.” I don’t know if he’s back in the bottle or not, but I love that guy. I fought somebody because of James. Somebody was going to beat his ass in San Francisco, and I got in between them – and got knocked around a bit myself. But I would never let anything happen to those guys.
Somebody picked on Lars, and I snapped his leg – you remember that, right? And I’m not a violent person, I’m just very protective of the people I love. And when I see James saying stuff like that, I don’t like it. I want to help him. He probably wouldn’t want my help, but maybe if a couple of guys with guitars and a bag full of chips can get through a conversation and become friends again, who knows?
You can read the entire interview @ this location.
Guitar.com: “THERE’S THREE SIDES TO EVERY STORY” DAVE MUSTAINE ON 40 YEARS OF MEGADETH, DEFYING DOCTORS, AND A REUNION WITH METALLICA THAT ALMOST HAPPENED.
INTERVIEW EXCERPT:
On being a control freak…
Dave Mustaine:
“All you have to do is look at the last record and how much Kiko (Loureiro) wrote on it. It completely dispels the lies from the past about me not letting certain band members in the past write music. Same thing with Dirk (Verbeuren), too. So that was just a bunch of bitter ex-members complaining about ‘quality control’ over riffs that weren’t that good. If they were good, they would have been on the record.”
You have a reputation for being outspoken. Do you think that has benefited or hindered your career in the long run?
“There’s three sides to every story, right. There’s my side, there would be the other person’s side, and then there would be the truth which is somewhere right in the middle. You know, oddly enough that was one of the last conversations I ever had with James Hetfield because we were talking about getting back together and doing a project.”
“Something had come up about the publishing discrepancy that we have been arguing about for years and years and years, and I told James, ‘I’ll do it but we’ve got to get this stuff sorted out first’. And he said, ‘Oh yeah, sure’.”
“So I said, ‘Now these two songs you and me split, 50/50. Lars (Ulrich) didn’t write on this song – you know that. I don’t know why you gave him percentages but I’m not. I’m not going to sign another deal that’s gonna confirm that because I never agreed to that’.”
“And James said, ‘Well, Lars has a different recollection of that,’ and I said that’s fine; there’s his side of the story, my side and the truth is somewhere. And that blew his mind, and we haven’t talked since. You know, I was trying to be really friendly with him; he told me that the last three projects they did bombed, and they wanted to go back and use all the stuff that I was on, and I said sure. As soon as I said that ‘three stories’ bit, it was over!”
You can read the entire interview @ this location.
Revolver: Dave Mustaine looks back on the making of ‘Rust of Peace’ — and asking Dimebag and Slash to join Megadeth.
You can read the entire feature @ this location. An excerpt has been provided below.
From the Dave Mustaine book, Rust in Peace: The Inside Story of the Megadeth Masterpiece – BUY NOW
DAVE MUSTAINE We needed a guitar player. I called Dimebag Darrell Abbott from Pantera. We knew each other from touring together. The guy had one of my lyrics tattooed on his leg. He made a practice of getting a tattoo from every tour of something that would recall the tour to him. When they went on tour with us, he tattooed a lyric from my song “Sweating Bullets” on his shin. The song talks about a line from one of the spiritual books I read and says something about a black-toothed grin. Someday you too will know my pain and smile its blacktooth grin. He liked that blacktooth grin line, and they invented a cocktail they called the black-toothed grin, which, instead of a glass of Coke with a shot of whiskey, was a glass of whiskey with a shot of Coke.
Those guys were hard drinkers. And he was this great, shredding guitar player. He liked the idea of joining our band; he said he wanted to do it. I thought this would be the greatest thing ever, but then he asked if he could bring his brother. He founded Pantera with his brother Vinnie Paul Abbott on drums. We already had a drummer. That was a deal-breaker for Dimebag. He wouldn’t come without his brother. To this day, I still wonder in wondrous wonder what it would have been like with Vinnie and Darrell.
DAVID ELLEFSON We had reached out to Diamond Darrell from Pantera, who later was known as Dimebag Darrell but at the time was Diamond Darrell. I had met him one night in Dallas in summer 1988 and we had a bunch of drinks. The next night, I went to see them play at his club in Dallas and they were fucking amazing. They were great, super-tight. They invited me to jump up and play “Peace Sells” with them, which I did. Those boys could drink hard and play their asses off. And Darrell was definitely a guitar star. He was a big deal in the guitar magazines, and Pantera was modestly popular on a more regional level.
I talked to Dave about Darrell and we called him up. He basically said his brother Vinnie comes with him or nothing doing. We already had Nick, so we declined and moved on. Also under consideration to be our other guitar player was Jeff Waters of Annihilator. I don’t know that we ever reached him, but his band Annihilator was taking off, getting popular, so he essentially proved unavailable, whether or not we ever really connected with him to make the offer. We’d expressed interest and he declined.
You can read the entire feature @ this location.
Classic Rock Magazine:
The Big Interview: Dave Mustaine
An excerpt from the interview can be found below. You can read the entire interview @ this location.
INTERVIEW EXCERPT:
Is it difficult for you to talk about Metallica?
Dave Mustaine:
No. I really don’t give a fuck. And you know what? I love those guys. I sent a text message to James just a couple of days ago after he’d said that he was insecure about his playing. I said: “James, I love you and I really like your playing.” He didn’t answer. Of course not. Why would he? The point is I wanted him to know that I’ve had those feelings too, but I don’t now.
I must remind you that when I joined Metallica, James did not play guitar. He just picked it up and started playing when I was in the band. But let’s be honest, James is one of the best metal guitar players in the world. So for him to have those feelings, that’s a lie, because he’s a mind-blowingly talented guy. So I just felt I needed to say something to him. I didn’t tweet it. I didn’t want anybody to know what I said. But I’m telling you because, hey, you brought it up!
(In your autobiography) You said of your time in Metallica: “I was the leader of the band.” That’s quite a statement to make.
Why?
Because the guys who founded that band, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, are such alpha males.
Oh no. I am clearly the alpha male between the three of us. Why did I have to do everything when I was in the band? Why did they always ask me talk to the promoters and collect the cash? Why was I the one who had to do the fighting? Why did I have to talk in between songs?
You’ve said your father was an alcoholic. Have you ever felt that your descent into alcoholism and drug addiction was in some sense pre-ordained?
I was always curious about drinking, and it tried to lure me into that abyss. There’s a lot of other people from that period that didn’t make it out alive, but I’m still here to tell the tale. I consider myself to be really happy. I have a wine company, and I’ll sip the wine to taste it when we’re doing new blends.
And when my son Justis got married, it was balls-hot and I wasn’t going to just sit out in the sun drinking water, man! But the days of looking for hookers to help me find some heroin in the Moulin Rouge district? Those days are over. And honestly, I don’t know why you brought that up. It’s kind of unfair. I mean, fuck, it’s not very flattering.
You weren’t shy about telling your drug stories in your autobiography ten years ago. On the contrary, you put it all out there in lurid detail.
My point is, do we want to regurgitate stuff, or do we want new stuff, seeing as I’m living and breathing, and I’ve got new things to talk about? It’s your call. And however you write it, I just hope that nobody who looks up to me would read this and think that something like heroin is the answer. Because that’s how I got tricked into it. Gar [Samuelson, former Megadeth drummer] told me if I wanted to be great, I had to do it.
Looking back at your life now, do you have any regrets?
Yeah. I regret not saying goodbye to Gar. When we parted ways, it was really ugly, because Gar and Chris [Poland, then Megadeth guitarist] were selling [the musical equipment] for heroin. Every time we get ready to go on the road we had to go to all the neighborhood pawn shops to get that stuff back. So when we parted ways it was bad.
And then many years later, out on tour, we went through Florida one time, and I saw Gar and he looked really different – and not in a good way. His hair was super-long, and his eyes were really sunken. He ended up dying from liver failure. I wish I would have known and been able to talk to him a little bit more. It was always: “Hey, I’ll call you in a couple of days.” And you don’t. So that’s a regret for me.
That said, you seem happy with where you’re at now.
Well, there’s a saying we have here in Tennessee: that dog don’t hunt. And there’s another around here: if you’re going to run with the big dogs, you need to learn how to piss in the tall grass.
That’s an odd expression. Can you explain how it relates to you?
Let’s just say that it takes a little bit more to get me riled up nowadays. In the past, when people used to talk shit about me, I would look at who it was and I would think: “This guy is saying something, and he wants me to respond because he’s got a new album coming out. He wants some cheap publicity.” Usually whenever I say anything, it’s back at someone else. Very rarely have I started shit, you know? But someone would say something and then I’d say: “Alright, game on!”
You can read the entire interview @ this location.
Revolver:
Dave Mustaine: How Megadeth Made New Album While “F**king World Falls Apart”
“All we wanted to do is make a Megadeth record and the f**kin’ world falls apart.” That’s how Dave Mustaine characterizes the era that spawned The Sick, The Dying… and the Dead!, the thrash pioneer’s 16th studio album, first in six years, and first since Mustaine was diagnosed with — and beat — cancer. Revolver talked to him about the challenges of treatment, the dynamic with his current bandmates, and how he approached the writing, recording and rollout of this fiery new record.
An excerpt from the interview has been transcribed below.
Dave Mustaine:
We parted ways with David Ellefson and the idea to get Steve (Testament’s Steve DiGiorgio played bass on Megadeth’s new album), basically, it’s always going to be my decision. There were a couple of guys we looked at, and we were trying to finish the record. The criteria for someone to be a session player and finish the record versus a guy that’s going to be a band member that we can find right now that’s going to make a commitment and leave what they’re doing to come join us; we just didn’t have the time. So, we sought out a guy that would just help us finish the album, and that was Steve.
I’m not a guy who likes to poach people from other bands. I hated when we did that with Cliff Burton. I mean, Trauma (Cliff’s pre-Metallica band) wasn’t a great band, but I think it just sets you up for resentment from people when you go and take their band members. If the guy quits and joins your band, that’s cool, but if I would’ve gone to Testament and said, “Hey, I want Steve,” or I would’ve just gone to Steve and said, “Hey, I’ll give you a gazillion dollars,” and he quits, do you know what would happen? I would lose my friendship with Alex (Skolnick) and Chuck (Billy). It’s just not the way to go.
We welcomed James (LoMenzo) with open arms, and everyone loves him. He’s just such a great, great guy. So, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. Basically, I called him to see what he was doing. Everybody is really happy with him. I haven’t really seen that much push back from the fans. I know the two people that matter most, besides me, Dirk (Verbeuren) and Kiko (Loureiro), love him. It’s what I wanted. I wanted to have the four of us playing together and be comfortable with one another knowing there was no weirdness going on or any double-dealing or anything like that because those are the things that always ruin bands. We’ve just had this closeness, the four of us, since James came. They’re always together somewhere, always. James is at the bar having a glass of wine with Kiko or James is in the gym working out with Dirk. They’re always doing something wonderful together.
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Stop by your local @Target this weekend and pick up the exclusive lenticular CD. You can reserve it online here: https://t.co/EgVzg0n6JJ
Features bonus track “This Planet's On Fire (Burn In Hell)” [feat. @sammyhagar] pic.twitter.com/PqDuTpY5h0
— Megadeth (@Megadeth) September 3, 2022
Megadeth:
Tune-in to Dave Mustaine on The Rock Show with Johnnie Walker on BBC Radio 2 tonight at 11pm UK.
Tune-in @ THIS LOCATION
Megadeth: Check out Dave Mustaine’s latest interview with Irish Times on the new album, overcoming adversity — and his brush with the Troubles. You can read the entire interview @ this location.
An excerpt from the interview can be found below.
INTERVIEW EXCERPT:
Irish Times: On May 11th, 1988, at the height of the Troubles, you caused uproar at a concert at the Antrim Arena. It inspired one of Megadeth’s greatest songs, Holy Wars … The Punishment Due, from their 1990 classic album, Rust In Peace.
Dave Mustaine:
Holy Wars was about the naivety coming there. I was so honest and so innocent. We were backstage, and some stuff had happened during the day which really set the tone for the night. It was just a powder keg ready to go.
I went downstairs and somebody was caught trying to bootleg T-shirts inside the venue. Talk about brass! We went to take the shirt, and he said, “These are for the cause.” I didn’t know what the cause was. “What’s the cause?” I asked him. “It’s about prejudice and religion. The Catholics think they are better than the Protestants; the Protestants think they are better than the Catholics.”
I understand that. I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, and they hate every religion except theirs. I was drinking Guinness straight from the source. I had a bunch of Guinnesses. We are up on stage, and some kid was throwing coins. I don’t know if he was trying to hit Chuck Mehler [the band’s drummer] or Dave Ellefson [its bassist], but I got hit one time. I was pissed. I saw the guy who threw it, and I said something to him. The show stopped. I came back out on stage, and I had just heard that Paul McCartney had said, “Give Ireland back to the Irish,” and I thought Paul’s a knight, he’s cool, it’s got to be something worth saying — so I said what he said and added, “This one’s for the cause,” and the reaction was much different, because I was an American.
It polarized the audience. We had to be taken out of the place in a bulletproof bus. The next day I was in Nottingham, and I wrote the lyrics “Brother will kill brother, spilling blood across the land, killing for religion is something I don’t understand / Fools like me who cross the sea and come to foreign lands / Ask the sheep, for their beliefs / Do you kill on God’s command? A country that’s divided surely will not stand / My past erased, no more disgrace / no foolish naive stand.”
That’s part of my elementary evaluation of the situation, which was grossly underestimating the pain and suffering that people have because of this. I penned this song. It just came out. I love the Irish people, and I don’t really see any distinction between north and south, east and west.
You can read the entire interview @ this location.
The Sick, The Dying … and the Dead! is released on Friday, September 2nd
The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! is #1 on @amazon’s Best Sellers List in CDs & Vinyl!
Pre-order now: https://t.co/7BfqJedlDN pic.twitter.com/iUAas1MqOj
— Megadeth (@Megadeth) August 31, 2022
Megadeth:
Bring out your dead. ‘Chapter 3: The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!’ premieres this Friday alongside the new album.
SEPTEMBER 2
Album: Midnight worldwide
Video: 10am ET • 7am PT • 3pm UK
David Ellefson: The final installment today of the So Far, So Good…So What’s the Story?! webisodes, providing a behind the scenes narrative and reminiscing on moments which made the So Far, So Good…So What! album one the most pivotal Thrash records to close out the decade of the ’80s.
Get your KINGS OF THRASH tickets now at these outlets:
10/12— San Diego — Brick by Brick – TICKETS
10/13 — Phoenix — Crescent Ballroom – TICKETS
10/14 — Las Vegas —The Space – TICKETS
10/15 — West Hollywood — The Whisky a Go-Go – TICKETS
READ MORE:
So Far, So Good…So What’s the Story? – PART 1
So Far, So Good…So What’s the Story? – PART 2
Killing is My Business….and Business is Good PARTS 1-4
Webisode 3: Songwriting Collaborations & Movie Time
The SFSGSW album was the first Megadeth record I had songwriting credits & collaborations. Down to just me and Dave following the Peace Sells… tour (along with drummer Chuck Behler coming into the ranks) I picked up my guitar and began chugging out riffs to add to the songwriting process. These included the main riff to ‘Hook in Mouth’, the rap/bridge riff of ‘Liar’, and lyrics to ‘Mary Jane’ and ‘In My Darkest Hour’.
‘Mary Jane’ was inspired when Dave and I went back to my family’s farm in Minnesota in 1986 after completing the Peace Sells… album. Greg Handevidt and I took Dave down to the Loon Lake Cemetery south of Jackson, MN where the legend of Mary Jane Terwilliger lived and her tombstone still resided. Mary Jane was rumored to be a teenage witch, was buried alive by her father and the story took on hauntingly epic proportions from there. Her tombstone epitaph read “Beware my friends as you pass by, as you are now so once was I, as I am now so you must be, prepare my friends to follow me” which made its way to the bridge section of ‘Mary Jane’ and it seemed fitting for the song to appear on SFSGSW album.
In fact, the music was written during the Peace Sells… tour where we would compose daily during soundchecks. One afternoon in Washington DC during that tour, Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson didn’t show up to sound check so me and Dave had then-drum tech Chuck Behler sit in behind the kit so we could continue composing. Ironically, that became Chuck’s audition for the band as he seemed to know the new songs we were writing from watching behind Gar. From that point onward, Dave and I knew Chuck would be the one to man the drum kit for the next album.
A highlight during the making of the album came when movie director Penelope Spheeris approached us about appearing in her next film THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION “THE METAL YEARS” which would feature the track ‘In My Darkest Hour’ as a single from SFSGSW LP. Earlier in 1987, Penelope had invited us to participate on the soundtrack to her punk rock film DUDES, which featured Jon Cryer (Two and a Half Men), Flea (The Red Hot Chili Peppers) & Lee Ving (FEAR) with a re-record of our KIMB cover song ‘These Boots (Are Made For Walking)’. Ironically, SFSGSW producer Paul Lani would record and mix that track which made for a seamless transition for him to work on the SFSGSW album with us just a few months later in 1987.
Guitar World: Dave Mustaine reflects on Marty Friedman’s Megadeth departure: “What happened to Marty was definitely not okay.” You can read the entire article @ this location.
An excerpt from the interview can be found below.
EXCERPT:
Dave Mustaine:
“I’ve always believed we should give the guitar player an opportunity to do a solo that he feels is right for the song. If someone plays something that doesn’t work for the part, then I may make some suggestions. If it’s still not happening, I might say, ‘Okay, this is what I want you to play here.’
“If a lead totally doesn’t work then I’m going to do the part myself. That’s what happened [on] Breadline. And Marty Friedman quit over the solo in Breadline.”
Mustaine explains that Friedman had written and recorded a solo for Breadline in the studio, but Megadeth management wanted the track to be a single, and thought his solo wasn’t right for the song.
“I said [to management], ‘Well, you have three choices. Either you mute the solo completely, have Marty come back and redo it, or I do it.’ And then I said, ‘If I do it, you’d better tell him.’ Well, I redid it, and nobody told Marty.
“So we’re in there listening to the finished album and the solo comes on. It’s my solo, not Marty’s… I looked at him as tears ran down his face and I knew right away that nobody had told him. I knew that was probably going to be the end of Marty Friedman.”
“Our management was supposed to tell him and, for whatever reason, they didn’t do it. I think that was a terrible thing to do to him.”
Questioned on whether he could have asserted that it wasn’t his call to axe his solo from the track, Mustaine continues:
“Having been a partner with Marty for so many years, as much of an enigma as he was, I could tell he was really upset and he had had enough.
“What happened to Marty was definitely not okay. Our management was supposed to tell him and, for whatever reason, they didn’t do it. I think that was a terrible thing to do to him.”
Read the full interview with Dave Mustaine and Kiko Loureiro in the new issue of Guitar World, available via Magazines Direct.
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
Great conversation with great company. Thank you @joerogan for having me.
Listen now: https://t.co/6Ey6ZSNETI pic.twitter.com/Oka1X4APIC
— Megadeth (@Megadeth) August 23, 2022
This is a full in bloom interview with Megadeth/OHM guitarist Chris Poland.
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW VIA THE EMBEDDED YOUTUBE CLIP BELOW. You can access the video directly on YouTube @ this location.
An excerpt from the interview has been transcribed below.
DESCRIPTION:
Chris talks about Megadeth, Gar Samuelson, Dave Mustaine, David Ellefson, Slayer’s Kerry King, drug use during Killing is My Business and Business is Good and Peace Sells but Who’s Buying.
INTERVIEW EXCERPT:
full in bloom: What was your impression of Dave Mustaine’s playing when you first heard him?
Chris Poland:
I don’t know. There was a lot of drinking going on. The songs were awesome. You knew it was Dave when he played. It just wasn’t the tone I would’ve chosen. As time went on, Jesus, when he made ‘Rust in Peace’ that’s when he really started to get his guitar tone dialed in.
full in bloom: Yeah, to me, that was kind of the peak. Although, ‘Peace Sells’ is my favorite album.
Yeah, I know. His playing on ‘Peace Sells’ is like, it has got that Jimmy Page stagger, but it’s still like dead on. And that’s what was cool is because we were different guitar players and I think that’s what made it, hard-left and hard-right, two different guitars that sound different and were played different is why it gave it that character.
full in bloom: Just to confirm, you guys both played the rhythm tracks, correct?
On ‘Peace Sells,’ yeah.
full in bloom: So, Dave cut all rhythm tracks on ‘Killing is My Business?’
99% of them, yeah. There was a big buzz on that record when it got released, so when we did ‘Peace Sells…’ ‘Peace Sells,’ the reason that record sounded so good is because we did so many tours before we went in to record the record, we knew what worked live. We went right into the studio, coming off the road, so we were really ready to make that record, and we did it in thirty days, man.
full in bloom: And you guys were playing songs from ‘Peace Sells’ on the “Killing is My Business’ tour, right?
Yeah, absolutely, before the record even came out, we were playing them live.
full in bloom: Do you recall which ones specifically?
Probably “Wake Up Dead” and “Peace Sells,” a lot of the good ones. I can’t remember. I know we did a lot of those songs, and we did a lot of the songs from the first record, too.
The first record was hard, man. Those rhythm parts were hard to play. Even the rhythm parts on ‘Peace Sells’ weren’t easy. That’s why Gar (Samuelson) told me, “This band is really challenging, and you won’t get bored, trust me.”
On Drug Use During the Recording of ‘Killing is My Business’:
The drugs that we were doing, it wasn’t like that. You’d do it, and then you’d be able to work all day. Nobody was like falling down or drooling or anything. It was just something that we did.
full in bloom: How did you end up getting into drugs, like even shooting up? How did you get into that?
Well, it got to the point where we were snorting it. The people I would buy it from would tell me, “You’re wasting hundreds of dollars doing that,” and we were running out of money. One day I just thought, “Well, I’m going to see if I can do this.” I sat down and tried to do it and wound up figuring it out, and the rest is history.
full in bloom: But that’s also prior to joining Megadeth, correct?
Oh, no. I didn’t start shooting up until I was in Megadeth.
full in bloom: I thought you and Gar were kind of the experienced ones on that end and Dave and David were…
Oh, yeah. No, we were doing heroin. During that time when I was like, working for those guys. I was going out on the road with them and kind of helping with the equipment, going to gigs when they were a three-piece. That’s when I started (shooting up), money was scarce, and I just figured it out.
Those guys (Dave Mustaine and David Ellefson), when Gar told them, “You don’t want to do this,” they said, “No, we want to do it.” Gar said, “No, you don’t.” They said, “Yes, we do,” and that’s how it happened.
full in bloom: And that starts on ‘Killing is My Business?’
Somewhere in that time period, yes. Sometime, I think, before the recording. But those guys weren’t strung out. They were what people call, ‘chipper/chipping,’ when they just do it once in a while. It wasn’t a habit for them yet. It didn’t become a habit until ‘Peace Sells.’
The entire Chris Poland interview segment is available via the embedded video clip below.
David Ellefson: As we continue the celebration of the Kings of Thrash tour coming up in October, 2022, Jeff Young / Six-Strings Inc. & David Ellefson will be checking in via their new web-a-log series entitled So Far, So Good…So What’s the Story?! providing a behind the scenes narrative and reminiscing on moments which made the So Far, So Good…So What! album one the most pivotal Thrash records to close out the decade.
Get your KINGS OF THRASH tickets now at these outlets:
10/12— San Diego — Brick by Brick – TICKETS
10/13 — Phoenix — Crescent Ballroom – TICKETS
10/14 — Las Vegas —The Space – TICKETS
10/15 — West Hollywood — The Whisky a Go-Go – TICKETS
Webisode 2: The Album
Producer Paul Lani was a natural pick for producing the album, as he was hired by Capitol Records a year earlier to remix the ‘Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying’ album when we got signed to the label in 1986. That album was actually recorded under our previous COMBAT Records contract that was sold to Capitol as part of our transition to the majors. So, the SFSGSW album would become our sophomore release under Capitol Records (although it was the third album of our catalog).
The DEF LEPPARD album ‘Hysteria’ was all the rave when we cut the SFSGSW album in 1987 and Paul Lani was a huge fan of its producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange. As a result of “Mutt’s” meticulously clean recordings, Paul set out to follow suit and innovate new recording methods himself. Not necessarily a bad thing, as our manager had even created a tour T-shirt for us which had the moniker in dictionary font “MEGADETH: The World’s State of the Art Speed Metal Band” printed on its back. Plus, this was our first real major label recording, and we had a more generous budget to allow for proper production. But cleanliness can be a dirty job in rock n’ roll….
When tracking the drums at The Music Grinder Studio on Melrose Ave in Los Angeles, Lani had our drummer Chuck Behler record his drums without any cymbals (actually hitting foam pads in place of the cymbals and hi-hat), and then later went back and had him record his hi-hat and cymbals as an overdub (this time hitting no drums)….the idea being to give complete isolation & control over the drum kit. Usually, when recording drums in a big live room, isolation is the enemy as you set out to capture the big sound created by the synergy of the cymbals, drums and the room working in unison to create a cohesive “kit” sound. That method was industry standard in the day and even boasted by such legends as LED ZEPPELIN’s John Bonham who reportedly recorded in castles and other large rooms to get that “BIG” drum sound of his. Even more, the big room drum sound was all the rave on most of the current 80’s metal records of that day, like RATT, DOKKEN, WHITESNAKE, etc. So, Lani’s drum isolation approach was bucking trends as he favored tightness & clarity over bombast, even more so given the intricacy, speed & precision of our music.
Lani did the initial mixes for the album at Bearsville Studios in upstate New York aiming for a more tight and punchy sound. However, we then hired 80s metal producer Michael Wagener (ACCEPT, DOKKEN, METALLICA) to remix the album in Los Angeles, to which he in turn gave it his signature big, modern drum and guitar sound. It should be noted that the KIMB & SFSGSW albums were the two LPS of our catalog which always seemed to beg of a remix to get it to where we felt it should be. Eventually, that would happen in 2001 & 2018 for KIMB and 2004 for SFSGSW. So, in a way SFSGSW went from initially having a rawness to it (Bearsville mixes), to a big slick sound (Wagener remix), back to being raw (2004 remix).
As for overdubbing the SFSGSW album, on Peace Sells… I recorded all the bass parts in two days, also at the Music Grinder in 1986. But, Lani, being more versed in mainstream rock and pop records, was a real stickler on timing and performances and I would usually nail only two bass tracks in a day. We even had to contend with the massive Whittier earthquake early one morning during the overdubbing, which scared the crap out me (my first ‘quake since living in LA) and the aftershocks would rock the studio for the next couple days after. But we carried on! Thus, we used a week to cut drums, about five days on bass and the remaining several weeks for all the guitars, vocals, and other overdubs. This gave the record a much more cohesive tightness to the grooves and performances rather than the rush job we’d done on the previous two records due to our budget constraints. I learned a lot about recording from Paul Lani on that album, something I’ve taken into every record since.
When we told Lani that we were going to cover THE SEX PISTOLS song ‘Anarchy in the U.K., it was he who suggested we get his friend/ex-Pistols guitarist Steve Jones to play on the track. We were stoked! What was ironic is that Jones was part of the new wave of sober rockers who had cleaned up their act. Us…not so much! But his stories were legendary, and we were like kids around the campfire when he told us of escapades with the Pistols back in the day.
The Sex Pistols were the quintessential punk band, and this would be a major coup for us to land such an icon for our album. Interesting history given that the Pistols were on EMI Records, and we were on Capitol Records, also owned by EMI! If you own a copy of their debut Never Mind the Bollocks…. Here’s the Sex Pistols, and now the story of their manager Malcolm McLaren’s ‘The Great Rock n Roll Swindle’ tale you will find the irony.
Even more, we didn’t even go to the publisher to get the proper lyrics for the song, but instead wrote down what we thought they were by listening to the original track in the studio before cutting the vocal. We would later catch some flak for this by John Lydon (previously named Johnny Rotten while in The Sex Pistols) who didn’t seem to appreciate our unintentional spin on the lyric, but in a way, it was punk rock to do such a punk rock thing like that and then get blasted by our hero! Ooops….
Fun fact: it was our guitar technician David “Gadget” White who coined the phrase of the album’s title. Best I recall, one day in the studio I said “Well, so far, so good” to which he flippantly finished the phrase with “so what!” and BANG that was the new mantra of the session: “So Far, So Good…So What”! It was a sentiment that despite our hard work and glimpses of success from the Peace Sells… album, we were still in the thick of it with miles of hard work still ahead. And considering our punk rock “lifestyle” at the time, the album title became very fitting for the next year of our lives on the road in 1988.
YOU CAN READ PART I @ THIS LOCATION.
DAVID ELLEFSON REMEMBERS MEGADETH’S KILLING IS MY BUSINESS ERA