DAVE MUSTAINE: Being Mean-Spirited Doesn't Really Make Me Feel Good Anymore

Dave Good of the San Diego Reader recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On "the new Dave":

Mustaine: "What got me off before — being mean-spirited and stuff like that — it doesn't really make me feel good anymore. So I'm a little more conscientious about stuff that I say, if it's gonna really do damage to somebody or if it's gonna be…

"Laughing with somebody is totally different than laughing at somebody, which is totally different from humiliating somebody. I can laugh at people, I can laugh with them, but I don't like humiliating people anymore. It's just not fun."

What are you listening to now?

Mustaine: "You'd be really surprised what I listen to. I listen to K-WAVE [Christian music and talk] in my car. I listen to 95.7, the country channel; I listen to the jazz station here. That's basically what I listen to: jazz, the country channel, the faith channel. I like listening to NPR radio, too, because my life is based around the current events that are happening in our world. I'm a political singer — probably considered an activist, which I don't think I am — and I don't think I'm a political singer, but that's what I've been called."

Best concert?

Mustaine: "It was at the LED ZEPPELIN reunion at O2 [London, 2007]. I flew over, went and saw the concert, got food poisoning, and spent the entire night during the concert running up and down the steps. I was down…maybe 15 rows back from the stage so it was where all the friends and family were sitting. And I had to keep walking up and down the stairs and blehh! I got my Stairmaster workout in."

Something about you that no one would ever guess?

Mustaine: "That I'm nice."

As the number-one-rated guitarist in Joel McIver's "100 Greatest Metal Guitarists", do you have any advice for beginners?

Mustaine: "Well, I'm number one for now, and although I'm honored, I gotta remember that gift came from God, and it's not my doing. I thought it was my doing, and when I had that nerve damage happen to my arm [in 2002], I was dead in the water. Couldn't play anymore. I didn't realize how much I identified my life with the guitar.

"Now, because I've had a chance to put things in perspective, I feel that I've had a pretty good wrestling bout with humility, and that's why, when it comes down to charts, I can honestly say ‘for now.' There's so many people out there that are better than me. My advice would be simple: get a Dean, buy the amps that I use, play the strings and the picks that I use. And if you want me to help you, we're opening up an academy at my studio here for young kids, and we're going to give an opportunity in every class for an underprivileged kid to come in here. All I wanna see when we give some of these gift tuitions through the academy here is some good grades. I just want to see some kids who are gonna make San Diego a better place to live."

Read the entire interview from the San Diego Reader.