DAVE MUSTAINE: 'I'm Constantly Trying To Keep MEGADETH On The Cutting Edge Of Stuff'

Adrian Garro of Rock Cellar Magazine recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Rock Cellar Magazine: When you're not on the clock as "Dave Mustaine of MEGADETH," what do you do for fun? Any specific hobbies?

Dave Mustaine: We've really been blessed with our business with MEGADETH. We've got a huge fan club, and with our social networking and site, it's great. Believe it or not — I know this is probably gonna be hard to believe, but on October 31, 1994, we opened up "Megadeth Arizona." It was the first band web site ever. I'm not saying I invented the Internet like Al Gore does — which is fucking ridiculous — but we were the first band to ever have a web site on the Internet. In fact, Gene Simmons even said, "I want a web site just like Dave's!" and I was pretty flattered about that. Because, you know, say what you will about Gene, but he's a very smart businessman. Plus, looking at where we're going right now, and with my free time, I'm constantly trying to keep MEGADETH on the cutting edge of stuff. Writing is a full-time job, traveling is a full-time job. And also with the anonymity of the Internet now, it seems like it takes a lot of your time figuring out how to handle certain stuff that happens online. Controversy, people taking everything that you say out of context, and so on. I kind of liked it better when you had to mail things to people. Some guy on the other side of the world couldn't call you out and make you unable to do anything about it, for example. I think that's just kind of the way of the world, but it's like this: you got this job, you're a public figure, and you need to know how to deal with it. It's like that old saying, you're gonna please some people some of the time, but not all the people all the time, or something like that.

Rock Cellar Magazine: That's definitely true, and you certainly see that every day with the Internet.

Dave Mustaine: And being a very outspoken person, and being the kinda polarizing guy that I am, a lot of people take what I say out of context, as if I'm trying to cause problems. Recently, some school has released some polio-like disease, it came out on the news. You see, I have a lot of under-the-radar connections, obviously, considering who I am… and I heard about this today, they said 25 kids are paralyzed in California right now with "polio-like symptoms" and they don't know where it came from. And I'm thinking, "Well, I know where it came from." Somebody, somewhere, fucked up. You see with these movies, they kind of teach people about what's coming. Our electrical grids in America have been really bad for a long time… We were just doing a press conference over in India, and met some guy who was living in New Zealand. He goes, "Oh, India's got the strongest broadband connections, and we're so far ahead with technology and stuff," and I'm thinking to myself, that's just so insane! We think America is so far ahead of everybody in so many different columns, and we're not… you know?

Rock Cellar Magazine: It puts things in perspective.

Dave Mustaine: It does. And when you think about it and you're a guy like me who sings songs like "Peace Sells, But Who's Buying?" — and have been singing songs like that for 25, 30+ years — you have to ask yourself: "What does Dave have to gain by saying something about chem trails? Why would he jeopardize his career and everything he's worked for to say, 'Oh, this thing that's totally fake and make-believe is real' and jeopardize his career?" I wouldn't do that, you know. I would say, "Is this real? Is this something that is happening to us, is it bad? And if they can do it, why wouldn't they do it with other stuff?", you know? I'm really close with a lot of the people who are conspiracy theorists — or at least people call them that. As soon as you raise a question about anything… When I was growing up, if you had somebody that you were talking to, and you didn't agree with something they said, you guys could still be friends and just disagree in that area. Now, if you have a friend and you disagree about something, the friendship could be up for discussion. Some of the hot-button issues — global warming, pollution, abortion, gay rights, and all this sort of stuff… you know, people hear shit about me and they think that I say this or that — I heard some disc jockey try to make it out like I don't support gay rights. Did the guy say that I was against gay people? Yeah. Am I against gay people? No. People in my company are gay, and they work with me… It's just like somebody saying I'm racist. My guitar tech is black. So they try and come up with stuff to make it out like I'm a fucker, so it's pretty much a full-time job to figure out who you're gonna answer and who you're not.

Read the entire interview at Rock Cellar Magazine.