DAVE MUSTAINE: 'I'm Not A Bad Guy' And 'I Don't Walk Around With A Chip On My Shoulder'

During an appearance on Dean Delray's "Let There Be Talk" podcast, ex-METALLICA guitarist and current MEGADETH frontman Dave Mustaine reflected on his performance with his former METALLICA bandmates on stage in December 2011 for the fourth and final intimate show at the Fillmore in San Francisco as part of METALLICA's week-long celebration of its 30th anniversary as a band for fan club members only. Asked what his initial reaction was when he was first approached to play with METALLICA again, Mustaine said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I don't remember clearly, but probably a little bit of 'no', a little bit of 'yes', a little bit of 'why'd you take so long', a little bit of 'shouldn't we have done this a long time ago?' Think about all the kids that wish they could have seen me play [with METALLICA]. That part's sad."

Mustaine continued: "I just saw something from [former MEGADETH guitarist] Marty Friedman — I don't know if you saw it or not — where he was talking about how he left [MEGADETH] and how he mishandled it, and I thought that was really great. I thought it was really cool, because when Marty left, I became the bad guy. And I'm not a bad guy. I'm not a bad guy. If you piss me off, you know what? There's a 50/50 chance I'm gonna react bad, but generally, during the day, I don't walk around with a chip on my shoulder. And when Marty left, everybody thought, 'Dave wasn't using his songs', 'Dave's a bad band leader'. And it's real easy — you get two guys to say the same thing, and then it looks like it's true. I'm not a bad band leader. Look where MEGADETH is right now after almost 45 years. We're the biggest we've ever been. The band guys are the happiest they've ever been."

Mustaine, who was one of the early members of METALLICA, was fired from the band by drummer Lars Ulrich in 1983. He was replaced by Kirk Hammett and went on to form MEGADETH and achieve worldwide success on his own.

Back in December 2011, Mustaine was asked by Music Radar if it "felt nice to have mended all fences with" METALLICA at the aforementioned Fillmore gig. Mustaine said: "You know, there's still going to be some dumb fucker who says to me, 'So, do you guys get along?' [Laughs] I just know it. The world is full of idiots, and I seem to run into a lot of them. It does feel good, though.

"It was very cathartic to go up there [to San Francisco and play with them]. I was pretty unsure of what was going to happen. I wasn't nervous; I just didn't know what to expect. Those guys are a lot different from MEGADETH. We like to know what songs we're going to do. They play pretty loose from the hip — which is cool.

"I was trying to figure out, 'Do I learn the demo versions of the [METALLICA] songs or the 'Kill 'Em All' versions of the songs?' Well, I found out it was the 'Kill 'Em All' versions. Okay, 'Do I learn my solos from the demos, or Kirk's solos? What solos should I play?' Then, when I got there, Kirk said, 'You know, why don't you play all the solos?' And I was like, 'Oooh!' [laughs] I had to quickly go through my bag of tricks. In the end, I got up on stage, and everything came together. I was making it much too difficult for myself.

"It was fun, I had a good time, everybody smiled a lot. Gave out a bunch of high-five knuckles and hugs. Lars kissed me a couple of times...[Laughs]"

In an interview with Revolver magazine conducted earlier in 2011, Mustaine was asked what he remembers about writing music with METALLICA while he was in the group.

"I had always called us, as a group, the 'Four Horsemen,'" he said. "Before I was in METALLICA, I really loved this band called MONTROSE, and their guitarist was Ronnie Montrose. He went on to form a band called GAMMA. One of their records [1980's 'Gamma 2'] had a shark fin cutting through the grass, which I thought was so awesome. Anyway, he had a song on there called 'Four Horsemen' that I did with my band PANIC, which I was with before METALLICA. So when I joined METALLICA, I had the song 'Mechanix', which I wrote, and 'Four Horsemen' was a suggestion of mine to do 'cause we were doing cover songs. So that had planted the seed with James [Hetfield, METALLICA frontman]. And one day when we were coming to rehearsal, Lars had just said something about slowing down my song, 'Mechanix'. I had just gotten to the studio with Cliff [Burton, METALLICA bassist], and we had been listening to LYNYRD SKYNYRD, and I was being a jerk, so I played 'Sweet Home Alabama' instead of 'Mechanix', and that’s basically the middle part of what would become METALLICA’s 'The Four Horsemen'."

Regarding what his favorite METALLICA song is, Mustaine said, "I had to do a lot of coming to terms with myself in order to listen to METALLICA. Before, whenever I heard them, it triggered me in my mind to get up on my soapbox and spit out complaints of what had happened to me. And then once I finally realized, 'Dave, you're lucky, you're blessed, you're in a great band, you're in another great band.' I finally just said, 'You're missing it.'

"And I remember hearing this song when I was talking to Lars once and telling him this is my favorite song off the 'Black Record.' And he goes, 'Really? Fuck, man.' It was 'The Unforgiven'. I liked it because I thought this was really the first time I've ever really heard James sing. He had sung before, and he was a great singer. But that was the first time I ever heard him really, really sing."

In a 2009 interview with Norway's Lydverket, Mustaine said that he was "so hurt" by getting kicked out of METALLICA for allegedly drinking too much. "I said, 'What?! No second chance, no warning? C'mon, we all drink. C'mon.'" he recalled. "And [they were like], 'No, that's it. You're gone.' And I was like, 'All right.'"

Mustaine also went on to claim that an altercation with Hetfield led to his being fired from the band.

"I was selling pot," Dave said. "When I would go play in concert, people knew that my pot was sitting in my apartment just saying, 'Go ahead and keep me company.' So I was broken in on. People stole everything that I had; all my stash. And I figured, screw this. I'm gonna get some dogs to stay in the apartment when I leave. So I got two dogs and I took one of them up to a rehearsal one time and she put her paws up on Ron's [McGovney, METALLICA's then-bassist] car. And James kicked it right in the side. And I was like, 'What did you do?' [And I was like] 'It's a dog, it's what they do. You don't kick animals.' So we went into the house, and we started arguing some more. And I ended up punching him in the face and I think that was the root of why I lost my job."

In a 2009 interview with the Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas radio station 97.1 The Eagle Rocks, Hetfield said that it was "so odd" to hear Mustaine still talking about his exit from METALLICA. "It is very Dave, and that's him," James said. "And no matter what band he was in or whatever... I mean, Dave is not in this band for a reason, and this is the reason. It's super-simple. He was in the band for 11 months and it goes on and on and on and on and on. I don't know any other band on this planet that there was a member in the band for a short amount of time and they've still got this big chip on his shoulder. It's insane.... You know what?! He's in love, and that's fine, 'cause we love him back."

Back in 2016, Hammett told the "Word Of Wheeler" podcast that he understood Dave's continued resentment toward his former bandmates over the way he was dismissed from the group. "I've always seen Dave as someone who was just really, really sad, really angry, really frustrated about his situation with METALLICA, and he never could let that go," he said. "And, you know, I've always shown a lot of empathy for him, understanding that he was just pissed off. It's the equivalent of the woman of your life leaving you. I mean, really. When your band kicks you out… I've never been kicked out, but I can imagine it's a horrible experience, especially if it's a band that you feel really passionately about. So I can understand Dave's plight over all these years. But I will also say that when we did these 30th-anniversary shows at the Fillmore [in San Francisco], and we invited Dave to play on all those 'Kill 'Em All' songs, man, it felt so good to have him playing on stage. It felt perfectly fine for me to, while Dave was playing the guitar solos, for me to go over to James and play the rhythm parts with James, and it wasn't a big deal at all. And I could see from the look on Dave's face and just from his whole attitude that it was super-cathartic for him. And I could see how it was helping him. And so I just took it all in stride. And it's interesting, because since then, I think, Dave's relationship with us is a little bit better now. I'd like to think that that whole thing just kind of healed some scars that needed to be healed."

After Hammett's comments about Mustaine were reported by BLABBERMOUTH.NET and other music sites, Dave took to his Twitter to respond. He wrote: "I have tremendous respect for @KirkHammett and I appreciate his take on this. he is almost 100% accurate...almost. I wish him the best."

In a September 2011 interview with Artisan News, Mustaine appeared to concur that his onstage reunion with METALLICA went a long way toward healing the wounds from the way his tenure in the band ended. Dave said: "When we [played a cover of DIAMOND HEAD's] 'Helpless' [as part of a 'Big Four' jam] one night, I walked over to say hello to Kirk on the stage and he said, 'Do you wanna take the solo?" and I said, 'Yeah.' [Laughs] But we forgot to tell anybody on the stage or [running] the sound out front that I was gonna do the solo, so the song's playing along and Kirk's playing rhythm full blast, and I'm sitting there going you can't hear what I'm doing. At least we knew what had happened. It was kind of a symbolic passing of the torch back to me and it was a nice gesture. I think that that helped Kirk and my relationship improve a bit."

In a September 2004 interview, Mustaine famously stated, "I really don't care about Kirk — he stole my job, but at least I got to bang his girlfriend before he took my job. How do I taste, Kirk?"

Mustaine did not play on any METALLICA albums and did not attend their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2009.

Ulrich later explained to The Plain Dealer that Mustaine was not included because "you've got to kind of cap it somewhere. Dave Mustaine never played on any METALLICA records. No disrespect to him. But there [were] half a dozen other people that were in the lineup in the early days. We thought . . . the fair thing to do would be to include anybody that played on a METALLICA record." He added: "Dave Mustaine was in the band for 11 months, predominantly in 1982... I'm not trying to play it down. I have nothing but respect and admiration for his accomplishments since."

Photo credit: Ross Halfin