DAVE MUSTAINE On Upcoming MEGADETH Album: 'We've Got Some Really Great Ideas We're Working On'

During a December 22 chat on X Spaces, MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine offered an update on the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's upcoming follow-up to 2022's "The Sick, The Dying... And The Dead!" album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Right now I'm in the studio working with [engineer] Chris Rakestraw. And everybody else is gone. Teemu [Mäntysaari, MEGADETH guitarist] is in Switzerland and James [LoMenzo, MEGADETH bassist] and Dirk [Verbeuren, MEGADETH drummer] are in Los Angeles. So it's just me here by myself with Chris. And Chris leaves tomorrow to go on a vacation, and I'm working up to the last second today to get as much done as I can before he takes off because we won't be starting again until he returns somewhere around New Year's Day. And at that point, it's only a matter of a couple weeks before everybody converges on to the studio. And for that I'm pumped. And you guys are gonna be excited."

Regarding what it has been like being back in the studio, Dave said: "It's been frustrating, because I wanna be farther along than I am right now. But that's quite all right.

"When you write original music, you've always gotta start at the first step," he explained. "And that's what I've been doing my whole career. So, before we did this, I had all four of us listen to the entire catalog — every single song; 205 songs — and I wanted to make sure they knew chord progressions, lyric patterns, all kinds of stuff like that, so that they would hear tempos and starts and stops and everything to help them be able to songwrite and contribute also. And it's been really great because Teemu is contributing, Dirk is contributing, like last time, James contributed back in the day and he's got more stuff coming on this record.

"It was funny because sometimes when you think, 'Ah, I don't really know that that riff is that good,' and then you go back and you listen to it another day and say, 'Yeah, that's pretty cool.' 'Well, you already listened to it and you didn't like it.' 'What?' That kind of thing. So, we went through a bunch of riffs over and over and over and over and over again, and so far we've got some really great ideas we're working on."

Rakestraw is a producer, mixer and engineer who previously worked on MEGADETH's last two albums, "The Sick, The Dying... And The Dead!" and 2016's "Dystopia".

This past September, Teemu, who joined the band more than a year ago as the replacement for Kiko Loureiro, was asked by Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station about the progress of the songwriting sessions for MEGADETH's next LP. He said: "Yeah, actually, already a while back Dave started talking about making the next album and kind of starting to do pre-production. And as soon as he mentioned that, and kind of before that already, once it was clear that I'm gonna be staying with the band, then I kind of started putting my ideas down and just recording any riff ideas that I feel like could be something that could be used in MEGADETH. And by now I have a bunch of riffs and ideas that I've gathered. And then Dave told me that he likes to work the way that everybody does their riffs and then at some point we're gonna get together and then review things and see which riffs are gonna work together and then work out the parts between the riffs to kind of connect things and then that way come up with the skeletons for the songs. And I'm really looking forward to doing that and hearing how he feels about my ideas as well. But what I've done so far is whenever I have a moment to sit down, I usually just record a little video of myself playing a riff idea and then when we have a day off at the hotel, then I would record that properly and then just like have this folder of riffs that we can look into at some point. So, [I'm] really looking forward to that. And Dave has been really supportive and sounds like he wants to have all the guys' input on the next album, which is really exciting."

In August, Mustaine was asked by Chuck Armstrong of "Loudwire Nights" how the dynamic within MEGADETH has changed since Mäntysaari's addition to the band. Mustaine responded: "Well, we are a band again. It doesn't feel like me and some side players or some session guys. Not that it felt like that with any of the previous lineups, but that was one of the fears that I had. I feel like Kiko did us a really huge courtesy by helping us find Teemu because with Kiko needing to step down… I thought I was gonna finish my career out with Kiko, and when things came up with him, he couldn't tour anymore because he needed to be home for his kids. So I see he's touring again, which I'm happy that he's still playing. But he had to go home. And when he did, he introduced us to Teemu. And it was an even closer connection between me and Teemu than Kiko and I had. We'll [Kiko and I] always be friends, but this new relationship I have is — it harkens me back to the days when we had Marty Friedman in the band and the four of us actually felt like a band."

Mäntysaari stepped in September 2023 for Loureiro, who announced earlier that month that he would sit out the next leg of MEGADETH's "Crush The World" tour in order to stay home with his children back in Finland. It was later revealed that the 37-year-old Finnish musician would continue to play guitar for MEGADETH for the foreseeable future, with Loureiro seemingly having no plans to return.

Mäntysaari was born in Tampere, Finland and began playing guitar at the age of 12. In 2004, he joined the band WINTERSUN. He has also been a member of SMACKBOUND since 2015.

Earlier in August, Mustaine was asked by Kyle Meredith what Mäntysaari has brought to MEGADETH that wasn't there before. Mustaine responded: "God, he's such an amazing talent. And as far as being a human is concerned, he's a really humble guy. He's fun to be around because he's kind of — there's this 'greenness' to him, if that's a word, greenness. He makes it really fun because he's gone from being in a band that was pretty well known to being in MEGADETH. And so everything's very new for him at this level. And for us, we get to kind of enjoy ourselves, because we sometimes forget where we're at and then you see other people that, 'Wow, the bread is round and so is the meat,' that kind of shit. And it just makes him really happy, and it just reminds you of how good you have it."

Regarding how much a lineup change like that actually alters the musical DNA of the band, Dave said: "Well, it depends on who the new player is. If they're willing to learn the parts, then the songs either, they stay where they are or they get better. And a lot of times when you have a new player, like when Teemu came in, he played everything identical to the original players. So, he's been one of the best guitar players to step in and play somebody else's stuff. I don't know what his stuff's going to sound like yet, which I'm looking forward to finding out."

This past June, Mustaine told Sakis Fragos of Rock Hard Greece that he thinks Teemu will contribute to the songwriting process on MEGADETH's next studio album. "I think he's gonna be a great addition to MEGADETH," Dave said. "He already has. We're playing more songs now than we were playing before. And that has nothing negative to say about any of the previous lineups. It just says that he knew more about the band and understands the metal backbone of so many of these songs more than some of the other people would understand it."

He continued: "When you're a metal guy, I think you understand metal compositions more than somebody who, say for example, knows progressive rock like [former MEGADETH guitarist] Chris Broderick does, or somebody who knows bossa nova, which Kiko does, or somebody that plays jazzy, like [former MEGADETH guitarist] Glen Drover would play, maybe Al Pitrelli. These guys all have their strengths."

Mustaine added: "I've often thought, although I've never said it, I do believe that when somebody gets singled out by me, that's pretty much it for them. They've been indoctrinated into the world of great guitar players, and from that moment on, their life will change."

In early October 2023, Mustaine told Shaggy of the 94.9 and 104.5 The Pick radio station in Idaho Falls, Idaho about Teemu's addition to MEGADETH: "People are losing their minds over how things are going right now 'cause we have a really good chemistry together."

In September 2023, Mustaine was equally full of praise for Mäntysaari, telling Wes Styles in a separate interview: "He's really great. And I'm super excited with what Teemu has brought. And it's uncanny because he plays a lot like Marty. And it's really exciting. At certain times I just close my eyes during the set and I just hear these songs played, whether like Kiko in the past or Teemu now, it just sounds really magic because these guys have learned these songs and they're not just going out there and just banging their guitar around; they actually learned the solos from some of the virtuosos that I've played with over my career."

Photo credit: Ryan Chang