DAVE MUSTAINE Talks RICK SANTORUM, Gay Marriage, METALLICA And Playing With 'Satanic' Bands

Earlier this month, MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine sat down with noted right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for a face-to-face interview for Infowars.com. The entire one-hour chat has now been posted online and can be viewed below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On having to clarify media reports that he endorsed Republican Rick Santorum for president:

Mustaine: "Well, it's no secret I've been writing songs about not being happy about the way that the peasants are treated in the valley. And being one myself, the lyrics in 'Peace Sells' talk a lot about what my beliefs are: I go to work when I have to, I go to court when I have to, I pay my bills, I believe in God. You know, all the things our founding fathers would have been proud of, you know what I mean!? And I was talking and doing an interview with this guy [at the MusicRadar.com web site], and innocently enough, he asked me what I thought about the candidates, and I went through the Republican candidates and I said what I thought of each one at the time. Because it was during that horrible, embarrassing smear campaign that they were all waging towards each other — I mean, seemingly like that. Everybody was just fighting instead of saying, 'He may have done this, but I believe this, and I'm gonna fight against Obama.' . . . And it's not even going after Obama, it's going after the ideals that America was founded on… We have a constitution. I saw a joke the other day. Someone said that, I think, Syria was writing a new constitution and that they could have ours 'cause we don't use it anymore. But to get back to the point, I was just talking about politics, like I did when I did Rock The Vote [Editor's note: In 1992, Mustaine went to the White House with the Rock The Vote campaign for the Democratic National Convention coverage.], and the second person who picked up the story said I endorsed Rick Santorum. And I put out a press release after that that said I never used the word 'endorsed.' I said that I liked the guy because he jumped off the campaign trail to go be with his sick daughter. Now that, to me, whether you're a football player or an astronaut, if you put your family first, you get kudos in my book."

On performing with METALLICA again more than 25 years after he was fired from the band:

Mustaine: "I think the point that this whole thing is… it's closure. It's very cathartic, what took place. When we started off, it was three guys that, we didn't know what we were gonna do. We just loved playing together, we loved fast and heavy music. If you would have told us we [were going to] change the world and that every guitar-playing kid from here to Timbuktu would be playng my style of guitar playing, I would have said you were out of your mind. But that's how it started. We were a three-piece — James [Hetfield] sang, I played guitar, Lars [Ulrich] drummed and we had a bass player at the time that we changed for Cliff Burton, who we really wanted. There was a lot of personality in the band and we went our separate ways for quite a long time. There was the way that the public perceived us, the way that the perceived us, and how we really are. 'Cause we were friends. When we got back to playing with each other… It's kind of like we have this relationship that the public sees and that the press has and that we have. Like the Johari Window, which is four different perspectives — how I see me, how you see me, how I think you see me, how you really see me. That's one of those weird perception things they teach you in psychology. And we have kind of a three-dimensional way that our relationship is. Our private relationship, we've been friends ever since the day we met. It's kind of like you see two people get together in a debate and they're vicious, and then after it's done, they shake hands. Like hockey players — they'll have a beer after they knock each other's teeth out. So we've always had that friendship, but the press has used what each one of us would say in jest about each other as really fiery ammo on each other, and just kind of kept it going, and the public bought into it. And I think the way that you can ask, 'Is it real?' 'Is it over?' is the 'Big Four' stuff that we did, and the [celebrations for METALLICA's] 30th anniversary, which is totally different. When we did the 'Big Four' stuff, we played — METALLICA, MEGADETH, SLAYER and ANTHRAX on the same bill — several countries around the world. And when we did the 30th anniversary [concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco in December 2011], it was just me and James and Lars on stage. And sure, yeah, there were other musicians there and stuff like that. But for me, from my heart, when I got fired [from METALLICA] that day [in 1983], there was so much I wanted to still do with those guys. If I would have got a warning, it would have been different. I would have said, 'Oh, sure, man. I wanna be in the band. I love this band; it’s my band, too. If my drinking is causing a problem, I'll be comfortable doing something else.' But it didn't really happen that way, and I think it was necessary, because we have two great bands now . . . It was the three of us [that helped crystallize METALLICA]. But I can't take any credit for James' songwriting ability or his guitar-playing ability. He blew my mind when he picked up the guitar the first time, 'cause he used to just sing, and I did all the guitar playing, and in fact, I talked between every song, too. And when he picked up the guitar for the first time, I remember watching him, and I was, like, 'Oh my God, this guy is really, really good.' It almost intimidated me. I was a gunslinger at the time, so I wasn't really that flappable. But I watched and I was just like, 'Wow! This guy is really good.' So that's part of the reason I had such a difficult time letting go and just thinking, 'It's just another band.' Just like most people that are in bands, they look at a band as being kind of like having a game of cards. But it was tribal, it was communal, it was really important to all of us. I remember when we first to San Francisco, we were doing blood pacts with the guys in EXODUS, cutting our hands and doing stuff like that. Yeah, it was crazy times. The Satanic Bible was everywhere and we were doing all kinds of stuff. Well, I'm not gonna say they were, because I don't know what they were doing, but I know what I was doing while I was part of the band, because there was just an energy that was around where you just felt you were bulletproof."

On not wanting to share the stage with "Satanic" bands and his views on gay marriage:

Mustaine: "When I got 'saved,' I told my agent, 'You know what?! I have to kind of take this slow, because my arms hurt and I don't know if I'm ever gonna play again [after my arm injury]. If I do play, there's certain things I kind of wanna veer away from.' I don't wanna play with any Satanic bands. I'll play with bands that have darkness in them, because we all have a little darkness in us or we wouldn’t be human. But guys that are confessed Satanists, I don't really have time for that. . . I can control my emotions, because I know it's not the sinners, it's the sin. It's like that whole thing about me being against gay marriage. [Editor's note: Last month, Mustainedid an interview with Josh Kerns of 'Seattle Sounds', which airs on on Seattle's KIRO 97.3 FM radio station, in which he said that he didn't support gay marriage or legislation to make marriage between a man and another man legal. You can hear audio of that interview at this location.] I have the same position that Hillary Clinton and Obama have towards the gays. Look it up. I'm a Christian, I'm a heterosexual man. It's like me worrying about cat owners. I don't like cats. I don't have anything against them, but I don't want one. I know that's a really crazy connection. . . [Editor's note: Mustaine brings up the gay marriage topic again later in the interview and makes the statement that follows.] I'm a born-again Christian, but I don't push that on anybody. I had to tell the guy in Seattle, 'I'm a Christian. Stop asking me these questions, dude. Gay stuff is not part of my life.'"