Ex-MEGADETH Guitarist CHRIS BRODERICK On 'Super Collider': 'Its Direction Was In The Wrong Place'

Shredload.com recently conducted an interview with former MEGADETH and current ACT OF DEFIANCE guitarist Chris Broderick. You can now listen to the chat using the SoundCloud widget below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On his decision to leave MEGADETH in November 2014:

Broderick: "Well, I think the decision had been… It had been brewing in my head for a long time. And, you know, when it comes down to any decision you make, you can never be sure if the time is right or anything like that; you just go with your gut feeling. And at that point in my career, Dave [Mustaine, MEGADETH mainman] was calling us down to start working on the next CD, and I didn't wanna go down there and get involved with something that my heart wasn't in. In my mind, the negatives were starting to outweigh the positives, and that's when I decided to leave."

On how much, aside from his lead guitar tracking and solos, he was allowed to contribute to the writing of MEGADETH music:

Broderick: "Not a lot, you know. It was definitely something where, I think, Dave is, and always will be, MEGADETH, you know, and it's gotta sound MEGADETH. So anytime you allow other people into that realm, it is going to change the sound, naturally. So you can't fault him for that. But, for me, personally, even with that realization, I knew that I wanted to get more of my material out there. And not only more of my own material, but also with it just being [allowed] to exist as it is — not being altered or subject to change, or anything like that. I think it makes sense, when you're in that world, that… Dave is the owner and the founder of MEGADETH, so he has earned that right."

On whether he and drummer Shawn Drover were just "hired guns" in MEGADETH:

Broderick: "Yeah, definitely. It's one of those things where… I mean, it depends on what your definition of 'hired gun' is, but we weren't really the people that… We had no say in what shows we did, or where we went, or… or anything. And, in my mind, that is the definition of a hired gun."

On the last album he recorded with MEGADETH, 2013's "Super Collider":

Broderick: "I felt it was going after a little bit too much commercialism, in my mind. The one thing I can tell you about it is that I do believe Dave spent a lot of time really trying to make that album sound exactly the way it does. Like, he spent a lot of time really looking at the instrumentation and the mixes and the arrangement and how it sounded and how everything went — from my solos to the other instruments that were played, and everything. So he definitely put a lot of time into that CD, but I think its direction was in the wrong place."

On whether he thinks "Super Collider" was "overthought":

Broderick: "Um… Nah, I don't… You know, because, looking at the process and seeing how much time [Dave] spent and what he thought of how things should be, I don't think it was overthought. Like I said, I just think its initial direction — you know, the reasoning behind it; what, kind of, guided its path — was the wrong direction."

Only hours after Drover announced his exit from MEGADETH on November 25, 2014 to "to pursue [his] own musical interests," Broderick revealed he also quit the legendary metal band, saying that he was leaving the group "due to artistic and musical differences."

ACT OF DEFIANCE, the band featuring Broderick and Drover, alongside ex-SCAR THE MARTYR singer Henry Derek Bonner, and SHADOWS FALL's Matt Bachand (bass),released its debut album, "Birth And The Burial", today (Friday, August 21) via Metal Blade Records.