MEGADETH Mainman On New Album, Touring With HEAVEN AND HELL

Steve Newton of Vancouver, British Columbia's Straight.com recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On a common bond that keeps heavy metal popular:

"Let's go back to where it's just metal. There's a common theme for all of these bands, and what is it? It's guitar. Love that!"

On MEGADETH guitarist Glen Drover, who joined the band in 2004:

"He's a better guitarist than I am, but the beauty of having Glen Drover play with me right now is basically like [racehorse] Seabiscuit, you know — he just needed to have that amazing talent focused."

On the "United Abominations" cover illustration, which portrays the United Nations building being bombarded by fiery drums of petrol:

"Those are barrels of oil that they were trading, "'cause it's the oil-for-food scandal with Kofi Annan's son. The barrels are lit on fire and they become the very undoing of the U.N."

On the reworking of "A Tout Le Monde" (which originally appeared on the 1994 CD, "Youthanasia"),featuring LACUNA COIL's Cristina Scabbia:

"The first singer didn't work out, the second one didn't work, and the third one was Lisa Marie Presley. She was on the way to the airport, and we had to call and say, 'Sorry, we changed our minds.' I would have loved to have heard what Lisa Marie Presley would have done, but because of the demographics of the LACUNA COIL fan base, and Cristina's reign in the heavy-metal business, it was the right thing to do."

On touring with HEAVEN AND HELL, the post–Ozzy Osbourne lineup of BLACK SABBATH:

"My favorite song by them was 'Never Say Die'. I wasn't really a big fan of the other stuff because it was so unbelievably heavy at the time, and I was just a kid...I went back through the catalogue and that's when I discovered how great they were."