MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE: 'I'm Not As Cruel As I Used To Be'

Robert Williams of Metal-Rules.com conducted an interview with Dave Mustaine of MEGADETH before the band's March 26, 2010 concert in Austin, Texas. Watch the 12-minute chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson's recent interview with former METALLICA bassist Ron McGovney for MEGADETH's "predictably unpredictable" Artist Personal Experience radio station, "Megadeth Radio":

Mustaine: "One of the things I told Ron when I was leaving [after a recent MEGADETH show which McGovney attended with his son]... His son was there, he's 18, and he wanted to meet me. And I was thinking, 'Wow, that's interesting. I flipped your Dad through the air and you wanna meet me.' [laughs] So I met him and I thought, 'This is your opportunity right now, Dave, to do something really righteous,' and I said, 'I've gotta tell you, your Dad was so instrumental in METALLICA even starting and he doesn't get the credit that he's due.' Because when we would drive up to San Francisco, every time, one of those two [presumably referring to METALLICA's James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich — Ed.] would throw one of Ron's shoes out of the back of the truck and he would always lose a pair of shoes. All he ever did was give — pay for the rehearsal place, buy the booze, buy the food, get us gigs, work for everything that he possibly could do, and I just wanna make sure that people know he really did that and he worked really hard at it. Of course, he wasn't the bass player that we wanted, but as far as the guy is concerned, he's a really decent guy. And it's funny coming from me, 'cause I used to hate him, but when you get some perspective, you can look at things. And I think David got a really great side of him in the interview."

On his upcoming autobiography, which was previously titled "Hello Me... Meet The Real Me" but which has since been advertised online as "Wake Up Dead: A Heavy Metal Memoir":

Mustaine: "Well, I have insurance for the book, so I'm not afraid of anybody suing me. There's been people that are very afraid of the book coming out, and there's not gonna be anything mean in it. There's no reason for anybody to be afraid — it's a good read. At the very end of it, I closed the book and I thought, 'You know, if I didn't know who I was and I read that book, I would say, 'I understand now why he is the way that he is.'' And I think that's probably one of the most valuable things for me, 'cause it's so much harder to be understood than it is to understand. And I really believe that the guy who helped me write the book [New York Times journalist Joe Layden] has helped the reader so that now I feel understood, and I don't think I've ever felt that way before. I'm a little wary about it, because it's kind of like someone looking into your pants, you know what I mean?! But I'm pretty confident and I think that people are gonna enjoy it. As far as, like, shit-talking, you can find that on the Internet and you can find it anywhere I've been before. I pretty much have fun and I'll poke fun at my friends, but there's a difference between being angry and being cruel, and I'm not as cruel as I used to be... I don't even think I am cruel anymore, but at that time I was, and the book shows a whole different side of me with MEGADETH, my time in METALLICA and my time going forward and what I wanna do with myself."