MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE: 'I Would Love To Do A Movie'

Kenneth Lee of College Gentleman recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

College Gentleman: Why do you think it is, in 2010, music from a genre that was big in the mid-1980s is still bringing in younger and younger fans? What is it about metal and MEGADETH that continues to fire up young males everywhere?

Dave: Well, the music is… it's melodic, it's aggressive, it's fast, it's slow. Sometimes there's solos that blow you away and sometime's there's solos that make you want to jab a fork in your eye. And I think that's the beauty of music. There are fans of ours down in South America that really like the classical influences of MEGADETH, and then we can go over to Europe and there are people who appreciate the Latin and French influences of MEGADETH. You go to some of these other territories and people really love the punk influence in the music. I am a huge fan of punk rock and I used to be one when I was young and some people might still think I am to this day but I think it's kinda hard to be "punk rock" when you're driving a Mercedes Benz, ya know? [laughs]

College Gentleman: Your book "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir" is something I think a lot of kids my age could benefit from because you have been through hell and back in your career and in your personal life. What can younger people learn from this book…other than not to do speedballs?

Dave: [laughs] Well it's really about following your heart and your dreams. When I set out to do this music thing, I didn't have much to rely on except for a single mother, myself, and a dream. And the dream wasn't so much to be a guitar player to begin with, I wanted to play baseball. I loved it. I don't know how it happened exactly, but it did. And then I got into the drugs and drinking and there was no one who could scare me straight. And that's not what this is either, it's not one of those scared straight things where a guy pops his eye out and shows it to you and says, "Ahhhm, keepin' mah eye on you, boah!" It's about following your dreams.

College Gentleman: You've gotten back together with your original running partner in MEGADETH, David Ellefson, you've reunited with the other three bands who had more influence on American metal than almost any other bands, and you we're number one on the New York Times bestseller list with "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir". Simply put, what's left?

Dave: A movie… I wouldn't want it to be a documentary or anything like that, but I'd love to do a movie. It would have to be after I'm all done with MEGADETH because once you cross over into the mainstream, there is no way little old MEGADETH would be able to compete with that kind of monster. But I'd want to do it when the time was perfect. That's why we decided to do "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir" when we did. I wanted the timing to be perfect. If I had done it a few other times when I was thinking about doing it, it wouldn't have had a happy ending and I really wanted the book to have a happy ending. The cool part is if I had waited a few months later I could have ended the book on tour over in Europe and that would have been a great ending as well.

Read the entire interview from College Gentleman.