MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE Is Digging CANNIBAL CORPSE

Keith Carman of Canada's Exclaim! recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Exclaim!: You've always been a straight shooter. It's kind of expected that your book should be the same way.

Mustaine: That's a good thing. If I had to do some sort of tell-all book, I don't know if I'd have enjoyed it versus what it is. I remember going to England way back in the '80s, I was just talking the way I normally do about what I was doing. People were losing their minds because you weren't supposed to say that kind of stuff in this polite, proper colonial area. There are some teensy similarities between Canada and England that someone from the States picks up on. I was like, "What do you mean you don't say this stuff?" If you're talking about who you really are... but they wanted mystique and hiding things from everyone. I'd just say, "Fuck this, fuck that, I like this, I don't like that." It rocked their world. Nowadays it's hard to get a good interview out of someone, 'cause the stuff they talk about, what does it matter? What does it mean? I was just talking to a friend about how much things have changed from when we started to now. A band starting these days is basically giving an album away for free. When we made records, they were records. The good thing about downloading and the music company getting this terrible thing happening, it's basically going back to like in the '50s. A band puts out a single and tours; Elvis would put out a single and tour for two weeks. In a very homogenized way, it's almost gone back to music in its purest form. I feel good for some new bands but there are no new ones that really rock my world. I remember hearing ? and I was new on the scene when it came out ? GUNS 'N' ROSES' "Appetite For Destruction" record. I thought, "Wow, this is gonna be really big." When's the last time you heard a record and thought that? A long time ago, huh?

Exclaim!: What did you learn from the process of writing a memoir before you're 50?

Mustaine: It was really cathartic. When you're putting your life down into a book, you wonder what you're gonna leave behind you. I want to leave a legacy of achievement but one that says you can overcome anything. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had to work my ass off to get what I have and I love what I have. I'm very grateful for it and I don't take it lightly. My friends are a part of my family. It's funny being an elder statesman of the scene. Things seem to be coming full-circle and people are interested in what I'm doing and how I do it but not in the, "God, did you hear what he said?" way. That gets so old and people don't even tell the stories properly. I went to elementary school. I know the telephone game when you tell somebody something and it goes around until it gets back to you and it's nothing like what you said. When Shawn [Drover, drummer] joined the band, I was pretty much going out as myself with a support group to do this last record and then go on into a solo career. But MEGADETH was me going solo from METALLICA. If I went solo from MEGADETH, what would it sound like? Would it be heavier? More melodic? MEGADETH is about as heavy as I can get. If I did something solo, it would probably a cross between "Killing Is My Business..." to "Risk", 'cause that's how I write. I'd have to see. It's funny about music these days because people detune their guitars so much, you can't tell there's a melody with the riff. It's just super-detuned, affected stuff. You hear a rhythm but there's not a melody there. Basically, you could have 30 or 40 metal bands playing the same song. Withhold the lyrics and nobody knows what it is. The songs have no melody anymore, is what I'm saying.

Exclaim!: Yep. CARCASS has more melody than a lot of current bands.

Mustaine: You know who I saw the other day in Finland? CANNIBAL CORPSE. I was really blown away with how heavy those guys were. They were really great. I never thought I'd like a death metal band 'cause I thought the singing was... it's still not my style but the music that band had was so intense, man. I really enjoyed watching that.

Exclaim!: Will you need to amend the book then since it ended and there are already some changes in your/the MEGADETH saga?

Mustaine: With the way the book ended, it didn't have [original bassist] Dave Ellefson coming back or the "Big Four" thing and many other things. When the paperback comes out, I hope to add some stuff in the end. At this point now, I love who we are and it's amazing to be still playing music almost 30 years after I started. It's an accomplishment and looking back, there are some things I'd change. I honestly never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings but it happened and that's probably the only thing I'd change: some of the pain I caused other people. As far as the pain I caused myself, I wouldn't change it. It's all part of making me who I am. I certainly would have spent more time with loved ones. With Gar [Samuelson, original MEGADETH drummer] passing away, I miss him. I wish I'd have spent more time with him. Sometimes you take things for granted. That's probably the only thing I regret: not spending more time with people we know and love that have passed away, especially with so many people passing in the past few years. So, I'm hanging onto my life and really enjoying being who I am. I don't see anything stopping me right now.

Read the entire interview from Exclaim!.