MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE: 'Right Now I Don't Really Have Any Enemies Anymore'

Australia's FasterLouder recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

FasterLouder: Congratulations on your book making the New York Times bestseller list. You’ve obviously been through the release process with albums many, many times — where you release an album, you have certain hopes and expectations, you do the media cycle, then wait for the feedback, reviews, and of course the sales reports. Was it different with a book?

Mustaine: Wow, good question! Umm… not really, because when the book came out, the only thing that we were really able to gauge the success on was whether or not it was going to be on the charts, and so if it was successful on the charts we knew we were going to have a winner on our hands. I was just excited because I wanted to be able to share with the fans a little bit more about myself, and what it was like growing up. The truth of the matter is I caused a lot of problems over my career, I made a lot of enemies, and right now I don't really have any enemies anymore, because I've spent the latter part of my career being much more grateful for what I have. I have friends again in this business — I never was friendless, but the people that mattered, I didn't have in my life anymore. It’s great to be able to pick up my phone and see a text message from Kerry [King of SLAYER] and it's great to be able to check my voicemail and have a voicemail from James [Hetfield of METALLICA] or Lars [Ulrich of METALLICA]. [At the beginning of the tour] I went up and told the guys I didn't want to try and fix our relationship, I really wanted to have a new one. And that seemed to be agreeable to everyone, and it started off a really great new relationship with everyone.

FasterLouder: Can you tell us about the direction that the new songs are going in? Will it be continuing the "return of the thrash" of "Endgame"?

Mustaine: It will be more like "Endgame" and maybe a little bit… maybe sticking in that vein and going a little forward toward what I like. I like playing the more aggressive stuff. We were forced in a way to have to do certain things and it's really easy for me to blame somebody, but at the end of the day it was my fault, I could have said no, but I didn't. I was nervous that we were going to end up getting kicked off the label. I figured I would rather go underground and play what I like, and not sell as many records, but still be able to look myself in the face in the morning.

FasterLouder: With David Ellefson [bass] back in the band, has he had much input into the writing?

Mustaine: Well, the writing process right now, we’re inviting all four members to get involved, and Andy Sneap, who was a great producer on the last record, too. I'm not ruling anything out, if it's going to be me writing, if it's going to be them writing, but I talked a while ago to some people that I really respected about the potential of writing some stuff with me, so there may even be a collaboration with another songwriter. We've done stuff like that in the past.

Read the entire interview from FasterLouder.