MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE Talks About Songwriting Process For New Album

MEGADETH is in the final stages of the songwriting process for the band's new album, which is tentatively expected sometime next year via Roadrunner Records. The CD is once again being helmed by acclaimed British producer Andy "Undie" Sneap, who produced MEGADETH's last album, "United Abominations" (May 2007, Roadrunner Records).

MEGADETH's forthcoming LP will be the group's first with guitarist Chris Broderick, who replaced Glen Drover at the end of last year.

MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine recently spoke to Revolver magazine about what fans can expect from the upcoming CD, which he said will contain "stuff that's melodic like nobody's business, stuff that's heavier than hell, and stuff that's a combination of both." An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Revolver: How are the songs coming together?

Mustaine: The way I write, I'll play a riff and tape it and save it. And if I don't use it now, I'll use it later. The very first song I ever wrote, "Rust In Peace… Polaris", didn't appear on anything until the fourth MEGADETH record. Right now, there are about 20 songs that are in the making, and there's another good 25-to-30 hours worth of guitar riffs on tape. And I've also got a lot of old lyrics I've assembled over my career. Some of it's relevant to this day and age; some of it is stuff that, if I released it, would probably get me in a lot of trouble. Those songs deal with a lot of the anger that I felt when I was younger and reading things like [the 1971 underground manual for making homemade explosives] "The Anarchist Cookbook".

Revolver: Is anything complete and ready to be recorded?

Mustaine: There's probably seven or eight of those, and then there's a couple of songs left over from the last record and one from the record before that. But sometimes the best stuff I write is at the spur of the moment. I wrote "Angry Again" right after I got out of a treatment center in Arizona. They had done one of those happy little 1990s interventions where everybody who's not loaded gets to point the finger at everyone who is. And the day I got out of rehab, they threw me into a studio in Phoenix where I wrote "Angry Again" for the movie "The Last Action Hero".

The entire interview can be found in the February 2009 "Mega Preview 2009" issue of Revolver magazine, available on newsstands now.