MEGADETH's MUSTAINE: We Came Close To Making A Serious Career-Ending Mistake With 'Risk'

August 17, 2010

Aaron Lefkove of Vice magazine recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Vice: When you started MEGADETH you claimed to have a distinct vision of what a heavy metal band should look like — long hair, leather, studs, muscles — and through 23 lineup changes you've more or less stuck with that vision, but do you still feel the same way? Specifically about the long hair thing.

Mustaine: I think if you're honest with your fans, then whatever the initial ideas you had when you set out will have room to grow. If you're not and you try to do a SPINAL TAP Mark II kind of thing it doesn't work — it backfires. There's been a lot of bands that have done that. We came close to making a serious career-ending mistake with "Risk". I like that record, and a lot of other people do too, but our hardcore fans don't. They prefer more the heavier, faster stuff. Because the album said "Megadeth" they expected a certain type of thing and it wasn't what they expected.

Vice: [Your recently published autobiography, "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir"] also barely touched on the evolution of [MEGADETH's mascot] Vic Rattlehead. Old Vic has seen a lot of changes over the years…

Mustaine: Vic was something that was germinated from an idea for a tattoo. As a kid, I had seen those junkstore three monkeys with their hands over their ears and face and mouth; the whole "see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil" thing. That was one of the things I thought was really funny when I was getting ready to do the first album cover. I wanted to have that on the album cover, but I got the record back and it was totally not that.

Vice: So where exactly does Vic stand in the pantheon of heavy metal mascots?

Mustaine: Oh, I think he is definitely in the top five. I mean there's Eddie, there's Vic, the pinhead from the RAMONES, the lips from the STONES… I mean, what else is there?

Vice: Well, Danzig has his skull and MOTÖRHEAD have the snaggletooth but those are actually more just disembodied heads.

Mustaine: Yeah, those are just like two-dimensional things.

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