MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE Explains Why He Changed His Mind About Never Performing 'The Conjuring' Again

In an interview with Steve-O's Wild Ride! podcast, MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine spoke about his longstanding reluctance to perform the band's 1986 song "The Conjuring" live, largely due to his Christian beliefs. One of the more memorable tracks from MEGADETH's classic "Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?" album, "The Conjuring" was written about black magic and features instructions for hexes, according to Mustaine, who wrote the track.

Addressing the fact that he eventually decided to play "The Conjuring" live again for the first time since 2001 in June 2018 at the Home Monitoring Aréna in Plzeň, Czech Republic, where the band was the support act for JUDAS PRIEST, Dave said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I wasn't sure about what effects the lyrics would have on our young fans. And I didn't wanna mislead anybody. I wanted to make sure if I was singing something and they gave it any kind of importance that I wasn't inadvertently making a decision for them and they were saying something that was gonna possibly hurt them in some way or form… [But] the structure of the song did not have in it what I thought was in there. There's nothing misleading in there, and after extensive evaluation with it, a lot of thought, a lot of navel gazing and prayer and stuff, I figured it's okay to do this one now."

Mustaine, however, said that MEGADETH will no longer perform a cover of "Anarchy In The UK", a song by English punk rock band the SEX PISTOLS, "because it says 'I'm an anti-Christ,' and I'm not an anti-Christ," he explained. "We did that over at [U.K.'s] Download [festival in 2016]. So Nikki Sixx [MÖTLEY CRÜE] was there. And I looked at him and for some reason I just felt that I needed to just bury the hatchet with him for something. And I don't know what it was, but just something made me feel like I needed to just make things cool. Not that I need his approval or anything like that, and not that he cares about me at all, but I just felt like maybe there was something out there that I did. And I remembered that we had a guy in our band that had a shirt with Nikki's face on it with a red line and a circle through it. And so I'm glad that I did make that amends with Nikki, although it wasn't like a ninth step or anything like that, 'cause I'm not in the program. But I'd gone up to him and said, 'Hey, man, would you be interested in playing 'Anarchy' with us tonight?' So the last time I played it was with Nikki at Download. And it was fun. I don't think anybody expected to see that. I certainly wouldn't have expected that. If young Dave would have talked to old Dave, I would have said, 'You're out of your fucking tree, Mustaine.'"

Mustaine said in a 2016 interview that he was reconsidering his decision to never play "The Conjuring" again, explaining that he wouldn't mind reintroducing the track at MEGADETH's live shows "as long as it doesn't hurt anybody."

Mustaine wrote in his autobiography, "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir", that he practiced black magic as a teenager, and that the experience — which inspired "The Conjuring" — affected his life for years after.

Speaking to "The Morning Blaze With Gus & Izzy" show on the Fresno radio station 105.1 The Blaze, Mustaine was asked about his refusal to play "The Conjuring" at MEGADETH's concerts. He said: "I used to do black magic when I was a kid, and I put a hex on a dude and his leg kind of got messed up. The other one was I put a sex hex on this girl and the next night she was in my bed, so I think that it worked."

He continued: "But the funny thing [is] Chis Adler [LAMB OF GOD drummer, who played on 2016's 'Dystopia' album] just said, 'Hey, dude, can we re-record 'The Conjuring' with different lyrics?' And I was, like, 'Nah. You know what? Maybe I should re-think this whole thing.' Because when I first did the whole, 'You know what? I'm not gonna be a heathen anymore. I'm gonna clean up my life' thing, I kind of put some brakes on things I would and wouldn't do. And as I grow, I evolve in my outlook and my personal journey here, being a positive person and being a positive influence on other people's lives. So as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, I wouldn't mind doing the song again, 'cause it is a good song."

Mustaine previously spoke about his reluctance to perform "The Conjuring" during a 2011 interview with U.K.'s Total Guitar magazine. He stated at the time: "Performance-wise, 'The Conjuring' is one of the heaviest songs on [MEGADETH's 'Peace Sells… But Who's Buying?' album], but, unfortunately, it's got black magic in it and I promised that I wouldn't play it anymore, because there's a lot of instructions for hexes in that song. Although it seems kinda corny, anybody who's a Wiccan or a warlock or anything like that will know that all of that stuff is instrumental."

He continued: "When I got into black magic I put a couple of spells on people when I was a teenager and it haunted me forever, and I've had so much torment. People say, 'Goddamn, Dave never gets a break, he's had such a hard life,' and I just think, 'No, Dave didn't — he got into black magic and it ruined his life.' It wasn't that I was a bad guy or that I had a big mouth, it was that I got into witchcraft and black magic and it ruined my life. Fortunately for me, with all the work and the love of my friends, and not giving up with my guitar playing, I got over it. So I look back now and I think, "Hmm, I don't wanna play 'The Conjuring'."

Mustaine went on to say: "When I first got saved, I was really scared and I was basically holding on to anything that I heard in church or whatever, but as I've grown I've learned a lot and lightened up a lot, and I see people around me doing certain things and instead of me saying, 'Man, you shouldn't do that!' I think quietly to myself, 'Dude, you don't know what you're doing…' It's a huge growth process."