MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE Names His Favorite Guitar Players Of All Time

In a new interview with Jon Chang of YSOLIFE, a leading music media platform based in Taiwan, MEGADETH guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine was asked to name his favorite guitar player of all time. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "European guitar players, there's so many really fast-picking guys, but ever since Yngwie [Malmsteen] came out, everybody else is just a really fast-picking guy. Before Yngwie, when a really great guitar player came on the scene, you had [Michael] Schenker [UFO and SCORPIONS], or you had Angus [Young, AC/DC], or you had James [Hetfield, METALLICA] or myself, and we were really distinguished guitar players. You had the guys from [IRON] MAIDEN, but then there was this explosion, and there are so many guitar players now that are really good, especially because of the software that they can learn how to play with.

"When we started off, we didn't have all these apps," Dave explained. "We had to learn by lifting up the stylus on the record and scooting it back a couple grooves and dropping it and hoping it went in the same fucking spot so we could pick up our guitar and our pick at the right time and play along with the song again, until they started developing, cassette decks where you could slow stuff down or back it up real easy. But that was the way we learned stuff.

"So, I would have to say probably one of my favorite guitar players has a lot to do with the era that they came in," Mustaine added. "And I would say for guitar layering and sounds, it would be Jimmy Page [LED ZEPPELIN]. For excellent note selection, it would be David Gilmour [PINK FLOYD]. For being metal as fuck back when there were no metal guitar players, Ritchie Blackmore [DEEP PURPLE and RAINBOW]. I am not a fan of the keyboard, so I could have had them be a little bit lighter shade of purple and gotten rid of the keyboard player. But, yeah, he was great. And then, of course, like I said, AC/DC and Angus and UFO with Michael Schenker. That's my 'last supper' kind of thing I'd want, have those guys with me."

Back in 2018, Mustaine told Heavymetal.dk about his early guitar inspirations: "My inspirations were more along the guidelines of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and the British Invasion. There's a lot of great bands that are out right now [that] fans look to, a lot of young bands that are really great. For me, I always wanted to know, 'What were their influences?' Like with VAN HALEN — everybody thinks that David Lee Roth was such a great frontman, but what was his influence? It was Jim Dandy of BLACK OAK ARKANSAS. It's like David Lee Roth is a clone of him, except for his voice of course — the black leather pants, real low hip-huggers, big, giant belt buckle, no shirt, tan, muscles... the same thing. For me, when I look at my influences, I try and go back in time. Jimmy Page was a huge influence guitar-wise. Angus was a big guitar influence; so was his brother, Malcolm. Believe it or not, I was probably more influenced by Malcolm than I was by Angus. I liked Angus's solos a lot, but the rhythm of AC/DC was what did it for me, because there was a hook to it. A very simplistic hook. I think that's what's suffering with music nowadays — people are trying to be so fucking cerebral with their music, and a guy that played music with us at one point came up to me and goes, Hey, 'I've got a new riff,' and I was listening to it and it was awful. I said, 'What is it?' He said, 'Well, it's MEGADETH in Morse code. I was like [puts head in hands]...

"How do I go back one more than Eddie Van Halen? What influenced Edward Van Halen? Classical," Dave explained. "He was a classically trained guitar player growing up as a kid. I looked at some of the really great players — Vivaldi, Paganini, Chopin, Bach, Wagner, although not all of their movements or their pieces are stuff that I like. Vivaldi has 'The Four Seasons' — two of them, I like; the other two, they're a bit long for me, and while I can totally appreciate the songs, I've grown up in a kind of pop-radio mentality, so a four-minute song [is] paydirt. Where's the hook? When you have a song that's a little bit longer than four minutes for me, I tend to kind of lose the plot."

MEGADETH's latest, self-titled album was released in January. The follow-up to 2022's "The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!" was made available via Mustaine's Tradecraft imprint on Frontiers Label Group's new BLKIIBLK label.

MEGADETH's final studio album, "Megadeth", debuted at the top of the U.S. album chart after earning 73,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending January 29, according to Luminate. The bulk of that sum was driven by pure album sales (purchases of physical and digital copies of the album),totaling 69,000.

MEGADETH also claimed the top spot in Australia (highest previous position No. 2) and Austria (highest previous position No. 8). Other top five spots included No. 2 in Finland (and No. 1 physical),Sweden (plus No. 1 physical; highest previous position No. 9),and Belgium (highest previous position: No. 6); No. 3 in both the U.K. and Germany (highest previous position No. 6); No. 4 in the Netherlands (highest previous position No. 7); and No. 5 in both Italy (highest previous position No. 15) and New Zealand (highest chart position ever).

"The Sick, The Dying... And The Dead!" sold 48,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week of release to land at position No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart. It marked MEGADETH's eighth top 10-charting album.

MEGADETH's previous top 10 entries on the Billboard 200 were "Countdown To Extinction" (No. 2, 1992),"Youthanasia" (No. 4, 1994),"Cryptic Writings" (No. 10, 1997),"United Abominations" (No. 8, 2007),"Endgame" (No. 9, 2009),"Super Collider" (No. 6, 2013) and "Dystopia" (No. 3, 2016).

For its final album, MEGADETH once again worked with Chris Rakestraw, a producer, mixer and engineer who previously worked on MEGADETH's last two LPs, the aforementioned "The Sick, The Dying... And The Dead!" and "Dystopia".

Last August, MEGADETH announced its plans to retire with a farewell album and tour.

"There's so many musicians that have come to the end of their career, whether accidental or intentional," Mustaine explained in a social media post. "Most of them don't get to go out on their own terms on top, and that's where I'm at in my life right now."

Mustaine has since clarified that MEGADETH's farewell run of shows could last "for another three to five years".

MEGADETH was founded in 1983 after Mustaine was kicked out of METALLICA, a band he was a part of for less than a year.

MEGADETH released its debut album, "Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good!", in 1985.

Image credit: Thomas Metalum