MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE Praises KIKO LOUREIRO, CHRIS ADLER In New Video Interview

Australian Musician recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine. You can now watch the chat in two parts below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On MEGADETH's latest addition, Brazilian guitarist Kiko Loureiro, best known for his work with ANGRA:

Mustaine: "Well, Kiko is a guitar player from Brazil, who has played with a band named ANGRA. He's a great talent. And I discovered him while looking to find a new guitar player. And he has so many of the things I find valuable in a metal guitar player, which is not only the ability, but attitude and appearance and also the personality. Because when you're spending a lot of time together with a guy in the band, you wanna make sure that you're friends. Because the job is hard. And if you're around somebody who can't take it, you know, sometimes you just kind of wanna leave him behind. [Laughs]"

On what Kiko has brought to MEGADETH, especially in regards to the new album, "Dystopia":

Mustaine: "I think Kiko's brought a lot of different things — the flavor of the rhythm that is so predominant in South American music. Also, he has such a vast depth of guitar-playing styles, besides playing metal, which really, really came… You'll see. Like on tracks like 'Poisonous Shadows', he's playing piano on that song. And the very first note on the very first MEGADETH record was a song called 'Last Rites', which started with piano. So piano's been in MEGADETH's history."

On how much of "Dystopia" was already written and demoed prior to Kiko joining MEGADETH:

Mustaine: "Probably about a third of it. But, you know, you never really know what the finished product is until you're done. And if looked at it like that and said, 'Okay, from the finished product, how much of that is similar to the starting project?' I don't know how much of it would still be the same; there was a lot of changes that we made. But it's like that with art; you just keep working until in the eye of the beholder it's beautiful."

On how Chris Adler's (LAMB OF GOD) distinctive drumming style has altered the MEGADETH sound on "Dystopia":

Mustaine: "I think it's made it really exciting. He's got a great, jazzy kind of feel. And I think that there's a lot of things that MEGADETH music has that a straight rock or a straight metal drummer would miss, because of a lot of the pushes and the pulls and the up beats and so on and so forth. There's a lot of strange time-signature stuff too. And if you don't have that real exotic kind of approach towards drum playing, you're gonna miss a lot of those pushes and pulls."

MEGADETH's new album, "Dystopia", debuted at No. 3 on The Billboard 200, having shifted 49,000 equivalent album units in the week ending January 28.

In terms of pure album sales, "Dystopia" opened with 48,000 copies, marking MEGADETH's highest-charting album since 1992's "Countdown To Extinction" debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the chart dated August 1 of that year. "Dystopia" also logged the group's best sales week since 2007, when "United Abominations" landed at No. 8 with first-week sales of 54,000.