MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE: Singing 'Is Not My Strong Point'

Lewis and Floorwax of Denver, Colorado's classic rock radio station 103.5 The Fox recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH's Dave Mustaine (guitar, vocals) and David Ellefson (bass). You can now listen to the chat below.

Asked how he first decided to become the lead singer in MEGADETH, Mustaine said: "Well, my pal here, Dave, and I were auditioning guys and we kind of ran out of patience. The last guy that auditioned as a vocalist came — and we were homeless at the time — and the guy rolled up with a 12-pack of beer, and we thought, 'Great!' Then we got a closer look at him and he had eyeliner on. And we figured, 'As soon as the last beer was down, he was out of the band.' It was New Year's Eve one night, and David just goes , 'Man, why don't you sing?' and I was like, 'Why don't you?' So I ended up doing it, and it stuck. I actually enjoy it a lot of times, but it's not my strong point. I've been working really hard at it the last few years. I wish I would have given it as much attention in the beginning as I do now… It's definitely a unique voice sound. You know, you hear people like Axl [Rose, GUNS N' ROSES] or myself or [James] Hetfield [METALLICA] or some of the other people that are really easily identifiable, it's scarce. Like Chris Cornell [SOUNDGARDEN], you hear Chris, you know it's him."

MEGADETH has just completed its run as the headliner of this year's edition of Gigantour, the critically acclaimed package festival founded in 2005 by Mustaine.

In addition to MEGADETH, this year's installment of Gigantour featured BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, DEVICE, HELLYEAH, NEWSTED and DEATH DIVISION.

MEGADETH's latest album, "Super Collider", has sold 61,000 copies in the United States since its June 4 release. The CD arrived in stores via Mustaine's new label, Tradecraft, distributed by Universal Music Enterprises (UMe). It marks MEGADETH's first release since the band's split with Roadrunner Records.

MEGADETH filmed a video for the "Super Collider" title track on May 10 in the Los Angeles area. California-based model, actress, singer and songwriter Hunter Elizabeth was cast in the lead role in the clip, which she says is "about a high-school couple still loving each other after all the years after graduation, and at the 10-year reunion, both characters find themselves successful (a model and a mathematician) and still very in love."

"That song kind of came from that 'Symphony Of Destruction' corner of my mind," Mustaine told Guitar World magazine. "You can't always play aggressive, thrashy stuff. Sometimes those aren't even songs; they're like musical rams. But because I'm not a pop guy, I'm also not really comfortable playing sing-along songs. To me, 'Super Collider' made sense like a normal song — a verse-chorus-verse-chorus kind of thing. It's written the way a real songwriter would write the song, instead of just taking all these musical twists and turns."