MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE: What You Need To Have In Order To Be Successful In Thrash

In a recent interview with BBC Radio 4's "Saturday Live", MEGADETH frontman Dave Mustaine spoke about what makes a song a good song. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "For me, what I'd like to leave for future generations is to know that melody is so critical to songs. Quincy Jones is a very famous producer here in America. We were making the 'Rust In Peace' record at the time and had gone to this party, and Quincy was there. And he had said to our engineer/producer that the key to successful songs was beat, melody and 10 simple words."

He continued: "So I guess the most important thing I would like to leave to future generations is to echo what Quincy had said, but to make it my own, I would say in order to be successful in thrash, you need to have a heavy beat, melody and I'd say probably 20 simple words because we sing so much faster."

MEGADETH kicked off the summer 2023 European leg of its "Crush The World" tour on July 23 at the Triple Thrash Triumph festival at Spodek in Katowice, Poland.

MEGADETH's current lineup includes guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, Belgian-born-and-now-Los-Angeles-based drummer Dirk Verbeuren, who had played with SOILWORK for more than a decade before joining MEGADETH, Brazilian guitarist Kiko Loureiro, who was previously best known for his work with ANGRA, and bassist James LoMenzo. James was MEGADETH's bass player in the mid-2000s and stepped back in as a touring member for the 2021 leg of "The Metal Tour Of The Year". In May 2022, it was announced that Lomenzo was officially rejoining the MEGADETH family.

Last September, MEGADETH's latest album, "The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!", debuted at the top of the charts during its first week of sales, taking the No. 3 spot on the Billboard 200 as well as number ones on Top Album Sales, Top Current Albums Sales, Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums. "The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!" was the highest-charting MEGADETH album of all time around the world, notching No. 1 In Finland, No. 2 in australia, poland, Switzerland, and Scotland, No. 3 in the U.K., and more.

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).

MEGADETH recently received its thirteenth Grammy nomination for "Best Metal Performance" for the song "We'll Be Back" from "The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!".

MEGADETH won the 2017 Grammy Award for "Best Metal Performance" for the title track of the band's 2016 album "Dystopia". This marked the group's twelfth Grammy nomination in this category (including nominations in the discontinued "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance" category).