TEEMU MÄNTYSAARI On Making Of MEGADETH's Final Album: 'It Was A Surprise That DAVE MUSTAINE Wanted To Include Us Bandmembers So Much'

In a new interview with Finland's Chaoszine, MEGADETH guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari spoke about the making of the band's final, self-titled album, which arrived late last month via MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine's Tradecraft imprint on Frontiers Label Group's new BLKIIBLK label. Teemu said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It was a lengthy process, I guess — 10 months in the studio. [So it was] pretty intense in that sense, but also, I think, very enjoyable, kind of, I'd say pretty relaxed, because we were kind of in this bubble the whole time.

"It seems like the songs came together pretty spontaneously," he continued. "A lot of the songs started out as kind of improvised jams with all the guys, and all the bandmembers got involved quite heavily, so that was really nice to have everybody's contribution included.

"Going to the recording of the new album, I tried not to stress about it too much," Teemu explained. "Of course you could start thinking, what about the legacy of the band? How do you compete with the previous classic albums? But I tried not to think about it too much. Of course freely taking kind of influence from the different, great eras of the band, but at the same time trying to create something fresh and new. And we felt like trying to include the current bands, really the band sound in there, the sound that we've developed now playing together live for a few years and how tight we've kind of gotten together and tried to put that on the album and make the kind of MEGADETH album that we would ourselves love to hear as well."

Speaking about his contributions to "Megadeth", Teemu said: "My contribution to this album, first of all, it was kind of a surprise that Dave wanted to include us bandmembers so much. So pretty early on he asked me and the guys if we have some riff ideas and then we should start saving them because at some point we were gonna start recording the album. And so we did. And then we basically started pre-production by listening through the whole MEGADETH catalog, all the songs, including all the bonus tracks and cover tracks, alphabetically, over 200 songs. We listened and we made notes, like what we liked in the songs, what are some of the parts that we could use maybe as an inspiration or a catalyst to inspire ideas for the new album. And Dave was telling us stories, like how he came up with lyrics and little backstories, like how the songs originally came to be. So that was a big inspiration to get the creative minds working. Then we went to studio late in 2024, and then stayed in the studio until '25, August, September. In the studio, we had a really nice setup where it was like this one really big room. One corner had the recording equipment in there, all the amps and whatever you need, a recording booth for acoustic guitars and vocals. And then in one side of the big room, we had all our live equipment, so the full live setup, basically, so we could anytime go there and jam with the guys and come up with these ideas, which is then how a lot of the songs kind of started. We just sat down and maybe had a little snippet of an idea and then developed that together. Or maybe even didn't have any idea, but somebody just started playing and the other guys joined in, and we had the producer recording everything. And then soon we had starting points for a lot of songs."

"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. The follow-up to "The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!" was released via Mustaine's Tradecraft imprint on Frontiers Label Group's new BLKIIBLK label.

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".