Dave Mustaine

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Dave Mustaine (born September 13, 1961) is a heavy metal guitarist, songwriter, and singer. As the central figure of Megadeth, he is one of a handful of people considered to have pioneered thrash metal and speed metal.

1 Beginnings
2 Metallica
3 Megadeth
4 MD.45
5 Gigantour
6 Cameos
7 Family life
8 Feuds
9 Discography
- 9.1 Megadeth
- 9.2 MD.45
10 References
11 See also
12 External links

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Beginnings

David Scott Mustaine was born September 13, 1961 in La Mesa, California, United States. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he grew up in various low-income Southern California suburbs.

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Metallica

In 1981 Dave Mustaine left his first band Panic to join Metallica as the lead guitarist. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich had posted an ad in a local newspaper, called The Recycler, looking for a lead guitarist. In his own words, Mustaine remembers his first meeting with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich: "I was convinced that I should be in the band and went to rehearsal. I was tuning up when all the other guys in the band went into another room. They weren't talking to me, so I went in and said, 'Well? Am I in the band or not?' and they said, 'You've got the gig.' I couldn't believe how easy it had been and suggested that we get some beer to celebrate."

Mustaine's membership in Metallica, however, would last less than two years. Brian Slagel, an early manager of the band, recalls in an interview: "Dave was an incredibly talented guy, but he also had an incredibly large problem with alcohol and drugs. He'd get wasted and become a real crazy person, a raging maniac, and the other guys just couldn't deal with that after a while. I mean, they all drank of course, but I guess they could all hold their liquor better than Dave, and I could see they were beginning to get fed up of seeing Dave drunk out of his mind all the time."

One night, in a drunken state, Mustaine poured a full can of beer down Ron McGovney's (then Metallica bassist) bass. When he next came to play it McGovney was shocked, and in his own words, "blown across the room"; the bassist decided he'd had enough of Mustaine's antics and quit Metallica.

Despite not being the vocalist of the band, Dave felt he was the leading member of Metallica and tended to use a microphone during their early gigs. In one taped show from 1983 Dave is shown speaking in his trademark snarl and swearing drunkenly at members of the crowd who were throwing things; at one point Hetfield even asks "what the fuck are you doing, man?", as Mustaine appears to be making very little coherent speech.

One of the final straws for Metallica regarding Mustaine was on a road trip from San Francisco to New York to meet up with producer Johnny Z. While driving drunk during a snow storm near Wyoming, Mustaine crashed Metallica's van leaving it in a ditch; fortunately, nobody in the van was hurt. The other members quietly agreed that, as soon as they started the new phase of their career, they had to get rid of Mustaine.

In April of 1983 Mustaine was officially fired from Metallica for his drug use and personality clashes with founding members Hetfield and Ulrich. The band packed up Mustaine's gear, drove him to a Greyhound bus station, and put him on a bus back to Los Angeles.

During his short time in Metallica, Dave Mustaine toured with the band, co-wrote several songs which were later featured on the albums Kill 'Em All and Ride The Lightning (and, according to Mustaine, Master of Puppets) and recorded several songs with the band including the No Life 'Till Leather demo tape.

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Megadeth

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Birth of a new band

In 1983, Mustaine was extremely angry after being kicked out of Metallica; he concluded that one of his goals in life should be to create a band more successful than Metallica. After his four day bus journey from New York, he arrived in Los Angeles and soon set about forming Megadeth with bass player Dave Ellefson. Later the lineup was solidified with Chris Poland on Lead Guitar and Gar Samuelson on drums. In 1985, Megadeth released their first album Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!. The production of this album suffered due to the band spending half of their production money on drugs; though poor in quality, it still received relatively good reviews.Template:Fact

Image:JACK1.jpg In 1985, after recording Killing Is My Business..., Mustaine approached Jackson Guitars for a custom built guitar. Jackson built him a modified Randy Rhoads series King V with 24 frets. After creating the guitar for Mustaine, the company began mass-producing a Dave Mustaine series Flying V. This line continued into the early 2000s, when Mustaine switched to ESP guitars.

The success of Megadeth's first record led to a major label deal with Capitol Records, which saw the 1986 release Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?. Amid drug problems and suspicions of stealing the band's equipment for drug money, Mustaine fired Poland and Samuelson. In 1988, Megadeth was disbanded for a short while so Mustaine could undergo drug rehabilitation; he had hooked himself on smoking heroin. During this band hiatus, Mustaine co-produced the album Refuge Denied for the band Sanctuary.

Mustaine then set out to create a new album with two new additions to the band Jeff Young (guitar) and Chuck Buehler (drums). The album was called So Far, So Good... So What. The 1988 album contains a song, "In My Darkest Hour", which was composed after the tragic death of Metallica's bass player Cliff Burton. The album is also composed of a moving instrumental "Into The Lungs Of Hell" an end of the world theme song "Set the World Afire" and even a speed metal cover of the Sex Pistols "Anarchy In The U.K."

After So Far, So Good... So What, Mustaine fired Buehler and Young, accusing Young of having thoughts of a relationship between him and Dave's girlfriend at the time. He then hired two new musicians, Nick Menza (drums) and Marty Friedman (lead guitar) into the Megadeth lineup to replace the ones he fired. They worked on a new project and the result was Rust In Peace (1990) which has been acclaimed as one of the greatest thrash metal albums alongside Metallica's Master Of Puppets and Slayer's Reign In Blood.

Two years later, in 1992, the same lineup went on to release Countdown To Extinction, their biggest commercial success to date, which went double platinum. The album held, debatably, some of the greatest songs Megadeth ever created, including "Sweating Bullets" and "Symphony of Destruction", both of which had videos made for them. The original version of the "Symphony of Destructon" video was edited due to its depiction of a political leader being assasinated.

After the success of Countdown To Extinction, Megadeth released Youthanasia in 1994.It became the quickest album to go gold (50,000 units) in Canadian history and sold well throughout the world.Template:Fact. It was an album that showed a more melodic side to Mustaine, with tracks such as "A Tout Le Monde" - a song which Mustaine describes as what he'd want his last words to be. The album also included "Train of Consequences", which became one of the band's most memorable music videos.

With Mustaine's renewed interest in Megadeth after his short involvement and disappointment of MD.45 (see below), Megadeth went on to release Cryptic Writings (1997), Risk (1999), The World Needs A Hero (2001), and completed a world tour ending with the recording of a concert released as Rude Awakening.

(For more discography information, see Megadeth discography; for detailed band history, see Megadeth)

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Injury and breakup

In January 2002, Mustaine suffered a compressed radial nerve in his left hand and arm while falling asleep on a chair and leaving his arm hanging over it. This accident, which happened while Mustaine was in a waiting room at a detox centre (being treated for ongoing drug use), made it impossible for him to play guitar. Consequently, in April of that year, Megadeth was disbanded.

On the whole matter, Mustaine himself gave what he called "the Reader's Digest version", during an interview for SuicideGirls: " I went into retirement because my arm got hurt really bad. I broke up the band which at the time was Al Pitrelli, Dave Ellefson, Jimmy DeGrasso and myself. I was having problems with Al because he liked to drink and we didn’t want to show up at places drunk. Al also got married to a nice woman but he wanted to spend time with her. After a few years most married men are willing to die so I figured if we got a couple years into the marriage that might have changed. But the fact was, Al wasn’t fitting. DeGrasso was really hard to be around because he was so negative all the time with his complaining about money and wanting things. Ellefson was all about play my songs, play my songs. I hated being around these guys so when the arm injury happened it was a welcome relief and an indication that I had to stop." [1]

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Recovery

Mustaine went through physical therapy for his arm injury, all the while once again exploring other areas of the music industry, including production. On the contrary to what doctors predicted, within a short time, he fully recovered from his arm injury through successful therapy. Following his recovery, he remixed and remastered all of Megadeth's albums, releasing them through Capitol Records in 2004.

During this time also, Dave Mustaine became a born-again Christian. Mustaine has remarked that the future of American democracy lies within our hands and shows that he has a problem with many politicians, who are depicted on the cover of Megadeth's The System Has Failed.

Unfortunately, at the same time, Dave's personal life once again underwent problems. During the tour of Gigantour 2005, Mustaine brought with him a "spiritual counselor" to help himself avoid the demons that almost cost him his life due to his prior drug addictions. This was noted recently by The Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato, who explained his experience with Dave on Gigantour: "He had a pastor walking around with him on tour and riding on his bus, I think to help keep him on the straight and narrow path."Template:Ref

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Return

In 2004, in a move that surprised many, Mustaine enlisted one of Megadeth's 1980s-era guitarists and a couple of sessions musicians to record and release a new Megadeth album called The System Has Failed. The album's September 2004 release, although a sales disappointment, was very well received by music critics and fans; it was hailed as a return to Megadeth's successful late-80s/early-90s style in albums such as Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? and Rust in Peace.

For this new album Dave Mustaine was also determined to tour again. He called up many former Megadeth musicians, but all declined because of one complication or disagreement, or another. Mustaine then proceeded to hold auditions for a lead guitarist, bassist and drummer. All were found and this new lineup, with Mustaine being the only original member, proceeded to do a Megadeth tour named Blackmail The Universe; it travelled world-wide and sold-out most of its venues.

Dave Mustaine remains the central figure surrounding Megadeth's history and development. Many argue that 'The Dave Mustaine Band' would be a more appropriate title for the band; many note that Megadeth is now just a group consisting of 'hired hands'. Whatever the opinion, Megadeth still continues to tour, and continues to exist, simply out of Mustaine's own decision.

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MD.45

In 1995, Mustaine was growing bored with Megadeth and his bandmates, so he formed MD.45 with Lee Ving of Fear on vocals and Jimmy Degrasso on drums. The album, The Craving was released on July 23, 1996 and failed to find any substantial audience, in part because the band did not tour to support the album. As a result, the project never proceeded beyond the debut release.

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Gigantour

In the summer of 2005, Mustaine launched a traveling North American metal festival. He named it Gigantour after a favorite childhood cartoon of his, Gigantor. It would span six weeks and be co-headlined by Megadeth and Dream Theater, with a variety of other supporting metal acts. Mustaine has been quoted as saying that his main intention when conceiving the tour was to bring the American metal audiences an eclectic and affordable alternative to Ozzfest.

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Cameos

Dave Mustaine has done a few cameo performances on various televison shows:

In 1992 Mustaine covered the Democratic National Convention for MTV. Furthermore, he hosted the MTV2 Television Network's series Headbanger's Ball on two occasions: once on a tribute to Dimebag Darrell in December of 2004, and the second time as a special guest on an episode which aired August 27, 2005.

In the 1998 Drew Carey Show episode In Ramada Da Vida: when Drew needs someone to play a show Dave Mustaine auditions on his Jackson King V guitar. He plays a very fast passage, so Drew and his friends think Dave is nervous. Mustaine replies by saying, "Its supposed to sound like that." Drew replies by saying, "sure. NEXT!"

In the 2001 Black Scorpion sci-fi series episode Love Burns Mustaine plays Torchy Thompson, a vengeful arsonist.

His cameo in the animated Duck Dodgers television series, a 2005 episode called In Space, No One Can Hear You Rock/Ridealong Calamity, involves playing a cryogenically frozen version of himself. He is unfrozen because the main cast requires an incredibly loud noise, and "nobody rocks harder, faster, or louder than Dave Mustaine." He is referred to in the episode as being "genetically engineered to rock and raised by wolverines."

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Family life

Dave has repeatedly stated that his family is the most important aspect of his life. He married Pamela Casselburry in 1990 and together they have one son, Justis, born in 1990, and a daughter, Electra, born in 1998. The family has lived in Arizona, but currently resides in Southern California with their many horses.

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Feuds

Dave has an infamous reputation for having been in many feuds with other heavy metal musicians. Some of them include the following:

Metallica:

The most well-known of these is his feud with Metallica, most notably with drummer Lars Ulrich. Mustaine claims to have written several Metallica songs, including "Leper Messiah". Metallica generally refuses to recognize this. Many Megadeth fans believe that "Master of Puppets" was Mustaine's work and that Metallica ripped it off without paying proper credit or royalties. Mustaine is given minor credit for his work on "The Call of Ktulu", but there are arguments between the Mustaine and Metallica fans on how much of the song he actually wrote (in any event, Megadeth clearly adapted some of the music from "The Call of Ktulu" to their own song "Hangar 18"). In 2004, the Mustaine-Metallica feud re-ignited when footage of Mustaine was used in the documentary Some Kind of Monster. Mustaine claims that the video segment was edited in an effort to show him in an unflattering manner. In an interview with Metal Maniacs magazine, Mustaine called Ulrich a "treacherous little man". He also wrote the song "Something That I'm Not" on The System Has Failed about Ulrich.

Kirk Hammett

Mustaine's replacement by Kirk Hammett has resulted in bad blood between the two. Even though he has stated he "doesn't care Kirk took my job", he also noted "at least I got to bang his girlfriend before he took my job — how do I taste, Kirk?" Template:Ref. In Megadeth's edition of Behind The Music, Mustaine stated that "now he sees how [Hammett] tries really hard" and "thinks he makes really good use of what talent he has".

Dave Ellefson:

Mustaine's decision to break up Megadeth in 2002 left all bandmembers miffed and holding grudges, especially Dave Ellefson, who hinted about Mustaine faking the injury as an excuse to break up the band during an interview with Metal Sludge magazine Template:Fact. Subsequently, the rift between the two founding members exploded, with the two camps ferociously exchanging lawsuits against each other. David Ellefson's action alleged that co-founding guitarist Mustaine breached their long-running partnership agreement. He claimed Mustaine wrongfully took the lion's share of the band's income (estimated at more than $200 million since 1984) for himself and cut Ellefson out of the band's music publishing and merchandise revenues. Ellefson also said that Mustaine libeled him in an online posting, seeking at least $18.5 million in damages. Mustaine's counterclaim alleges that Ellefson executed a settlement agreement in which he gave up his 20% interest in Megadeth. Mustaine maintains that the settlement -- which Ellefson alleges was signed under pressure and ultimately withdrawn -- released Mustaine from all claims. Ellefson eventually lost the case Template:Fact.

Rikki Rachtman:

Mustaine had a verbal feud with MTV's Rikki Rachtman from Headbanger's Ball. Rachtman stated on-air that he would like to settle his differences with Mustaine and move on. Mustaine eventually cleared the matter up, stating that, in reality, he really liked Rachtman. Recently on the VH1 40 Least Metal Moments, interviews were shown with Rachtman wearing a shirt saying "Dave Mustaine for President".

Kerry King :

Mustaine has a long-standing feud with Slayer guitarist Kerry King. King had previously been a temporary member of Megadeth in 1984. Even though Mustaine tried to convince him to focus on Megadeth rather than the "lame spikes" and "eyeliner" with the "posers" in Slayer, Kerry refused to quit his main band.Template:Ref After a falling out during the 1991 "Clash of the Titans" tour, Kerry and Mustaine made public jabs at one another throughout the 1990s. Mustaine cited Slayer's poor record sales compared to Megadeth, and Kerry mentioned Mustaine's inability to get along with band members and tour with major acts. Dave tried to reach out to Kerry after the murder of Dimebag Darrell, but made little effort to actually mend fences. King currently believes Mustaine to be a "cocksucker" Template:Ref, has said that "everyone hates Dave" Template:Ref, and that he is a "dictator". Template:Ref

Pantera:

Mustaine has a continuing feud with Philip Anselmo from Pantera, Down and Superjoint Ritual. Pantera opened for Megadeth's 1992 "Countdown to Extinction" tour. Phil was known for saying "Fuck Megadeth" and "Fuck Dave" through the PA during Pantera's set minutes before Megadeth took the stage. By 1994, in an interview on MTV, Dave told an interviewer that he felt his music had been ripped off. He continued, "I'm not gonna name anybody 'cause I'm not gonna promote them. OK, we'll say 'panther' in Spanish (Pantera). You're welcome guys. We might as well be cooking their dinner for them or pushing their little wheelbarrow to the bank for them."Template:Ref After the murder of Dimebag (once a potential member of Megadeth), Dave downplayed this comment on a 2004 Headbanger's Ball memorial to Dimebag as an "off-camera, off-record" event, which he felt flattered Pantera. However the video of the interview is available at the MTV website.[2]

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