It’s not hard to imagine the grin, guttural “heh” and pride that was written all over Dave Mustaine’s face on Sunday (February 1) when he learned that Megadeth’s self-titled album, their 17th and presumably final, was number one this week.
Megadeth fans have waited for this day for more than four decades, and since day one, Megadeth has had no bigger fan than their founder and singer-guitarist himself.
A life in competition mode
When I asked Mustaine four years ago why his band’s last album, “The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!”, still rocked so hard and what drove him to push metal’s speed limits even as he neared retirement age, he replied wryly: “Well, I still have a few bands in my sights that I’m going to pursue.” But then again, he could have said the same thing about every Megadeth album he’s released since 1985.
Year after year, the fiery frontman has fueled the Megadeth albums with a deep well of underdog jealousy – envy of the crossover success of a band he co-founded (cough, Metallica, cough) and bitter contempt for every artist who precedes him on the Billboard charts. (That’s especially true for you, Billy Ray Cyrus, because no one has accomplished more with an aching, broken heart than Dave Mustaine.) But now, four decades after the release of the metal gem “Wake Up Dead,” Dave has woken up victorious.
“After 40 years of making Megadeth music and performing concerts around the world, at this moment I feel nothing but gratitude,” he said in an unusually modest statement about the news. “Realizing that our last Megadeth album is also our first number one album only strengthens my determination to stay at the top.”
Closeness and frustration
Of course, Dave has always been at the top, even if he didn’t know it himself. As a Megadeth fan since the early ’90s (I was a member of the Megadeth Cyber Army fan club when “cyber” was still a sci-fi term), I was always frustrated when I read interviews where he focused so much on the competition.
I remember an interview in a guitar magazine I read sometime around the release of Youthanasia (1994) in which he distinguished his guitar style from that of then-lead guitarist Marty Friedman by saying that Friedman, a virtuoso, played with love while he played with hate. While that’s a good line, especially for a metal band gnashing its teeth, it also speaks to the deep bitterness he felt about his fate when “Youthanasia” made it to number four and went platinum, while many of Mustaine and Metallica’s peers (Exodus, Testament, and even Slayer and Anthrax) could only dream of similar commercial success.
The break with Metallica
Of course, Mustaine’s hostility began on April 11, 1983, when Metallica fired him for his volatile temper and alcoholism shortly before recording their genre-defining debut album, and with each passing year his contempt grew into a mighty oak tree.
In his autobiography, “Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir” (2010), he devotes an entire chapter to the unwarranted embarrassment he felt when he first heard “Enter Sandman,” a song that used the same children’s prayer (“Now I lay me down to sleep”) that Megadeth had used in “Go to Hell,” because he assumed metalheads would think he was copying Metallica, even though Megadeth’s song was technically a month before Black Album was released. This, of course, was in a book dedicated to “all the people who told me I would never…” (he left that blank for you to fill in).
Credits, royalties and silent victories
But Dave should have felt like a winner when he received royalties from Metallica for songs he wrote as a teenager, before he even joined the band, like “Jump in the Fire” and “The Four Horsemen” (a song Metallica originally recorded as “The Mechanix” and which Mustaine re-recorded with Megadeth on the band’s debut album).
And he should have felt like a winner when Metallica named him as a songwriter for two songs on their second album, Ride the Lightning, the title track and the great instrumental “The Call of Ktulu.” Mustaine claimed that the band used riffs from a tape he left behind to write the songs, but hey, he still got credits and paychecks for two great songs, even if he still felt the urge to reclaim the “Ktulu” chord progression on Megadeth’s “Hangar 18” and cover “Ride the Lightning” on the just-released number one album Megadeth. These two Metallica albums went multi-platinum thanks to his innovative songwriting.
The rise of Megadeth
And of course, Dave should have felt honored when Slayer guitarist Kerry King joined Megadeth for a few early gigs out of admiration for Dave, as King was impressed by Mustaine’s playing in Metallica’s garage days.
Within a few years, Megadeth also began to achieve success of their own: their second album, Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying? (1986), went platinum, and the title track’s bass riff served as an MTV News bumper for years. The band’s next two albums, So Far, So Good… So What! (1988) and Rust in Peace (1990) also achieved platinum status. In fact, Rust in Peace left such a lasting impression that it was ironically celebrated by The Onion in 2015.
“Countdown to Extinction” and missing first place
Then in 1992, a year after the release of Metallica’s Black Album and Mustaine’s whole imaginary “Go to Hell” debacle, Megadeth’s “Countdown to Extinction” became a metal hit thanks to the mainstream metal hits “Symphony of Destruction” (a number 71 “pop” song on the Hot 100!), “Sweating Bullets” and “Skin o’ My Teeth”. The title song won an award from the Humane Society of the United States for drawing attention to the disgusting nature of humans hunting helpless “caged” animals. And, for what it’s worth, the final song, “Ashes in Your Mouth,” is one of my favorite thrash guitar songs of all time.
The album debuted at number two, right behind Cyrus’ “Some Gave All”, which was a thorn in Mustaine’s side (at least until now) and led him to further increase the fluctuation of Megadeth musicians from album to album. (Let’s pause here for a moment to acknowledge the 32 musicians who have played in Megadeth over the years and endured Mustaine’s ego, temper, and perfectionism.) Over the years, Megadeth earned more gold and platinum awards, a Grammy, and the respect of metalheads around the world, all while pursuing the “sweet taste of satisfaction,” to quote a line from “Ashes in Your Mouth.” But none of these successes were number one albums, especially given an ever-present, if imaginary, rivalry.
Rivalry as a driving force
Mustaine had the opportunity to voice his grievances to at least one member of Metallica, drummer Lars Ulrich, during the filming of 2004’s Some Kind of Monster. In the film’s most memorable scene, Mustaine reveals his psyche, explaining that every time he heard Metallica on the radio, he still felt like he’d screwed up.
“It was hard, Lars,” he said. “It’s been hard to see everything you do and touch turn to gold and everything I do backfire. And I’m sure there are a lot of people who would consider my setback a complete success. And am I happy being number two? No.”
“I feel guilty [dich gefeuert zu haben]? “Uh, yeah, I do,” Ulrich said. “But at the same time, it’s hard for me to understand that the only thing you feel when you look back on the last 20 years has to do with Metallica.”
It’s emotional watching the estrangement between the two old friends, but at the same time it speaks to Mustaine’s unique success. Mustaine wouldn’t have his own No. 1 album today if he hadn’t been so persistent, and it’s plausible that Metallica themselves would never have become No. 1 if they had stuck to the laser-focused thrash metal that Megadeth perfected.
An unmistakable sound
But even aside from “the Metallica thing” – and it’s worth noting that Metallica and Mustaine have reconciled a few times in the last 15 years – Dave Mustaine should have always felt like a champion. Megadeth have a distinctive sound that has often been imitated but never copied.
It’s found in the sarcastic growl of “Peace Sells” (“I didn’t know you even had feelings”), in the way the opening riffs of “Lucretia” unfold from an eerie elasticity into a taut blues figure, and in the architecture of aggression in the fusion of punk chords and blues slides in the main riff of “Skin o’ My Teeth.”
“Hello me, meet the real me,” Mustaine taunted in “Sweating Bullets,” but Mustaine’s real self was always there, even if he couldn’t see it in the mirror. To my ears, the music on the new Megadeth album is an affirmation of everything Mustaine has created. The fast-paced riffs of “Tipping Point,” the confessions of “Hey God?!” (“Sometimes I feel so unsafe when I walk these streets alone,” Mustaine snorts on the song) and finally Megadeth’s rendition of “Ride the Lightning” all feel like the encapsulation of a legacy that should speak for itself.
Unfortunately, no one can speak better about Dave Mustaine’s virtues than Dave Mustaine himself. So if Megadeth really is the band’s farewell, at least Mustaine knows that this time he will undeniably be heard. To the long-awaited first place!
