If there is an alternate history of electric guitar in which Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine is the owner of Jackson Guitars, what might that look like?
We have cause to wonder, because it nearly happened. At least, Mustaine, a former Jackson signature artist, tried to purchase the brand, only backing out after being “jerked around”.
In a recent YouTube interview with Reverb, Mustaine recalled the time when he was Jackson’s most high-profile signature artist, and why he made the decision to leave its roster.
As he saw it, Jackson were handing out endorsements left, right and center, and it was devaluing the brand.
“It was cool at the beginning until they started giving their guitars out to everyone,” he says. “When you start giving your stuff out to everyone, it doesn’t matter any more. It’s like flooding the economy with dollars – inflation comes in.”
Jackson and Mustaine had been a good partnership. It was a natural home for him after leaving B.C. Rich following the 1986 release of Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying? Jackson swooped in just at the right moment.
Megadeth had hired this talented young graduate from the Shrapnel shred stable, Marty Friedman. They were about to cut the greatest album in their career, Rust in Peace. Friedman would play a Kelly. Mustaine picked up the King V.
Mustaine being Mustaine, he had some ideas on how they could improve it. Why didn’t they make a 24-fret version? Well, they did. The rest is history.
Mustaine still has the second one they made, complete with some fortune cookie wisdom taped on its upper wing. The first one went walkabout, and while it recently turned up for sale the megabucks price tag put him off.
“That was the first 24-fret Flying V in existence,” explains Mustaine, pointing out a Silver signature King V that would be very familiar to any Megafan who grew up in the Countdown to Extinction era. “There was one before this that got away from me, and I saw someone at Reverb has that #1 for sale for $193,000, and I said, ‘I would never pay that for that guitar. I would never pay that much money for that guitar – unless I physically came with it!”
Which would be pretty weird, given that Mustaine would be paying for it. But then it could be a Sweating Bullets scenario, a “Hello me, meet the real me” deal. Hey, we did start with an alternate universe. Anyway, moving on. As the millennium dawned, things were not to Mustaine’s liking at Jackson.
“I saw the girl that was working there. She was the A&R rep. She gave a guitar endorsement to a drummer, and I thought, ‘Man, this is not where I want to be.’ So I left,” says Mustaine.
Jackson is now part of Fender family of brands. It could have been part-owned by Mustaine.
“I tried to buy Jackson,” he says. “I tried to buy Jackson with Cathy Duncan, from Seymour Duncan. I tried to buy it with a guy named Joe Ensor, and after [Jackson] had jerked me around for a couple of times, that was the other variable in me leaving. When you are spending money on attorneys and doing due diligence, and all this stuff, and it’s just a wank, that wasn’t cool.”
It was a disagreement at the time when Fender bought the company. Remember, I tried to buy Jackson 3 times. 1- with Joe Ensor, 2- with Seymour Duncan’s wife Cathy, and 3- with Lloyd Prinz. Jackson/Fender and I are all still friends. https://t.co/zaysNoJ8pNMay 19, 2018
Mustaine duly left, signing up with ESP in 2003. He is now with Gibson, with whom he has designed a range of signature guitars, his Flying V, an acoustic guitar. And he seems happy enough. Well, kinda grouchy when talking about all these old guitars, but that’s Mustaine.
In 2018, he tweeted that all was cool between him, Jackson and Fender – and actually admitted to trying to buy Jackson three times. With the aforementioned Cathy Duncan, with Joe Esnor, and then with Lloyd Prins (who built Mustaine a T-style back in the day).
You can check out the full interview above.
