It was not unusual for opening acts for thrash metal’s Big Four to suffer at the hands of the audience, not all of whom shared the tastes of the headliners who had hand-picked their support.

Alice In Chains stuck out like a sore thumb during the epic all-star Clash of the Titans Tour of 1991. Queensrÿche and the Cult would tell you that the late ’80s Metallica crowd were a rowdy bunch. One show in Helsinki saw Queensrÿche being showered in bottles. Those were tough gigs.

Dean DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots can relate. The Californian alt-rockers were just getting started when they got the invite from Dave Mustaine to come out and open for Megadeth. Core was in record stores. MTV picked up Sex Type Thing. Things were moving for the band.

Speaking to Guitar World in 2017, the STP guitarist said the Megadeth tour was a huge chance to prove that their sound could translate from the club to an ice rink enormodome.

“It was our first introduction to playing arenas. All of us had been playing clubs from a very young age – in our teens, so we had had our fill of that,” said DeLeo. “And then when STP hit the road we played our fair share of clubs globally. And when we came back we got all these offers to go out with other bands.”

In the early days, Rage Against the Machine took STP out. But it’s the Megadeth gig DeLeo remembers from that time. Mustaine, he says, was a gent. The crowd, once they had filed in, did not have the patience to sit through a support act, nor the manners to humor them.

“Megadeth asked us to go out with them, and I’ll tell ya, Mr. Mustaine was very, very kind to us, man. Very supportive,” recalled DeLeo.

“Nobody knew who we were. We were simply the opening band. We would come out to an arena that was only a third full. And then we’re trying to do our thing, and you’ve got little pimple-faced boys with Iron Maiden shirts just giving you the finger all night. Like, ‘Man, this sucks!’ They just wanted to see Megadeth.”

This did not go down well with Mr Megadeth himself. Dave Mustaine took umbrage that his fans were not pleased at his choice of support act, and if the fans let it be known that they were unhappy, so too did the Megadeth frontman. DeLeo says Mustaine would intervene and call for order.

“Dave Mustaine would sometimes come out,” said DeLeo, “and he’d grab the mic and go, ‘Listen, you fuckers. I personally picked this band to be here. Fucking listen!’ It was like, ‘Holy shit!’ Mustaine was amazing to us.”

And STP returned none the worse for wear. Core was hot. By the summer of ’93, it was charting at number three on the Billboard 200. Creep, Plush, and Wicked Garden joined Sex Type Thing on MTV, on the radio, and ultimately shifted more than eight million copies in the US alone.

Dave Mustaine has divulged that he believes that he’s had a massive influence on his fellow Big Four of thrash metal, namely, Slayer, Metallica, and Anthrax.

In an interview with São Paulo, Brazil's 89 FM A Rádio Rock radio station [via Blabbermouth], Mustaine shares his honest thoughts on the metal community and his overarching legacy.

“I’ve been very invested in the metal community,” he says. “Kerry [King, Slayer guitarist] and I played together [during the early days of both bands], and I showed him how to play Megadeth songs, which was before [Slayer] started having all their pivotal records. Kerry and I had a really great time together.”

As for Metallica, the band he was the lead guitarist for between 1982 and 1983, he asserts, “I wrote music in Metallica, and I wrote music in Megadeth. So I’ve been very influential with the guitar with these three bands.”

He also believes he had an influence on Anthrax’s Scott Ian, stating that the band started crafting a different sound after they met Mustaine-era Metallica.

“When I met Scott and the guys in Anthrax out in New York, same thing happened. Their first record was very different from the record they made after they met me and the guys in Metallica. So I think that's great.”

Ultimately, though, Mustaine is quick to clarify that, “I love all those bands.”

Megadeth recently released their seventeenth and final album, and Mustaine gave Guitar World an exclusive track-by-track rundown of his swan song.

Steve Di Giorgio has an enviable list of heavy metal greats on his résumé – the bassist has played with the likes of Testament, Sebastian Bach, Death and Autopsy. However, one of his most surreal moments was working as a sideman with Dave Mustaine on Megadeth’s 2022 record, The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead!

“When [David] Ellefson was having… I don’t even know what to call it… his online episode, we were all kind of watching what was gonna happen,” Di Giorgio tells Bass Player, referring to the leak of sexually explicit videos featuring Ellefson.

While Di Giorgio acknowledges that “people have been exposed in the press” for a range of scandals, he mentioned that what happened in Ellefson's case was “pretty unique.”

“That stuff comes with the territory. I felt like if you put yourself in the guy’s position, how horrifying [it is] to be so exposed like that. We were all watching, and when he was booted from the band, and he made his statement about him doing nothing wrong, it just kind of faded away.”

However, Dave Mustaine, and, by extension, Megadeth, still decided to distance themselves from Ellefson and were on a quest to find a replacement. Turns out, Di Giorgio was at the top of his list.

“I was surprised when the phone rang, and it was Mr. Mustaine looking to get me to replace Ellefson,” he relates. “I was like, ‘What the hell?’ It was not expected… I just didn’t picture it happening. I felt like there were so many other deserving bassists who would have fit the role better, so I declined.

“I didn’t wanna mess up my longterm Testament gig, and I didn’t feel like I was the right guy for the job. But he [Mustaine] said he needed to hurry and finish the album tracks because whatever Ellefson had contributed was erased, and they’d gotten rid of his participation.”

Megadeth not only needed to get the record done, but also required someone to step in on the touring front. Di Giorgio was conflicted, and proposed “some kind of juggle where I don't mess up my Testament plans.”

He continues, “They were like, ‘No, we need a full commitment.’ I was like, ‘I can’t do that,’ so I declined again. And then, the third time came, and they said, ‘Okay, we want to present two different offers. You have a reputation for coming in and getting recordings done on the spot. The first offer is to come to Tennessee, do the record, and during your stay, we’ll see if this is meant to continue.’ I said, ‘Okay, that’s definitely something I’m used to doing.’”

Lo and behold, Di Giorgio got on a plane and promptly finished the tracks. However, the more they talked about the record's potential success, the more he realized he couldn't commit to a Megadeth touring schedule.

“So, I just told him [Mustaine], ‘I’m happy where I am. I’m just gonna stay loyal to my bros.’ I knew I was kissing a good gig goodbye, but I was fine where I was. Everybody understood, and we parted as friends. It was a great experience.”

And, as far as working with Mustaine, as Di Giorgio aptly puts it, “Megadeth is Megadeth, man. Nobody’s gonna go in there and reinvent it. That’s Dave’s world. He has a specific sound and way of everybody contributing to make that sound. I just put my session hat on and approached the job the way it needed to be approached.

“But I know people wanna assume the worst and say he’s some kind of dictator and forced me to do it. It was totally not like that. He was super-cool and a very chill dude. I didn’t come in there all brash, thinking I was gonna reinvent the wheel.

“He felt relaxed around me, and he opened me up. It was a total positive and an unexpected experience,” he concludes.

Bass Player’s interview with Steve Di Giorgio will be published in the coming weeks.

In more recent news, Mustaine revealed the real reason why he’s being forced to retire Megadeth.

Say what you like about Dave Mustaine and his inability to consign his departure from Metallica to the dustbin of history, but it gave him the fire and the fury required to put together a band that would be have its own legacy as one of thrash metal’s pioneers – one of metal’s most-enduring acts.

With Mustaine announcing the end for Megadeth, Guitar World takes a trip down memory lane for a blow-by-blow account of one MegaDiscography.

Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good! (Combat, 1985)

Guitarist: Chris Poland

Still bitter about being fired from Metallica, Dave Mustaine returned with a band fashioned from his own imagination. The songs were sharp and socially aware, while the music was surprisingly mature. Mustaine had immediately made his intentions clear – namely to take the thrash beast he’d helped create and give it a rounded metal education. It didn’t chart on the Billboard 200, but it was loved from the start.

Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying? (Capitol, 1986)

Guitarist: Chris Poland

Originally recorded for Combat Records, this was switched to the much bigger Capitol label, with the band given the budget to completely re-mix. The result is a true landmark album.

Forget about thrash; here was Mustaine leading a charge through the whole spectrum of musical emotions. The title track itself is something of an epic, showcasing Megadeth’s startlingly creative process. Meanwhile, Chris Poland’s playing is nothing short of brilliant.

So Far, So Good.. So What! (Capitol, 1988)

Guitarist: Jeff Young

Two years after Peace Sells…, a new Megadeth lineup landed on their feet with a record that refused to conform to expectations. While the cover of Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the U.K. seemed somewhat superfluous, Mustaine was at his finest on the emotional In My Darkest Hour – a tribute to the late Cliff Burton of Metallica – and the haunting Mary Jane. We also don't mind Hook in Mouth and Set the World Afire.

Rust in Peace (Capitol, 1990)

Guitarist: Marty Friedman

The debut album from arguably Megadeth’s finest lineup, with Mustaine and long-time bassist Dave Ellefson being joined by guitarist Marty Friedman and drummer Nick Menza.

Trying to come to terms with his substance dependence, Mustaine became much more politically charged in his lyrical themes, exploring the implications and ramifications of war.

The music is, at times, breathtaking, with Friedman proving he could cope with the considerable demands put on the guitarist in this most exhaustive of metal bands. Hangar 18 is a striking moment of genius.

Countdown to Extinction (Capitol, 1992)

Guitarist: Marty Friedman

Max Norman, the man behind Ozzy Osbourne’s solo success, was brought in to co-produce with Mustaine, and his obvious commercial leanings can be heard in the way many of the songs here are structured. Gone were the sprawling epics, only two tracks – Sweating Bullets and Ashes in Your Mouth – were over five minutes in length, and many had an almost traditional arrangement.

However, Symphony of Destruction was a triumph and remains a Mega classic. Was this an attempt to challenge Metallica’s success with the Black Album? If so, it worked to some extent, as Countdown to Extinction came up just shy of the mark, making it to Number 2 on the U.S. charts.

Youthanasia (Capitol, 1994)

Guitarist: Marty Friedman

Now the band were really starting to alienate some of their diehard fans. Almost divorced from the qualities that had made their early albums so successful, Megadeth were moving inexorably towards melodic hard rock.

Norman’s guidance saw them become virtually one-paced, which meant that songs like Train of Consequences weren’t given the credit they deserved. While A Tout Le Monde provided a moving interlude, nevertheless it appeared that Mustaine had lost touch with his roots.

Cryptic Writings (Capitol, 1997)

Guitarist: Marty Friedman

Often dismissed as the worst album of the band’s career, Cryptic Writings actually saw Megadeth get back in touch with their thrash roots, on songs like FFF, She-Wolf and Vortex. And I’ll Get Even saw them re-igniting a creative spark. The problem was in the production.

Mustaine has in recent times expressed his regret at the decision to bring in Dann Huff, known for his work in melodic rock circles – far removed from where Megadeth should have been. And it cannot be denied that this record suffers from a somewhat tame timbre.

Risk (Capitol, 1999)

Guitarist: Marty Friedman

The last Megadeth album of the 20th century and Friedman’s farewell performance. Part of the problem here is that tracks like the single Crush ’Em are so smooth that they positively glide, rather than truly bombing along in Mega style.

Mustaine has claimed that the decision to take Megadeth even further into the jungle of melodically driven music was suggested by Lars Ulrich and, as the album title suggested, it was a real risk.

Again, the production from Huff was a problem, and the album suffers for it. However, it couldn’t be denied that Mustaine was still a formidable songwriter, as he proved on Prince of Darkness and Breadline.

The World Needs a Hero (Sanctuary, 2001)

Guitarist: Al Pitrelli

A new label, a fresh guitarist (Al Pitrelli) and a return to the hard stuff. After the hard-rock dabbling of the ’90s, the band got suited up in body armor and plunged back into the metal melee.

While this was not a complete return to the band’s original principles, the album had just enough rough and tumble to keep diehard fans satisfied.

The System Has Failed (Sanctuary, 2004)

Guitarist: Chris Poland

After calling time on the band due to a career-threatening arm injury, Mustaine intended this as a solo return. This was subsequently changed, although it was very much a Mustaine-plus-hired-hands effort.

A darker, more insidious record than The World Needs a Hero – it offered no solutions but highlighted current social and political problems and inconsistencies. However, what it did do was put Megadeth right back to the fore. They were once more metal heroes.

United Abominations (Roadrunner, 2007)

Guitarist: Glen Drover

Although Megadeth were once more a true band, it was obvious that the songs were the product of Mustaine’s mind. However, if The System Has Failed was a little inconsistent, this time it was clear Megadeth had found their range again.

A cover of Zeppelin’s Out On the Tiles and a re-visit of A Tout Le Monde (with a guest appearance from Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia) apart, it pulled no punches.

In keeping with modern cynicism, Mustaine showed himself to be as angry and agitated as he was in 1985. UA topped the GW readers poll for 2007’s best metal album.

Endgame (Roadrunner, 2009)

Guitarist: Chris Broderick

Endgame features yet another new lead guitarist entering MegaDave’s midst. This time around, it’s Chris Broderick, who came in hot, adding bouts of old-school thrash meets new-school edginess.

The result is an album that felt like a true band effort that was still clearly spearheaded by Mustaine, who continued to run the gamut of lyrical topics, ranging from Lord of the Rings themes to the Great Recession.

Songs like Head Crusher and 44 Minutes showed that Mustaine wasn’t just back at it, but aiming to properly reinstate the Megadeth machine atop the proverbial MegaMountain. And once again, this barn-burner topped Guitar World's end-of-year poll for the best metal album of 2009.

Th1rt3en (Roadrunner, 2011)

Guitarist: Chris Broderick

For the first time since the halcyon days of Marty Friedman, Megadeth made an album with the same lead guitarist as the previous one. Also noteworthy is the return of founding bassist David Ellefson, whom James LoMenzo had previously replaced. The results were good, if not outstanding… in a way.

The Al Capone-inspired Public Enemy No. 1 was kind of weird, but also kinda awesome in that Mustaine continued to push his lyrical ideas past their limits. And then there’s a cut like Sudden Death, which found Mustaine and company pummeling away at full blast with intent to kill.

Super Collider (Universal, 2013)

Guitarist: Chris Broderick

Three albums in a row with a guitarist not named Marty Friedman? Madness! Sadly, this would be Broderick’s Megadeth swan song. Thankfully, he went out with a bang, as Super Collider was the band’s best since the vaunted Rust in Peace. This is not to say Super Collider is as good as Rust in Peace, but that Mustaine had harnessed some sort of latter-day resurgence, landing Megadeth back among the genre’s best and most consistent bands. Evidence can be found in songs like Kingmaker and Burn!

Though great things were to come, it’s a shame Broderick didn’t stick around to challenge the vaunted Friedman era for consistency and dominance. That aside, he did find his way onto GW's cover (our June 2013 issue), becoming the first Megadeth guitarist to share the cover with Mustaine since Friedman back in 1991.

Dystopia (Universal, 2016)

It’s not hyperbolic to say that Dystopia was the best Megadeth album since the band’s first few beloved records. But this time, this isn’t just because it’s good, but because it’s truly great.

With former Angra guitarist Kiko Loureiro aboard, Mustaine found the best foil he’d had since the ’80s, leading to the creation of a modern metal monster. Fatal Illusion, The Threat Is Real and Post American World are commentaries that pummel the listener into blissful submission. Dystopia is top-tier Mustaine, so it’s no wonder that it nabbed him a Grammy for Best Metal Performance.

Guitarist: Kiko Loureiro

The Sick, the Dying… And the Dead! (Universal, 2022)

Mustaine and co carried the momentum from Dystopia into the sessions for The Sick… leading to another late-career metal masterstroke. But there was more at play here, such as the Covid pandemic and Mustaine’s throat cancer diagnosis.

We’ll Be Back netted Megadeth another Grammy nod for Best Metal Performance, which was the icing on the cake given all that Mustaine had been through. On the downside, this record put a period on Lourierio’s tenure.

Guitarist: Kiko Loureiro

Megadeth (Frontiers, 2026)

Given the fact that Mustaine and his band of merry men had nabbed two Grammys after the release of the band’s previous two records, and that their live show is as hellacious as ever, it was a surprise to hear that Megadeth will be the band’s final album.

But it’s not all bad, as newbie Teemu Mäntysaari made like it was 1990, delivering a Friedman-ish performance across Tipping Point, I Don’t Care and Let There Be Shred. Mustaine is going out like he came in: kicking, screaming and delivering blood‑boiling rock just as he did in ’85.

Guitarist: Teemu Mäntysaari

• Megadeth is out now via Frontiers.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Dave Mustaine’s wild heavy metal journey is ending via a final Megadeth album – January’s self-titled release – and a globetrotting tour.

He tells Guitar World, “We have a lot of territories we need to play before we stop. We’ve got a lot of stops to get to so that we can see everybody. It’s more than just weekend-warrior stuff here in the States. We’re not just here traveling in a Winnebago.” [Laughs]

It’s hard to imagine the metal landscape without Mustaine, a man whose playing is as fiery as his personality. Thankfully, those traits come across throughout Megadeth. Mustaine is going out with a massive bang.

Below, he discusses the new album, track by track. As is the case with any Megadeth offering, the themes run a wide gamut, but it’s the album's final track, The Last Note, that seems the most symbolic.

“It’s like we’re playing to carry on forever,” Mustaine says of the song. “For people who know my music, it’ll carry on. I know it will.”

1. Tipping Point

This song came along in the middle of the recording process; the songs were numbered, and Tipping Point was Number 9, so we had gotten through a good portion of the record by the time we started working on it. As far as performing in the studio, we had some crude racks from Lowe's or Home Depot, and we had all of our amps stacked up there.

We had our Marshalls and a bunch of other amps I've never seen before, all the stompboxes and stuff. This song came together pretty easily. The hardest part was knowing when to stop, because Megadeth songs reveal themselves – if that makes sense.

The first time you listen to it, it sounds like something, and then you listen again, and you hear so many things you didn’t hear before. The easiest way to say it is that it's like peeling an onion, and every time you listen to it, you hear a little something more. Teemu [Mäntysaari] is definitely going to be a star. The guitar work he did on this record was just amazing.

2. I Don’t Care

It’s song Number 2, but it was song Number 4 in the list of songs. That was the order the songs were penned – not as far as their importance. I Don’t Care is really a super-punk track I had been hanging onto in my head for a long time and thinking about, you know, how aggressive it would be to do a really great skating video, or any of those extreme sports. It just kept fueling the song.

When it was time to sing the lyrics, I don't know what I was thinking, but I went up and just spat out these lyrics – and all that stuff came out the second time I sang it.

The first time I sang it, it reminded me a lot of Nirvana and then Fear. I was in one of those little obnoxious Dave Mustaine moods, and I got through the first pass. Then the producer, Chris [Rakestraw], goes, “You need to just go ‘da da da da da’ during that middle part there.” I kind of tilted my head, went in there and just said the most obnoxious things I could say – and there you go! [Laughs]

The fun part about doing the guitar layering was, when we started with the main riff, we added another, which was all down-picking the same chords. Then we had another layer that went on top that was like when you do the first note and then an octave higher – that jazzy kind of chord, where you can slide it, like a George Benson chord. At the very end, there was one more layer that’s a cross between a percussive sound and a little bit of a pinch sound.

3. Hey God?!

When we started this one, it had different lyrics. We went through numerous ideations where the song stayed the same, but the lyrics were really hard to come down on.

I spent so much time getting this lyric right that I lost it, and I just wrote down what ended up becoming the final lyrics. A lot of the thought process for the retirement stuff was swirling around in my head around that period. The thoughts would come and go, but that's when I zeroed in on those lyrics.

The song – the music – was written; it was the second musical track we were working on, but the lyrics took forever. But when we finally got to that place, about how we’re nearing the end here, that’s when these lyrics came up.

It's funny because there’s a lot of those, I don’t know if “slogans” is the right word, but they’re like wives’ tales and limericks and stuff like that about footprints in the sand, looking back. And there was only one set of footprints. And you say to God, “Where were you?” And God says, “Well, those footprints were mine, when I was carrying you.” I thought, “That’s a really cool concept.”

It’s like the old poem that says something like, “It’s better to live your life like there is a God, and when you get to Heaven, find out there is none, than to live your life like there’s no God and go to Heaven and find out that there is.” I thought, “That’s pretty heavy.”

4. Let There Be Shred

Let There Be Shred has nothing to do with AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock, although I’m a huge AC/DC fan and I love that song. Teemu is such an exceptional talent that he really lit a fire in me for my playing. We were joking around and constantly talking about how we have to make this record absolutely shred and that we needed to put a lot of solos in it. I think we accomplished that.

We didn’t write songs like [we used to in former] periods of Megadeth’s lifetime. We had songs that were great songs, but were fit for a time, like the Countdown to Extinction years. Those songs are classic, but they’re not fast by today’s standards. The songs people like are like those on the new record, but, you know, different songs for different times.

A pretty unique thing about Let There Be Shred – in terms of the guitar duels Teemu and I were doing – is that he would do all the shred stuff, and I’d do all the hippie stuff. I thought that was really fun, based on what the lyrics were about, because it was supposed to be a guitar challenge.

I think if we did a video, it'd be really great to get a bunch of super-amazing young guitar players in there just going for it, and then the song ends and it’s me standing out in front of the audition place with my guitar case like, “Wait a minute, I’m, I’m here…” [Laughs] It's kind of like a David Lee Roth video.

5. Puppet Parade

When we wrote this song, we knew the melody was really catchy. As for the guitar parts, the rhythm is close to several songs we have, but it isn't the same. We didn’t want to borrow anything from ourselves, but the simplicity of the riff makes it really catchy. Sometimes you want it to be super-explosive, but the riff doesn't call for that; the riff calls for a simpler performance. Maybe you take out one or two rhythm notes; maybe that's the difference between good and great.

With Puppet Parade, the rhythm in the beginning is really cool and hooky. The chorus is from when I dug into trying to sing again, you know – really sing along with the song. Believe it or not, the chorus was one of the hardest parts on this song. Not the lyrics, but the music. When we got that done, we knew it was going to be a catchy song. And Teemu did a great guitar solo; we both did.

6. Another Bad Day

This was fun to write. I’m inspired by things from my past and from when I was growing up – especially videos and movies. Another Bad Day reminds me of that Madness video for Our House [1982], where everything’s fucked, and you can cross that with that 1993 Michael Douglas movie, Falling Down. There’s a whole meltdown – he’s got a baseball bat, his car breaks down. That’s my visual for this song. [Laughs]

He wakes up and has no idea what’s going on. He’s losing everything, and his normal routine is gone. The song discusses the hardships in life. I’ve had a lot of experiences like that; these things happen to everyone. Singing about it sometimes makes it a little bit easier for people who are struggling with stuff like this.

7. Made to Kill

This was one of those songs where the first half is like the second half, but it’s telling a story. There’s the first half, and then it goes back to the beginning, and I think there’s some really cool riffs in there.

The lyric ideas talk about the state of affairs in our country right now, where people are so agitated that they start organizing. I'm not saying one side’s right or one side’s wrong; I'm saying this is what’s coming next if things don’t change.

8. Obey the Call

This was the second-to-last song we wrote. We had some pretty good soloing and trading off, if I remember right. Teemu had the majority of the solos, and it was kind of a follow-up to [the cover art of 2018’s] Dystopia, that kind of bombed-out city, where everything’s all fucked up. I’ve written about this a lot of times.

The first time I really got into something like this was when I saw the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Timecop [1994] and we were finishing up Rust in Peace.

We had just finished Poison Was the Cure, and we needed a little bit more for the record, and David Ellefson had written this part, which we ended up using as the beginning of Poison Was the Cure. I watched Timecop, and I had this dream where I had my own vision of what it would look like. The lyrics were me dipping my toe into full-on apocalypse stuff.

9. I Am War

It’s simple, but the lyrics are deep. I’m a big fan of Sun Tzu and The Art of War – it’s something every band leader should read. It’s not generally made for musicians, but the credo throughout the book – the “not taking shit from anybody and knowing how to defeat your enemies and how to be a warrior” part – really inspired me when I first started getting into martial arts.

When I heard businessmen were reading it, I figured, “Shit, I'm gonna read this for sure now.” So I did, and it’s very difficult to understand, but I got through it and read it a second time. It’s like our records, where it reveals itself as time goes on. That’s important when you're trying to learn something; you learn it like you're gonna teach it.

When you learn something and somebody makes it too fucking difficult, you're not gonna learn it. It’s the same with martial arts – and with guitar. I thought this was really cool. The song shows the dichotomy between these two approaches to war. One is the leader going to war and trying to win; the other person tries to win and then goes to war. He is somebody who will plan out his attack, like a reaction to a response.

10. The Last Note

This started out as a very sad song. It was actually called “Jumpers,” because it was about the dilemma on the Golden Gate Bridge – the tragic problem they have there with people ending their lives on the bridge so often that they’ve got a police force just for the bridge. There’s a clip that shows several people jumping off the bridge and what happens when someone jumps.

They hit the ground with such velocity that their bones turn into splinters, which go upward, piercing every organ in their body. As soon as the rescue team gets there, they go to where the person jumped and throw this flare off the side of the bridge. It goes into the water and floats along with the current so that you can see the body trail. It's gnarly stuff when you think about it.

I wrote a song about it, but when it was time to sing it, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was no way I could get any emotion behind it. I mean, I sang it well, but it just didn’t sound good. There was no way I could make that something somebody could sing, so we changed it to The Last Note.

I was out last month [October] during our European/U.K. tour, and some of the first interviews we did there were with some really rugged guys – strapping guys from Scandinavia. A couple of them said to my face, “When I listened to The Last Note, it brought a tear to my eye.” And I went, “What?” – because this was the first time we’d done any press on this record.

Imagine that I haven’t spoken to anybody since we shut the record down, and this was one of the first times I heard from anybody about the record, and certainly about that song.

When these two guys, in two separate interviews, said the same thing – one said it brought tears to his eyes and the other said it almost made him weep – I was like, “Mission accomplished.”

11. Ride the Lightning (Bonus Track)

The main reason I chose to do this was to close the circle and pay my respects to my partners. I thought this was a really great way to do that. Whenever we select any other band’s music to go on our albums, sometimes there’s a lot of thought behind it and sometimes there’s not.

This was one of the ones that we thought long and hard about, because all I wanted to do was play the song I wrote with the guys in Metallica. I wanted to pay my respects to James Hetfield, who I think is an amazing guitar player, and Lars Ulrich, who was an excellent songwriter. I remember when I was there and we were putting these songs together, Lars didn’t just sit there; he was very instrumental in making these songs.

Of course, when we got into making demos of these songs, it was fun to do the recordings, but we were never really able to do a full-on produced version of Ride the Lightning, and I would have loved to have heard that.

I gotta tell you – listening back to James’ original vocal performance, it was really tremendous. Anyway, there’s no big strategy; I have respect for the guys, and I just wanted to show that. And it’s a hell of a song!

• Megadeth is out now via Frontiers.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Marty Friedman states he has no regrets. He’s seen and done just about everything a guitarist can, with career highs including Cacophony’s Speed Metal Symphony (1987), his debut solo record, Dragon’s Kiss (1988), and Megadeth’s Rust in Peace (1990). And in 2024 he dropped what he feels is his definitive work, Drama.

He’s delighted to have reconnected with old pal Dave Mustaine, and to have joined Megadeth onstage for a few songs at Budokan and Wacken in 2023 – which reminded the world how high the stakes go when he’s on a big stage.

“It may be because it’s what I do most naturally and best,” Friedman says. “When someone’s doing what they’re meant to do, it has a profound effect. Perhaps greater than someone who has the gift to play beautifully but who’s multi-talented with a true calling in carpentry or aviation, for example. There aren’t a lot of other things I do well!”

Friedman, of course, is aware that Mustaine is in the process of calling time on Megadeth – which has him thinking about his own past and future.

“I'm proud of the legacy I've built with the band, and I love the fans even more now,” he says. “They remind me of myself as a teenage Kiss fan.

“Whenever Megadeth retires will be the right time. Dave and I could have both retired decades ago, but we’re both lifers – we play music because that is just what we do. When the grind of touring eventually outweighs the joy of playing, I’d say that’s the time to retire.”

What are your earliest memories of music?

Johnny Cash had a TV show when I was a kid, and it came on right at my bedtime, and I used to plead with my parents to let me watch it. Most of the time they didn’t, so I listened to it through the central heating vent in the floor. He was always talking about jail and rebellious stuff – it was this forbidden thing, and I loved it.

What specifically drew you to the guitar?

I never cared about guitar! I thought they were for folk singers and college kids singing around the campfire. When I saw Kiss in concert I just wanted to be in that high-energy, high-adrenaline world, and the guitar seemed to be the way to get into it.

How did the scene you grew up in affect you?

I was very lucky. My first band, Deuce, was the foundation of everything to come. I was playing live in front of people from the very beginning, even though I could barely play! It forces you to be an entertainer, to always play your best and to avoid screwing up at all costs. No one hears your mistakes if you’re in your bedroom.

After Jake E. Lee left Ozzy, you auditioned for the job. What was that like?

I was flattered to be flown down to audition. I think I played very well, but my image at that time was more of a guitar nerd than a partying rock star. I didn’t look like the guys in the band. I think Zakk Wylde was absolutely perfect for Ozzy, with more than enough playing ability to back up his wild appearance.

How did you first meet Mike Varney, leading to signing a deal in the so-called shred era?

Back then, “shred” wasn’t a term you heard much. It always made me think of a guy playing as fast as possible in his basement – fingers were flying and looking impressive, but if you closed your eyes it sounds like absolute vomit. But a lot of people listen with their eyes; they see these guys and are impressed and they think shredding is cool. I hated being lumped in with shredders.

I first met Varney by sending a demo to his Spotlight column in Guitar Player magazine. He called me and we made several albums together. But it slightly irked me that despite all that, he never put me in his column!

Tell us about the writing and recording of solo album Dragons Kiss, which put you on the map.

I’d put all my guts and all my material into Cacophony's Speed Metal Symphony, so when Mike Varney signed me on for a solo album, I had no material. I was motivated solely by the fact that a label was willing to put out my music. I didn’t want to let anyone down.

The recording was brutal. It was done in shifts – daytime was Dragon's Kiss and nighttime was Jason Becker's Perpetual Burn, which I was also co-producing. I was in the studio 16 to 18 hours a day, with no time for trivial things like food and sleep. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way!

It was forcing me to come up with so much on the spot. Sonically, Dragon’s Kiss can be hit and miss, but I’m glad I put Forbidden City on there. I feel that was a well-done piece of music, despite my limited life experience at the time.

What had led to your hooking up with Jason Becker?

Mike had played me a demo of Jason beforehand, and I was nonplused. The best I could say about it was that he was good for a 16-year-old – but so what? But Mike insisted I meet him, and since Mike was holding the keys to the album I wanted to release, I humored him.

When Jason came into my apartment I immediately fell in love with the guy. I could see that, although songwriting and recording were not yet things he was any good at, he had an unlimited amount of talent for playing the guitar.

So I made the ultimate sacrifice and scrapped my solo album to form the band Cacophony with him. We became best friends almost immediately. I was growing as a guitarist at a pretty good pace, but Jason was growing like some kind of Guinness world record holder!

In one short year, at age 18, he went from a crappy demo tape to writing, arranging, and recording Perpetual Burn, an album that stands up today as a benchmark of jaw-dropping guitar playing. It was uncanny.

Your work with Jason, along with your solo work, got your star rising. Is that what first caught Dave Mustaine's attention?

No – Dave didn’t particularly like the Cacophony stuff. One time we were listening to it in the car and he was telling me he liked this part and that part. But he’s always been a song guy, and Cacophony was less about songs, more about new melodies, unique sections, far-out arrangements – and, of course, guitar acrobatics. Great songwriters, we were definitely not!

I was recommended to Megadeth's manager by a mutual friend, after they’d unsuccessfully auditioned around 60 guitarists.

Were you a fan of Megadeth?

I wasn't too familiar with the band, but I remember really liking the Peace Sells album when it came out. What I knew I could bring to the table was a much more melodic way to present the heavy music they were doing, and I could update the lead guitar work.

Megadeth always had good lead guitar work, but when I joined they only had two major-label albums out, and the guitar was not recorded very well – so you couldn’t tell how good it was. I wanted a much stronger and clearer presentation of guitar. We got exactly that when we started recording together.

It's undisputed that your era with Megadeth bred the band's best work. Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction are all-time albums. Why do you think that is?

We were each the perfect guy for the job, all in the band at the same time. No weak links, and we constantly pushed each other. It was a lot of very hard work, and very little resting on laurels, if any. We were deeply emotionally invested in the product we were creating.

In my autobiography Dreaming Japanese, I went into great detail about making the albums. Each had separate challenges; some were more fun than others, but none of us ever slacked off on any of them. It’s no coincidence that they still hold up pretty well today.

While you were with Megadeth in the ‘90s, you continued your solo work. Was Dave okay with that?

Dave and Megadeth management were totally cool with my solo career coinciding. At the time I wasn’t touring with my own band, like I am now. That would have likely caused a conflict. But when I was off tour, I was always working on my own music as well as Megadeth stuff.

A lot of people think it was a mistake to leave Megadeth – but there’s a strong argument that you left at the right time.

I understand that, for a fan, anything that changes your favorite lineup is catastrophic. But for me, it was the best career move I ever made. It wasn’t easy to leave such a well-established band that I’d had so much success with.

But leaving allowed me to eclipse my role in Megadeth on so many levels and create a niche for myself that’s served me very well. Megadeth went on to win Grammys and do some amazing things in my absence, so all is well on both sides.

Things seem to have thawed between you and Dave in recent years.

It’s great – we’ve both kept our things going strong for several years, so there’s a mutual respect between us. It was quite casual and easy for us to play together the few times we have at Budokan and Wacken.

You’ve remained prolific ever since, releasing amazing solo records, leading up to Drama. What keeps you chasing new sounds?

There are always new depths of melody to be created and new expressions to share, and I’ve always pursued those things. I think Drama is the ultimate representation of my musical evolution.

I’ve been concentrating on touring the album much longer than usual before starting the next one. I can't imagine topping it – so, being the lazy ass I can often be, I’ll just enjoy playing the Drama music on tour until I feel like I can do something better.

What’s the backstory of your guitars and the gear that gets your notable tone?

I’m very fortunate to have signature guitars, pickups, amps, and pedals. The Jackson Marty Friedman MF-1, the EMG MF pickups, the ENGL Marty Friedman Inferno amp, and the Tech 21 Marty Friedman pedal will lead anyone to the tones I like.

To be honest, though, I’d sound like me through any gear. I use these products because they’re extremely reliable work tools, rather than having some kind of special sound I can’t live without. I just need a workhorse that can take a constant beating.

What are you up to now, and what’s next?

I've been touring for the Drama album since it came out in late 2024 and I plan to tour it even more in 2026. And I’ve been working with several Japanese artists, doing plenty of Japanese TV shows as usual. And I have a YouTube channel called Rock Fujiyama that has me playing guitar with interesting guests every week.

• Drama is on sale now.

Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine has said that his worsening hand condition has forced the band’s retirement.

The band’s final studio outing, aptly titled Megadeth, was released last month, with Mustaine making headlines by closing out the record with a cover of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning. It was also the Megadeth debut of Finnish virtuoso Teemu Mäntysaari.

Mustaine has already dropped the bombshell that his guitar-playing days are numbered. He’s been diagnosed with Dupuytren's contracture – also known as Viking’s Disease – which is making it “really painful” to dish out the riffs.

Speaking to Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation (via Louder Sound), he’s given more insight into how that influenced his decision to bring Megadeth’s five decades to a close.

“It's not that I don't want to stay, it's that my hands are betraying me,” Mustaine admits. “If there were another way around this, I would swallow my pride and say, ‘I was able to find some miracle cure,’ or I could play left-handed or something. But I'm cool with going out right now where we're at. This is just wonderful.”

Dupuytren's contracture is a condition that gets steadily worse over time. It sees the connective tissue in the sufferer's palm thicken to the point that the hand remains permanently bent.

Mustaine is willing to fight through the pain barrier to sign off Megadeth in style. Just don’t expect the band’s farewell tour to roll out former members: he’s said it isn’t going to be a “puppet show.”

Golden-era guitarist Marty Friedman, meanwhile, has said leaving Megadeth after 10 years was the best decision he ever made, and Mustaine has explained why he and James Hetfield are no longer on talking terms.

He also sat down with Guitar World to talk about the hiring and firing of every single Megadeth guitarist, and, in a surprise to no one, it’s a wild read.

Megadeth’s golden era lead guitarist, Marty Friedman, says he has no regrets about leaving the band at the turn of the millennium.

Friedman joined Dave Mustaine’s outfit in 1990 for a decade-long stint. He introduced himself to the Megadeth fanbase via his fireworks-laden guitar solos on the metal classic Rust in Peace. He was part of the band’s most successful period, which saw them releasing a handful of seminal records, including Countdown to Extinction, Youthanasia, and Cryptic Writings.

He was subsequently replaced by Al Pitrelli heading into the early 2000, and Friedman feels he left the band at the right time.

“I understand that as a fan, if anything happens that changes your favorite lineup, it’s catastrophic,” a sympathetic Friedman tells Guitar World. “But for me, it was the best career move I ever made.”

As for why he has no regrets leaving when he did, Friedman says it gave him the freedom to explore new avenues in his career.

He continues, “It was not easy to leave such a well-established band that I had so much success with. But leaving it allowed me to eclipse my role in Megadeth on so many levels and create a niche for myself that has served me very well.”

Following his departure, Friedman relocated to Japan, where he's established a cult following. He's made records with J-Pop star Nanase Aikawa, Japanese idol group Momoiro Clover Z, and a score of works for TV. Not to mention a cluster of solo albums, with his last, Drama, written as a love letter to his fans, coming in 2024.

By stepping away from the gung-ho world of thrash, Friedman has been able to explore his guitar playing with unbridled freedom.

“There are always new and undiscovered depths of melody to be created, and new expressions to share, and I have always pursued those things,” he adds.

“I think Drama is the ultimate representative of my musical evolution; I’ve been concentrating on touring for the album much longer than usual before starting to work on the next one. I can't imagine topping it.”

Friedman has had offers to return to Mustaine's side, famously turning down the chance to reunite the Rust in Peace line-up, but did play two shows as a guest with them in 2023.

In related news, Mustaine recently revealed the life-changing hand condition that has forced Megadeth’s retirement, and explained the strange reason why Friedman nearly didn’t get the gig.

At 38, Teemu Mäntysaari is Megadeth’s youngest – and newest – member. He was handpicked by Megadeth’s commander-in-chaos, Dave Mustaine, to carry on a lead-guitar legacy that includes Chris Poland, Marty Friedman and Kiko Loureiro.

He’s helming the band’s six-string duties (besides Mustaine, of course) for their final studio album and tour. But Mäntysaari isn’t sweating it.

“It was a pretty amazing process,” he says. “After I got the gig, Dave said, ‘If you have any ideas, it’s good to start saving them.’ By the end of the 2024 touring season, we started talking more and more about what we wanted to do.”

Mäntysaari says that one of the first things Mustaine had the band do was listen to the group’s entire 16-album discography to springboard them into what would become 2026’s Megadeth.

“We’d have an Excel spreadsheet where we’d make notes about every song,” Mäntysaari says. “That was the first bit of inspiration, and also, us looking back at the legacy of the band.”

By the time Megadeth’s final run is done, unlike Mustaine, Mäntysaari will have his entire career ahead of him. He’ll walk away with cache, but there’s more to it.

“It was a lot of learning,” he says. “Dave was telling us about how those songs from back in the day came about. It was really inspiring, and it helped us understand how to make a good Megadeth album.”

Megadeth has an old-school feel. Was that intentional?

Absolutely. We really wanted to honor the old-school Megadeth sound and have some of that punk attitude, plus some of the rougher, raw edges with sprinkles of modern production – but not too modern! We created something new and cool that reminds you of something [older] but still sounds fresh.

When did Dave tell you this would be the final Megadeth record?

Pretty late in the process. We were in the studio for a good 10 months, and that’s when there were first talks about the “farewell” idea. So most of the album was done, I’d say. But, for example, the lyrics for The Last Note were done after the farewell decision, so we really didn’t think about it while making the other songs.

How did the news make you feel?

I have huge appreciation for Dave. It’s super-exciting to have my name printed in the [album] booklet; that’s probably only going to hit when you actually see the physical product. But I haven’t thought about it too much; I’m just living in the moment and making the best of the time we have. And the farewell tour isn’t going to be short; we’re going to go everywhere.

Did Dave give you a lot of freedom from a guitar perspective while recording?

There were a bunch of times when Dave had an idea, and then there was a Dropbox folder for the band where everybody could contribute their ideas. So we’d keep track of ideas that could maybe go together stylistically and tempo-wise.

Some were snippets of a riff, some were fuller arrangements. It was like Lego pieces you put together. Dave has a huge catalog of things that haven’t been used, so we all contributed.

Given that you wanted a timeless yet fresh record, what gear did you use?

We basically had a chance to try anything we wanted. I brought a few amps to the studio, and I like to tweak sounds. One of the main things I brought was a German amp by a builder called Eddie Lenz [Lenz Amplification], which he tweaked to my taste.

But we ended up using mostly Friedman. And the producer, Chris Rakestraw, has a big pedal wall connected to this MIDI switching system, so we could easily engage any sound we wanted. So we had a lot of fun exploring tones, but all the amps were in the classic Megadeth direction – modified Marshalls, British sounds, but with some modern tightness.

What will you take away from having played lead guitar on Megadeth’s final LP?

I really value collaboration, having a common goal and good vibes. It was a lot of long days, but the good communication and appreciation of everyone’s input were two of the biggest takeaways. I like the power of collaboration.

• Megadeth is out now via Frontiers.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

As Dave Mustaine gears up for his and Megadeth’s final album, questions remain about why the relationship between Mustaine – a former Metallica guitarist – and James Hetfield remains strained to this day.

Turns out, one of the core reasons goes back to the early days of Metallica. While the band has reissued every studio album – from Kill 'Em All through to Load – their early and now legendary No Life 'Til Leather demo, which includes key Mustaine contributions, has notably been omitted.

“I wrote all the music on Phantom Lord, all the music on Metal Militia, all the music on Jump In The Fire and The Mechanix,” Mustaine asserts in an new interview with Classic Rock.

“And I wrote the lyrics for Jump In The Fire and The Mechanix. So do the math: if I wrote the music and James [Hetfield] wrote the lyrics, then the credit is 50 per cent me, and 50 per cent James. Well, that's not what went down when I left. James and Lars figured out that they were going to give Lars some percentage of the songs he didn't write anything on, and that happened on all four songs.”

Mustaine reveals that writing credits were a “bone of contention” for him going forward with Metallica on anything.

He adds, “It just wasn't fair. You guys got more money than God, why do you have to take my money?”

Speaking about the reissue that never happened, Mustaine reveals, “So James called me up, ‘Hey, man, we want to release this No Life 'Til Leather thing, and we want to get all this publishing stuff straight, and, you know, we really don't remember what went down.

“I said, ‘Well, that's good, because I do. I remember what went down, and I can help with that.’

“And then the conversation took a turn,” he continues. “James goes, ‘Well, that's not the way that we remember it.’ And I went, ‘Well, James, honestly, there's three ways to look at this: there's your way, my way, and the truth, which is some combination of the two.’

“That was the end of the conversation. He took offense to that, and we hung up, and I don't remember speaking to him since then.”

Ahead of the band’s final album and tour, Mustaine sat down with Guitar World to recount the hiring and firing of every Megadeth guitarist.

You can look at Dave Mustaine’s career in two ways: as a revenge tour or as a story of perpetual redemption. If Mustaine’s life, which is earmarked by iconic records like 1986’s Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying, 1990’s Rust in Peace and 1992’s Countdown to Extinction, is viewed through the post-Metallica-related revenge lens, then you might conclude that ol’ Dave has done pretty well for himself.

Metallica is thrash metal’s top dog, but Megadeth is one of the other three of that movement’s Big Four along with Anthrax and Slayer. That means something. Mustaine, a fire‑breathing, self-taught, V-wielding player, still endures at age 64 despite addiction issues, personality crises, a nasty arm injury, a cancer diagnosis and an ever-revolving band lineup. To that end, it’s perhaps more astute to focus on the “perpetual redemption” angle, right?

After all, we’re talking about one of rock and metal’s most enigmatic and dynamic characters. And with that comes the push and pull between revenge and redemption – aka the naming of Mustaine’s arc – that may never be finalized. At least, not now.

But maybe soon: Mustaine has said that Megadeth, the band’s 17th studio album, which features yet another new lead guitarist, Teemu Mäntysaari, will be their last. On top of that, the ensuing tour will be Mustaine’s final trot around the globe.

Mustaine cautions that he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, as Megadeth’s international fanbase dictates that a large-scale tour around said globe will be in order. As for that new album, it sounds decidedly old-school. You know, the kind of sound that made Mustaine a thrash metal legend back in 1986, 1990, 1992 and so on.

And then there’s Mäntysaari, whom Mustaine believes will be a “star.” His playing is something out of the ’80s and early ’90s, aka the era helmed by Marty Friedman, whom Mustaine calls “incredibly talented” and “incredibly mysterious.”

Listening to Megadeth’s final record, you can’t help but be transported back in time to the days when Rust in Peace made waves via Friedman’s playing. But just because Mustaine is kicking it old-school doesn’t mean he plans to cozy up with Friedman – or any other former Megadeth alumni – while on his final jaunt.

“We’ve already done that with Marty,” Mustaine tells Guitar World [Friedman joined Megadeth on stage twice in 2023 – February in Japan and August in Germany]. “And, I mean, let’s look at the other people we’ve played with… there’s a lot of people. [Laughs]

“That would be a huge undertaking. I don’t think I want to do that. I’d rather keep doing what we’re doing and let the fans [experience] Megadeth music and be happy about it. It’s not ‘puppet show Megadeth.’”

’Deth ghosts still haunt Mustaine, however.

“I wish I would have kept in touch with [late drummer] Gar [Samuelson],” he says. “You see that Ace Frehley passed away and how sad that is. Whenever stuff like that happens, I feel fortunate because I’m still kicking. But on the opposite side of the coin, I think, ‘Fuck… that could have been me,’ but by the grace of God, it’s not.”

Mustaine’s words on life and death refocus the revenge versus redemption arc he’s been penning since he was booted out of Metallica, picked himself up and formed the band that would feature him as one of metal’s grizzliest warriors, aka a man not to be messed with.

There is always an inherent darkness that looms over the band. It’s a matter of light and shade, hate and anger, life and death and revenge and redemption. Whatever that cocktail is, it’s what makes Dave Mustaine and his band, no matter the members, tick.

With that dichotomy comes a harrowing impact that can sure as hell be felt, but not so easily defined. To this, Mustaine shrugs, saying, “I try to stay humble. I know we did something pretty monumental with creating a music style. You can’t go anywhere and not hear people playing guitar like we did, and some of the drum patterns and chord changes – I hear that all the time in young bands, and it makes me very happy. I’m very proud.”

After leaving Metallica, what was your vision for forming Megadeth?

When I left New York [after Metallica], I got home, dusted myself off, moved to Hollywood and was trying to piece together what was to be called Megadeth. The first thing I did was meet this guy in a building next to me named Robbie McKinney. He stayed in touch with me over the years. He’s a great guitar player, but he wasn’t the right fit.

Then I ended up moving into an apartment, and you know the story about [bassist] David Ellefson living underneath me and me throwing a potted plant into his air conditioner… [Laughs] Anyway, we got into the studio together, started playing, had a drummer who then said to me, “I’m going to go find myself,” and he left.

We auditioned drummers, and we got Gar Samuelson, who was a mind-blowing jazz drummer. No one had ever given thought to doing jazz drumming in metal, but we did, and that’s what set us apart.

How did you land on Chris Poland as your initial partner in guitar crime?

We were trying to get our guitar situation replaced because we temporarily had Kerry King [of Slayer] sitting in with us. So Gar said, “Hey, I know somebody,” and we ended up auditioning Chris Poland. His playing was so bizarre and unorthodox that I thought, “If he could do this, this could be the missing ingredient we need. This could really set us apart from everybody else by not having the same wang-bar, doodly kind of stuff on the solos.”

So we hung out for a little while, and that’s basically when we made the decision because, besides his incredible playing ability and a lot of the things we did in our private lives that we all did together, it wasn’t hard to make friends and blend, if you know what I mean.

To your point, Chris was fabulous on Megadeth’s first two records, Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good! and Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? What led to Jeff Young replacing him for So Far, So Good… So What!?

Jeff Young is a great guitar player. It’s unfortunate that the world knows that Jeff is a great guitar player, but they don’t know how really bright he is. I saw something in Jeff when we hired him; it was kind of a strange occurrence. We had tried to find a guitar player, and I went with David Ellefson to the country club in Reseda, where we watched this band called Malice.

Malice had this big, tall, good-looking guitar player [Jay Reynolds] that had a Gibson Flying V and was heavily influenced, to me, by Michael Schenker. We talked to him after his show, and then we met him, and I said I wanted him to be in Megadeth. He was excited about joining the band; then we were in the studio recording So Far, So Good… So What? and I was like, “Okay, it’s time to do your solos, man.”

He goes, “Okay, I’m gonna call up my guitar teacher, have him do [the] solos and then have him teach me.” I thought, “Get out – you’re pulling my leg.” But no, that was true. That’s what he wanted to do. I went along with it, and Jeff showed up, and like I said, Jeff was a really superb guitar player. He really had his own unique style, like Chris did, and we started working on the record.

What made Jeff stand out?

If I remember correctly, he was really influenced by the gunslingers that were coming out of Mike Varney’s stable. One guy I know – I think his name might have been Tony MacAlpine – was just a mind-blowing talent.

Another was Vinnie Moore. It was apparent that Jeff was a shredder. I remember standing out on Melrose Avenue, and I said to Jeff, “Do you wanna join the band?” He said, “Yes,” and I thought, “Thank God. This is too funky right now.”

I didn’t wanna go back to looking for another guitar player because we’d spent so much time looking for Jay, and then that whole thing happened, where he said, “I’m gonna have my teacher come down.” That really threw me for a loop.

Sadly, Jeff didn’t last too long, either.

After we parted ways with Jeff, we started looking for new guitar players again. It was difficult. I mean, you’ve got Chris Poland and you’ve got Jeff Young playing in your band, so how do you find somebody that’s gonna compare with those guys? It’s gonna be really hard, right? And it was really hard.

We had a guy come in from San Francisco, and he set up his amp, put on his guitar and goes, “Show me the songs.” I looked at Ellefson, and I just went, “Oh, my God…” And then we had one guy who I’d never seen in my life, not once, and he comes in, sets up his stuff and he’s got this bright green and fuchsia-colored Ibanez JEM with the handle on it – one of those Steve Vai models.

We had this [unspoken agreement] where when an audition was over, I’d reach behind me and turn off my wireless setup. This guy comes in, starts setting up his guitar, stops for a second and goes, “Yeah, man, I wrote [Megadeth’s] Wake Up Dead…” I looked at Ellefson, and I reached back and clicked off my unit at exactly the same time David did. We just said, “Interview’s over…” [Laughs]

How did you find Marty Friedman?

Marty’s CD, Dragon’s Kiss [1988], had been sitting on the counter in the management's office, and I remember walking past it. The cover was this black picture with bright orange lettering on it, and it was pretty eye-catching. But I just couldn’t do it because of his hair. [Laughs]

His hair?

He had two different colors in his hair. His hair was black from the roots down to about his ear line, and then it was red all the way down to his armpits. I thought, “I can’t do this,” but against my will, I said, “Okay, let’s do this…”

So, he came in, and he walked in with a Carvin, which wasn’t a company renowned for its guitars. He had this ADA rackmount unit, but I don’t know what it was for or how he thought it was going to help him. [Laughs] By then, I had already had minimal success and had a lot of amps, so I said to my guys, “Do me a favor, please set up a stack for Marty over there.”

And when it came time to do the solo, Marty just popped in. We’ve been through guitar player after guitar player, and we get to the solo part in Wake Up Dead, and he nails it. I just thought, “Oh, my God…” and I reached behind me, turned off my wireless, went out and called my manager and said, “I think we’ve got him.”

It was the right choice, as Rust in Peace, Countdown to Extinction and Youthanasia were huge records in the Nineties when grunge was all the rage and metal was waning.

It had a lot to do with around 1992 when Nirvana had Nevermind. They were so successful that normal heavy metal closed up a bit and was done. Metal wasn’t getting played on the radio anymore, but Nirvana was, along with all these bands from Seattle, like Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden and all those other bands. Those bands became the flavor of the day, and hard rock and heavy metal had to go underground, which is where most bands dissolved, sadly.

But Megadeth didn’t. Did that make it all the more tough when you lost Marty after recording Risk?

That was a really weird period. I don’t even know if Marty knows why we were brought together and why we were taken apart, but I had a fun time with Marty. But Marty is an enigma, and a very unique human being.

I think you can ask any of the people who have played with him… he’s incredibly talented, but very mysterious. He loves Oriental music, and we were able to make that work with Megadeth, so it’s sad that we stopped working together.

You two seemed to have a unique musical chemistry. Plus, he brought stability to the lead-guitar spot, a notoriously volatile spot for Megadeth. It must have been painful to have him leave.

I had a couple of songs that I needed to write to get the feelings out of me from Marty leaving. There were a couple of songs I wrote that were cathartic to be able to talk about what happened.

Which songs were those?

1000 Times Goodbye [from 2001’s The World Needs a Hero] wasn’t written to or about Marty, but about the feelings I was going through. It was inspired by that because I was very confused. I hadn’t really had somebody that I cared about that much walk out.

It was the first time I’d ever had that happen, and I didn’t know how to deal with someone I really respect… I don’t want it to come off weird, but I really did enjoy Marty’s goofy one-liners and the stuff we did together.

Marty's leaving, combined with an arm injury that nearly ended your playing career, led you to fold Megadeth in 2002, but you came back in 2004 with Chris Poland back on lead guitar on The System Has Failed.

Let me explain about Chris Poland coming back; he wasn’t invited back to play with me on a permanent basis. In the same way as the Metallica thing, I thought I was done.

I thought my arm was done. I was going to do one more record, and then I was going to hang it up. So I asked him if he would come and play the solos, and that was it. Nothing more. And he did well; it was neat to see him play again.

Aside from Chris, you ran through Al Pitrelli, Glen Drover and Chris Broderick. That level of volatility from the lead guitar spot must have been challenging.

Oh, yeah, it was tough. I had to have a lot of mentors. I heavily backed into martial arts and had several spiritual mentors that I worked really closely with for a while because I was sad. I felt like I’d lost my mojo. Do you know what I mean?

It can be tough when you’re putting everything you have into something, and there are perpetual roadblocks.

Yeah, absolutely. But I really enjoyed playing with Glen. He and his brother [drummer Shawn Drover] came in after a really ugly period where we tried to get the Rust in Peace lineup back together, which wasn’t meant to be. Working with Glen and Shawn was enjoyable because a lot of the hardcore Swedish, Danish and English heavy metal that I loved, they knew.

We would play it a lot, and that was great. Shawn is a really amazing drummer, and his brother is a first-class guitarist. And here’s a thing people don’t know: the two of them can switch instruments without missing a note. They both play guitar and drums, and they’re both exceptional at it.

It seems as if Kiko Loureiro’s arrival in the band before Dystopia stabilized Megadeth. You had a lot of success with that record, and its follow-up, The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! Was it painful to have him leave, sort of like it was with Marty?

No. By the time Kiko had come, I had pretty much galvanized myself toward people. And by that time, Kiko just started feeling like he was being away from home too much.

I did tell him we were gonna be doing a lot of touring when we first met, and unfortunately, I’m the leader of a band that requires more time, you know? But I hear from him every once in a while, or I’ll see something that somebody sends me, and I smile. Kiko was a good guy.

With Teemu Mäntysaari in the fold, Megadeth still seems to have a lot left in the tank. Is it hard knowing you’re releasing the band’s final record and embarking on its final tour?

We do have a lot left in the tank. And it might seem counterintuitive, but I also think that if people look at what I said, you know, this being our last studio album, and the part about touring, we’re an international band. We’ve got, by the grace of God, fans around the globe, so it’s going to take time to see everybody and say goodbye to everybody.

With this being Megadeth’s final tour, once you hit the road, will you be exclusively using your new signature gear, or will you bring out any old gear to make the occasion?

I don’t have any old gear for old time’s sake. [Laughs] I’ve got one Jackson, but my [new] Gibsons are the guitars I want to be playing. And this isn’t some product-placement thing; those guitars are exactly what I want and what I’ve always wanted. We made some slight adjustments to the guitars.

It’s kind of like a modified F1 [race car] where, over time, there are a couple of things you can do and bring along with you from what you’ve had in the past. I think that’s where we’re at right now with this, the new custom guitars. They’re like hot rods. The only thing we’re contemplating now is making the legs have points.

How do you hope to be remembered as a guitar player?

As someone who made a difference.

• Megadeth is out now via Frontiers.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Dave Mustaine has shed light on what fans can expect from Megadeth’s farewell tour later this year – and we won’t be holding our breath for any high-profile reunions.

In late 2025, Mustaine announced that he’d be retiring the Megadeth banner in 2026 with a final studio record that would be joined by a global send-off. So far, the thrash pioneers have shared three singles – one of which was a shred guitar celebration.

As far as the tour is concerned, it’s set to be one of the guitar world’s biggest events this year.

However, whereas some legacy bands have previously taken the opportunity to reunite with past members for their own farewell jaunts, Mustaine and Megadeth will be steering clear of the cameos.

In other words, don’t expect Marty Friedman, Kiko Loureiro, Chris Poland or any other past member of Megadeth to show up during the tour.

Mustaine shot down chances of a spectacular reunion in the new issue of Guitar World, during which he was asked about the possibility of bringing ‘Deth alumni out on stage.

“We’ve already done that with Marty,” says Mustaine [Friedman joined Megadeth on stage twice in 2023 – February in Japan and August in Germany].

“And, I mean, let’s look at the other people we’ve played with… there’s a lot of people. [Laughs] That would be a huge undertaking. I don’t think I want to do that. I’d rather keep doing what we’re doing and let the fans [experience] Megadeth music and be happy about it. It’s not ‘puppet show Megadeth.’”

So, those hoping to see one last rodeo with Mustaine, Friedman, Loureiro and other Megadeth fan favorites should probably temper their expectations. That said, it certainly frees up the spotlight for the band’s current shredder, Teemu Mäntysaari, whose post-Megadeth future is looking very bright indeed.

There will be one blast from the past for Megadeth’s farewell festivities, though. On the record, Mustaine will be covering a Metallica classic that he co-wrote while in the band.

Elsewhere in his Guitar World interview, Mustaine looked back on the ill-fated guitar appointment that led Megadeth to Jeff Young. The thrash icon has also opened up about the life-changing hand condition that was behind his decision to retire Megadeth.

For the full interview with Mustaine, pick up a copy of Guitar World issue 600, on sale now.

As Dave Mustaine gears up for the 17th and final Megadeth release – the aptly-titled Megadeth – he's taking the opportunity to reflect on the philosophy and guitar style that not only carried him throughout his career, but defines his legacy as a thrash metal pioneer.

“The term ‘rhythm guitar player’ seems a little diminishing for me,” he tells Premier Guitar. “I love the riff.”

It’s precisely the riff-centric approach that landed him his gig with his pre-Megadeth band, Metallica, and one that would bring more eyeballs (and ears) to his playing.

“When I went to Norwalk [California] the day that I met James Hetfield and [original Metallica bassist] Ron McGovney, I didn’t know what was gonna happen,” he admits. “Nobody did. But I had my style, and it was based around the riff.

“I went in there, and I didn’t have any Marshalls yet because I was just starting to get serious. I had these Risson amps – they were tan, so from the moment I set up my stack, I was different.”

He continues, “I plugged in my guitar and I started warming up, and I kept warming up and warming up. And I finally said, ‘Where the fuck are these guys?’ I set my guitar down and switched my amp to standby.

“And then I went out there and I said, ‘Man, where’s my audition?’ They said, ‘You got the gig.’ So I got my job just by warming up.” Clearly, Mustaine's inimitable style made the right impression. Mustaine was recruited on the spot. The rest was history.

Recently, Mustaine revealed the life-changing diagnosis that ultimately led to his decision to retire Megadeth.

Dave Mustaine has revealed that he’s suffering from a hand condition that is severely impacting his ability to play guitar, which is a driving factor behind his impending retirement.

The metal guitar icon is retiring Megadeth after the album cycle for their forthcoming 17th studio release, aptly titled Megadeth, wraps up. While early single releases show the guitarist still has plenty of chops – for instance, Let There Be Shred is a guitar solo love-fest – his Dupuytren's contracture diagnosis has made it “really painful to play.

“It's already started, where it's kind of bunching up a little bit,” he tells MariskalRockTV in a new interview. “And then if you look at the tips of my fingers, they're severely arthritic. So all those bumps make it really painful to play.”

The condition is often referred to as Viking Disease due to its commonality in Northern European populations. It sees tissue under the skin thicken to the point it pulls fingers into a bent position, as if the hand were clutching an imaginary axe.

Straightening the fingers back is said to be difficult, and while surgery is an option to slow its progress, Mustaine won’t consider it until Megadeth’s race is run.

“If I wait until my hands are causing a problem and I try it and it doesn't work, well then I've toured everywhere, I've said farewell to everybody and am not leaving stuff unsaid or unfinished,” he explains.

Megadeth is poised to be a poignant send-off for the guitarist. It will be the first and only release to feature new hotshot guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, who is in to succeed Kiko Loureiro’s two-album spell.

The record will close out with a cover of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning, a thrash classic for which he has a co-writing credit from his ill-fated time in the band. Mustaine believes that offering his take on the song will provide a full-circle moment to close his career in the right way.

Elsewhere, Mustaine has revealed how he found Chris Poland’s successor, and the bizarre request that cost the would-be new guitarist the job – at the expense of his guitar teacher.

As the release of Megadeth’s final studio album looms, the band’s chief everything, Dave Mustaine, has been reflecting on a topsy-turvy career, including the tale of how they found their second lead guitarist after a bizarre guitar solo request.

Mustaine had rather unceremoniously formed Megadeth after his bitter departure from Metallica – a band he consistently says stole a bunch of his riffs. After teaming up with the unique metal shredder Chris Poland for their first two albums, he was reportedly fired in 1987 for substance abuse and selling some of Mustaine’s gear.

The band found their replacement, Jeff Young, in a rather roundabout way, after first thinking someone else was the man for the job.

“I saw something in Jeff when we hired him,” Mustaine says in the new issue of Guitar World. “It was a strange occurrence. We had tried to find a guitar player, and I went with David Ellefson to the country club in Reseda, where we watched this band called Malice. Malice had this big, tall, good-looking guitar player [Jay Reynolds] who had a Gibson Flying V and was heavily influenced, to me, by Michael Schenker.”

Mustaine’s head was turned. Reynolds was approached after the show.

“I said I wanted him to be in Megadeth,” he continues. “ He was excited about joining the band. Then we were in the studio recording [third album] So Far, So Good… So What? and I was like, ‘Okay, it’s time to do your solos, man.’

“He goes, ‘Okay, I’m gonna call up my guitar teacher, have him do [the] solos and then have him teach me.’ I thought, ‘Get out – you’re pulling my leg.’ But no, that was true. That’s what he wanted to do.”

It’s a wild pitch. It seems unlikely that Metallica would have stomached Kirk Hammett drafting in Joe Satriani to track his Ride the Lightning solos. The decision would cost Reynolds the gig.

“I went along with it,” Mustaine explains, “and Jeff [Young, his teacher] showed up, and as I said, Jeff was a really superb guitar player. He really had his own unique style, as Chris did, and we started working on the record.”

Much of Poland's unique playing style was the result of a freak accident that forced him to re-approach the instrument. Young too had his own style, and with it, Megadeth had their man.

The band’s latest lead guitarist, Teemu Mäntysaari, has showcased his superlative talents on the new single, Let There Be Shred, which is meant as a celebration of the electric guitar.

Notably, the album will close with a cover of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning, a song on which Mustaine has a co-writing credit – he has since explained his thinking behind the eyebrow-raising call.

For the full interview with Mustaine, pick up a copy of Guitar World issue 600, on sale now.

Megadeth have dropped the third single from their final studio album – and it’s an old-school, throwback thrash romp that serves as a celebration of the electric guitar.

Titled Let There Be Shred, the new track is the latest preview that Dave Mustaine and co have shared ahead of the arrival of their last-ever record, which is set to land in January.

The self-titled LP was announced in August this year. At the time, it was also confirmed that a global farewell tour would follow, after which Mustaine will draw the curtain on his 40-year-plus career with Megadeth.

But, as had already been made clear with previous singles I Don’t Care and Tipping Point, the band is going out with a bang.

Naturally, there’s already an air of festivity around Megadeth and what the record represents. But it’s being helped along by some truly whirlwind playing from Mustaine’s latest – and last – guitar foil, Teemu Mäntysaari.

If you name a song Let There Be Shred, you need to deliver the goods. Mäntysaari – making his Megadeth studio debut after replacing Kiko Loureiro – does just that, and then some.

Swapping his Ibanez for a custom Gibson Explorer that will no doubt set the signature guitar rumor mill into gear, the Finnish virtuoso plays like a man possessed, ripping through a tome of otherworldly lead lines, which culminate in a death-defying solo.

Mustaine has his own solo, too, in a form of quasi-guitar duel against his young protégé. It was all done by design, as Mustaine explains to Guitar World.

“Teemu is such an exceptional talent that he really lit a fire in me for my playing,” Mustaine says of Let There Be Shred in the upcoming issue of GW. “We were joking around and constantly talking about how we have to make this record absolutely shred and that we needed to put a lot of solos in it. I think we accomplished that.

“A pretty unique thing about Let There Be Shred – in terms of the guitar duels Teemu and I were doing – is that he would do all the shred stuff, and I’d do all the hippie stuff. I thought that was really fun, based on what the lyrics were about, because it was supposed to be a guitar challenge.”

Speaking of lyrics, they deserve some love, too: “Guitars are all screaming / They squeal with delight / Clawing fretboards away / At the speed of light.” Oh, and did we mention the music video has Dave Mustaine doing karate?

Mäntysaari is clearly relishing his painfully short period with Megadeth, and leaving his own mark on the band’s catalog with his contributions here. It’s a shame we’re only getting one Megadeth album with him, truth be told.

“This one was written with a big grin and a lot of love for loud amps, fast fingers, and all of you who live for that feeling,” he wrote in a comment below the music video. “If it made you smile, headbang, or air-shred even once, then mission accomplished. Thank you for letting us do what we love – now turn it up and let there be shred!”

At the time of Megadeth’s farewell announcement, Mustaine thanked fans and took the opportunity to look back on the impact he’s had on the wider thrash world.

“Don't be mad, don't be sad, be happy for us all, come celebrate with me these next few years,” he said. “We started a musical style, we started a revolution, we changed the guitar world and how it's played, and we changed the world.”

Megadeth will arrive via Mustaine’s Tradecraft imprint in partnership with BLKIIBLK on January 23, 2026. Visit Megadeth’s website to preorder.

Dave Mustaine's full interview with Guitar World will features the new issue, which will be available from Magazines Direct on December 30.

Dave Mustaine has revealed he has some unfinished business with Metallica. When Megadeth release their final studio album in January 2026, the eponymous thrasher will sign off with a ripping cover of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning.

And Mustaine promises that the mid-paced, headbanging title-track from Metallica’s sophomore album will be performed as you will never have heard it before.

The question is why? In a YouTube video, Mustaine explains everything. In short, it’s a tribute. He wants to “close the circle” before riding off into the sunset, and to pay tribute to the early days of Metallica when he and frontman/guitarist James Hetfield were straining at the leash to get their songs out there, on tape, and to turn metal guitar upside down.

“Obviously, the song, I had a lot to do with writing it,” says Mustaine. “James and I, when we were working on the song, it became clear to me, when James first started playing guitar, how good of a guitar player he was. And I thought it would be really cool to close the circle, to show respect, to play the songs that I’ve written with Metallica and to honor our friendship – even though it’s been strained and ruined from emotions over the years, when we were not necessarily friendly.”

Ah yes, not necessarily friendly. Historically, Mustaine has scarcely needed an excuse to talk about Metallica. His acrimonious 1983 departure from the band has been recurring theme in his career, a regular talking point in interviews, with an on/off and largely one-way feud lasting decades but now has largely thawed.

But Mustaine insists that all this is water under bridge – Hetfield and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich are officially on his Christmas card list – and what better way to show that than put Ride the Lightning on a Megadeth record?

“One thing I’ve always said is I’ve always had a tremendous respect for James’ guitar playing – and Lars’ songwriting,” he says. “So it was cool to do this and add it to the record.”

Mustaine says he and Megadeth lead guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari have been playing around with the arrangement.

It has long been a staple of Megadeth concerts, that when performing Mechanix – a track sharing much DNA with Metallica’s The Four Horsemen, another ‘Tallica song that Mustaine co-wrote – he would play the riff and say something to the effect, “This is how they play it…” and then play it again at Mechanix tempo, i.e. much quicker.

So it will be no great surprise that when we hear this version of Ride the Lightning to hear it faster. Also, expect fireworks in the solo.

“We sped it up just a little teeny bit, and we kind of played around a little bit with the solo,” reveals Mustaine. “Teemu and I both tossed it back and forth to each other. So you might hear a little bit of some differences with the tempos, and of course, I sing different from James too.”

On this occasion, however, Mustaine says it’s not thrash metal oneupmanship. It’s a tribute, y’know, to himself, but also, of course, to Papa Het.

“It was about completing the circle and just us showing what James and I as guitar players did to change the world,” he says.

Historians disagree on when the Great Epic Thawing of Megadeth and Metallica Relations first happened. Some might date it to 2004, when Mustaine appeared in the Metallica rockumentary, Some Kind of Monster, and there was a full and frank sharing of emotions. Others would say 2010 was when it ended, with both bands sharing the bill with Anthrax and Slayer as The Big Four of thrash metal embarked on a stadium tour. That was the Berlin Wall coming down.

But there are plenty of incidences lately when Mustaine has been keen to offer praise Metallica’s way. In 2023, he admitted to Louder that Hetfield’s abilities as a guitar player blew his mind.

“I was kind of playing at Lars’ level, because Lars was still learning to play drums back then,” said Mustaine. “But watching James play guitar for the first time was kind of shocking, because I didn’t know he knew how to play guitar.”

Mustaine even had some kind words for Kirk Hammett, the man who replaced him as lead guitarist, telling Guitar World that Hammett honored Mustaine’s role in the band by playing his solos and not changing them.

“Jokes aside, I’ve always kind of poked fun at Kirk. And unfairly so, as he never did anything to me,” said Mustaine. “Whenever I felt singled out, picked on, or antagonized by James or Lars, it was really easy to pick on Kirk. But the truth is Kirk did me an honor by trying to play my solos on those early songs the way he did.

“I think that some people would have just started over again. So, I thought it was honorable that Kirk took my solos and did his best to play them as I did. That couldn’t have been easy.”

Mustaine even defended Hammett from the trolls, insisting that the Metallica shredder-in-chief has never dropped his level.

“There was a time when Kirk won every guitar contest in the world, and I don't think he's gotten any better or worse as a player,” said Mustaine. “He’s always been really good. Kirk was a good player when he was in Exodus. And he’s been steady the entire time he’s been in Metallica.”

Megadeth is scheduled for release on 23 January 2026 via Frontiers Records.

Dave Mustaine may forever be associated with the iconic Flying V shape, with a roster of signature models under his belt that help cement his position as one of the main metal men of the Flying V.

Yet, in a 2023 Guitar World interview celebrating 40 headbanging years of Megadeth, Mustaine revealed why he initially didn't gravitate toward this particular model and design – and why, eventually, adopting it was a no-brainer.

“My first electric guitar was an $80 Gibson SG copy; after that, I got a Les Paul copy,” said Mustaine.

“Not long after I started playing in [his pre-Metallica band] Panic, I started using an Ibanez Destroyer, a copy of a Gibson Explorer. And when I joined Metallica, I came upon the V, but I didn’t think much of it because of the weird shape. I didn’t think it was very playable, but I soon realized its versatility because I could do a lot with it once I got comfortable.”

What exactly made him change his mind? “Once I learned I could rest the guitar between my legs, that was a game changer in the studio,” he explained.

“With that, I could take my hands off the guitar and have them float instead of holding the neck upright to keep a grip. And I eventually got comfortable with it live, too. After that, I became fascinated with its beautiful shape; it’s iconic. So much so that it’s become a signature of what I do in Megadeth.”

So when Mustaine and Gibson's long-rumored partnership finally came to fruition in 2021, culminating in the Dave Mustaine Collection, it was safe for Megadeth fans to assume that the line would be well and truly centered around the V.

The initial rollout included the Dave Mustaine Flying V EXP in Metallic Silver, Mustaine's first signature Kramer – the Dave Mustaine Flying V Vanguard in Natural – and the Dave Mustaine Flying V 30th Anniversary Rust in Peace Edition.

Other Vs followed suit, comprising the Epiphone Dave Mustaine Flying V Prophecy and the Flying V Custom.

In other news, last month, Mustaine revealed that Megadeth’s next studio album, which is due to arrive next year, will be his and the band’s final record.

In a strange collision of musical universes, new video footage has emerged online showing blues-rock maestro Eric Johnson strutting his stuff on a Dean V metal guitar that had been built for Dave Mustaine.

The clip was posted to Instagram by Andrew Michael Barnes, one of the American firm's Custom Shop luthiers, who explained how the pointy axe had been put together for an Experience Jimi Hendrix tour, likely from 2022.

The Experience Hendrix extravaganza is an annual tour that unites a star-studded cast alongside mainstays Eric Johnson and Hendrix bassist Billy Cox to pay tribute to the late virtuoso's legacy.

That year – 2022 – saw Dave Mustaine, Joe Satriani, and Dweezil Zappa join the bill, and while Mustaine looked to Barnes for a V that doffed its cap to Hendrix's Love Drops V, which was reissued late last year, Johnson clearly couldn't resist taking it for a test drive.

In the clip, Johnson puts the guitar through its paces, with a thick octave fuzz pedal engaged somewhere out of shot. The wry smile and raised fists at the end hint towards the electric guitar meeting Johnson's approval.

“One of my favorite moments,” Barnes' caption states. “Mr. Eric Johnson shredding on a Dean axe I assembled for Mr. Dave Mustaine to use on the Experience Hendrix tour years ago.

Zakk Wylde was also a guest star on the night in question, evident from the number of Wylde Audio six-string guitars loitering in the background.

After the 2024 edition of the tour featured Hendrix's ‘Izabella’ Strat, the 2025 edition wrapped up on April 12, having featured the likes of Eric Johnson, Zakk Wylde, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd alongside young guns Ally Venable and Marcus King.

Dean's V-shaped guitars have been the center of a lawsuit from Gibson, with the firm winning the right to a retrial in July 2024 after an initial verdict went in Gibson's favour, but lost again, with Dean's owner quick to hit back with a response.

In related news, Mustaine has announced that Megadeth are due to retire after their next album cycle. Eric Johnson has also revealed he was fired from a session gig after he couldn't come up with the goods during the early stages of his career.

Dave Mustaine has revealed that Megadeth’s next studio album, which is due to arrive next year, will be his and the band’s final record.

Mustaine made the surprise announcement in a post on social media and, through band mascot Vic Rattlehead, confirmed that not only was a new Megadeth album on the way, but that it would also be the band’s last.

The as-yet-unnamed album, which will be Megadeth’s 17th, will be followed by a global farewell tour and a memoir penned by Mustaine, both due in 2026.

“For over four decades, I've been chained in silence, but the end demands my voice,” a usually voiceless Rattlehead says in an announcement video on Instagram. “It is confirmed, the next Megadeth studio album will be the last 40 years of metal, forged in steel, ending in fire, and when the New Year rises, the global farewell tour.

“You've heard the warning, now prepare yourself, cyber arm. Stay loud, stay tuned and meet me on the front lines.”

It brings the curtain down on Mustaine’s four-decade-plus career with Megadeth, which first began when he formed the band in 1983. In the 42 years that have since passed, the thrash metal icons have released 16 records, with the latest – The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! – arriving in 2022.

“There's so many musicians that have come to the end of their career, whether accidental or intentional,” Mustaine says in a press statement. “Most of them don't get to go out on their own terms on top, and that's where I'm at in my life right now. I have traveled the world and have made millions upon millions of fans and the hardest part of all of this is saying goodbye to them.

“We can't wait for you to hear this album and see us on tour,” he continues. “If there was ever a perfect time for us to put out a new album, it's now. If there was ever a perfect time to tour the world, it's now.

“This is also a perfect time for us to tell you that it's our last studio album. We've made a lot of friends over the years and I hope to see all of you on our global farewell tour.

“Don't be mad, don't be sad, be happy for us all, come celebrate with me these next few years. We have done something together that's truly wonderful and will probably never happen again. We started a musical style, we started a revolution, we changed the guitar world and how it's played, and we changed the world.

“The bands I played in have influenced the world. I love you all for it. Thank you for everything.”

The next Megadeth album will arrive via Mustaine’s Tradecraft imprint in partnership with BLKIIBLK. According to Megadeth’s website, preorders for the record begin in 42 days.

Head over to Megadeth’s website to sign up for more details surrounding the new album and the farewell tour.

It is the golden rule of internet content creation: never read the comments. That way madness lies. But there are exceptions to the rule, like when you set up the camera, dial in a gnarly metal guitar tone, play your track, post it, and then find that a bona fide thrash legend has turned up in the comments.

And that’s exactly what happened to Los Angeles-based guitarist Zia Cyan a couple of weeks back. Cyan posted a cover of her favorite Megadeth track, Angry Again, that Grammy-nominated cult classic from the Last Action Hero soundtrack.

She played through the intro and the riff, and in the comments, yeah, you’ve got some requests – “You should play some Children of Bodom” – some off-topic questions, a bunch of GIFs, and wait... Who’s that? Only the guy who actually wrote the song, Dave Mustaine.

And not only did MegaDave offer his vote of approval, he also offered some advice on how to play it the way it was done on the record.

The Megadeth catalog is no gimme. The solos are off-the-charts, with Mustaine’s animalistic pentatonics facing off with the Friedman/Loureiro axis of exotic note choices, or the liquid legato of Chris Poland. They did not call them the state-of-the-art speed metal band for nothing.

But Mustaine says Cyan was making it harder for herself. Even he doesn’t play that many notes there.

“Good Job!” writes Mustaine. “The opening has less notes than you are playing. The opening riff is all quarter-notes. Like I said, Great job!”

Mustaine tells Cyan it’s just a matter of counting, “1,2,3,4 - 1,2,3,4 - 1,2,3,4 - 1,2,3,4. You are playing 1,2, and 3,4 - 1,2, and 3,4 - 1,2, and 3,4 - 1,2, and 3,4. Does that help?”

Well, in fact, it did. Cyan posted a second cover – take two – and with harmonized guitars. It just goes to show, one day you’re playing a rhythm cover, the next Dave Mustaine comments on it, and by the time you are through with the track... well, Cyan is pretty much Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman all in one. And yes, it sounds just as it does on the record.

We say record, but Angry Again was a weird one. It was written and recorded in 1993, a year after the epochal Countdown to Extinction was released. Mustaine was supposedly listening to the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go when he wrote the lyrics.

Angry Again was picked up for the Last Action Hero soundtrack, featured in the movie, and was arguably stronger than anything on 1994’s Youthanasia, and has been a staple of the live show, and yet it never made it onto a Megadeth album.

The question is: has Mustaine seen Cyan’s second take and what does he think about it? That’s what everyone in the comments wants to now. You can check out Zia Cyan’s playing by following her on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Consult any “most influential metal albums of all time” list, and you’ll probably come across Megadeth’s debut album, Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! Likewise, ask anyone for their favorite cut from the 1985 record, and Rattlehead will receive considerable support.

With a distinct riff and thrash feel that introduced listeners to the early Megadeth sound, Rattlehead was pieced together by an electric guitar double act comprising Dave Mustaine and Chris Poland – but, according to the latter, it got its specific six-string swagger thanks to a freak injury that Poland suffered when he was still at school.

In the new issue of Guitar World, which looks back on some of the greatest guitar records of 1985, Poland sits down to reflect on the making of Megadeth’s explosive debut, and notes how tracks such as Rattlehead got their unique style – which was a result of a horrific accident. Squeamish readers, look away now.

“I cut my hand on the glass of a 200lb oak door coming at me,” he says. “I put both my hands up, my hand hit the glass, and it broke. My hand got totally trashed.

“I looked down and could see the bone of my pointer finger. I lost the ability to bend that, and I can’t feel my pinky from nerve damage. It drove me to play how I play.”

It sounds unimaginably painful, and perhaps one of the worst injuries that a guitar player could endure, but Poland insists that having his hand destroyed by the glass panel of a solid oak door eventually gave him some playing quirks that others can’t emulate.

As Poland’s Artist page on Yamaha notes, for example, “Chris' clean, overdriven tone, and legato phrasing make him instantly recognizable. His unique style can be partially attributed to an injury to his index finger on his fret hand.

“This injury forced him to develop a style that includes smoothly phrased passages and wide intervallic leaps.”

This intervallic approach heavily informed the solos he was instructed to play across Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good, but as Poland explains to Guitar World, he needed a mutual friend of the band to step in and fight his corner in order to get an appropriate number of lead efforts.

“I kind of knew the songs,” Poland says. “Dave took care of the rhythm parts, and mostly, I just did solos. But if it wasn’t for a friend of the band who took Dave aside and said, ‘You need to give Chris more solos,’ I wouldn’t have had those solos!”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the newest issue of Guitar World, which also includes interviews with Jim Babjak, Kiki Wong, Nancy Wilson, Jimmie Vaughan and more.

Dave Mustaine has made scathing comments about the nu-metal movement that dominated the late ‘90s and early 2000s while poking fun at the limitations of the guitarists that defined it.

Megadeth came of age during an '80s period when acrobatic shredding was a must and where, like a peacock flaunting its train, virtuosic talent was a way of one-upping the competition.

Nu-metal, typified by bands like Korn, Slipknot, and System of a Down, then changed the face of heavy music with low-tuned riffs and, much to Mustaine’s derision, the sudden (and, fortunately, temporary) death of the guitar solo.

Megadeth, by that point one of the biggest metal bands in the game, were then “forced” to bring nu-metal bands on tour with them, but that didn’t stop MegaDave getting some jibes in.

“There was a period in 2000 where we had these bands called — I think it was nu metal, and they didn't do any solos,” he tells LifeMinute in a new interview. “Well, why didn't they do any solos? They couldn't do solos. And thank God that genre went away.

“People started to learn how to do solos,” he expands as to the reason the movement fizzled out. “I would say, if you're in a 'nu metal' band, you probably would be challenged even playing [Chuck Berry’s 1958 hit] Johnny B. Goode, so I'm glad that went away.”

Of course, it’s not unusual for Mustaine to speak with a sharpened tongue, and his comments follow similar retorts made to WSOU 89.5 FM in 2022.

“I can't tell you how much we would laugh about the bands that we were forced to take out on tour with us, especially during the nu-metal period,” he had said. “You know, all these bands that wouldn't play solos and stuff.

Speaking to Metal Hammer in 2011, Mustaine had celebrated the movement’s demise.

“These days no one remembers about nu-metal,” he smiled. “All that shit that was out. No guitar solos. Everyone played with their pants down around their ankles.”

Ultimately, he believed the lack of versatile musicians pushing nu metal’s stylings, from the likes of Wes Borland to Stephen Carpenter, meant it could never survive what he reckons was “a bleak period” for metal.

“Most people in the music business, when something like that happens, they're dead,” he continues. “They don't have the capacity to reinvent themselves and if they do reinvent themselves and it doesn't work, they don't have the catalog to rely on to pull them through. It was a bleak period, but we came through it.”

Slipknot’s Mick Thomson, meanwhile, recently how Slipknot’s hand was forced when it came to solos on their debut album, explaining how “any kind of technical guitar playing was mocked and frowned upon”. They would reclaim solos in their later material.

Though we may have to break the news to Mustaine gently, nu-metal is making an undeniable comeback – albeit now with added solos.

Diamond Rowe, for instance, has been doing exactly that in Tetrarch. However, she previously explained that having started out playing thrash metal, she had to accommodate her approach to lead parts as their nu-metal flavors took hold.

“Not many bands of that nature play guitar solos, I've had to learn how to fit our style and not just play some dad-rock solo,” she says. “It was a mental thing first, where I stopped worrying about how everyone else was doing things and thought more about being Diamond in the best way that I can.”

Perhaps with a little more virtuosity involved this time around, Dave Mustaine won’t be quite so harsh on the bands forging its return.

Meanwhile, he seemingly has no qualms with the soloing talents of Megadeth's latest hot-shot shredder, Teemu Mäntysaari, describing him as the guitarist he’s “been looking for for a very long time”.

Former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman has shared the reason why, back in 2015, he rejected Megadeth's invitation to reunite the celebrated Rust In Peace lineup. According to Friedman, the “salary offer” was as low as what he was offered in 1990 when he first joined Megadeth.

Following the departures of drummer Shawn Drover and guitarist Chris Broderick in 2014, Friedman met Dave Mustaine and then-bassist David Ellefson at the 2015 NAMM Show in Anaheim, California, to discuss a potential reunion. This discussion included bringing him and drummer Nick Menza back into the mix.

However, as Friedman reveals in his recently released autobiography, Dreaming Japanese, the amount Megadeth's then-manager Ron Lafitte offered was abysmal.

“Let's just say he wasn't even in the ballpark,” he writes [via Blabbermouth]. “Hell, he wasn't even in the parking lot for the ballpark. The amount they offered was right around the first salary I got when I joined Megadeth in 1990.

“If I'd had any idea they would lowball me like this, I never would have met with them in Anaheim. Had I taken that offer, I would have been paid less in a week than I made on a normal day in Japan.”

He continues, “I was stunned and angry and told them I couldn't even consider it. I made a counteroffer, which was the bare minimum I could accept, and far less than I have received from any of the artists I've toured with in Japan.”

Lafitte had floated the possibility of a Megadeth-Iron Maiden tour, which initially made the proposition attractive. In fact, Friedman was “willing to take the financial hit” because such a bill “could open doors for me again in America.”

“Even if they met my rate, the tour would have been a huge windfall for them. They easily could have agreed to that, and the reunion would have been on, but they said I wanted too much money.”

Friedman concludes that he was “happy with my career in Japan, doing what I loved, making real money without the kind of drama that comes with Megadeth.”

He adds that the band hadn’t even acknowledged that they had just lost a drummer and a guitarist, and “needed me more than I needed them. When I got over my initial anger, I was puzzled and sad.”

In an exclusive excerpt from his new autobiography hosted by Guitar World, Friedman told the inside story of his auditions with Ozzy Osbourne and Madonna – and how he eventually landed the Megadeth gig.

• Marty Friedman’s autobiography, Dreaming Japanese, is out now via Permuted Press.

It was in Los Angeles almost 30 years ago that Lars Ulrich, a teenage tennis prodigy turned drummer, first jammed with James Hetfield, a guitarist and singer from the nearby SoCal neighborhood of Downey.

At the time, a none-too-impressed Hetfield figured that first session to be their last. He was, of course, very wrong. As the backbone of Metallica, Hetfield and Ulrich have gone on to perform countless times for millions of fans around the world and to sell many millions of albums.

All of this would not have been possible without the major players who have passed through the band’s ranks over the years, among them guitarist Dave Mustaine, bassist Jason Newsted, and, perhaps most crucial, the late, great bassist Cliff Burton. But no single musician has been beside Hetfield and Ulrich longer than lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, who joined Metallica prior to the recording of their 1983 debut, Kill ’Em All, and whose quick-fingered, melodic soloing is an indispensable element of the band’s sound to this day.

Currently rounded out by bassist Robert Trujillo, Metallica recently released their ninth studio effort, Death Magnetic. The album is being hailed as a return to the band’s thrash metal roots, which makes this an ideal moment to tell the story of those trailblazing early days.

In this exclusive oral history, Hetfield, Hammett, and Ulrich, along with some friends and former band mates, look back on Metallica’s first decade, and recount the recording of their classic first five albums. Through the eyes of those who saw it, heard it, and helped to create the timeless music, Guitar World charts Metallica’s rise from L.A. thrash upstarts to reigning biggest heavy metal band in the world.

In the Beginning

In 1980, 16-year-old Lars Ulrich moves with his family from his native Denmark to Los Angeles. Inspired by Deep Purple and New Wave of British Heavy Metal acts like Diamond Head, Saxon, and Motörhead, Ulrich puts down his tennis racket, picks up a pair of drumsticks, and decides to form a band. Among the first people he meets after moving to L.A. is Brian Slagel, a Southern California teen who would go on to found the independent record label Metal Blade.

Brian Slagel: “Lars would always say, ‘I’m going to start a band one day,’ and I’d be like, ‘Sure man, whatever.’

“He had this little drum set in the corner of his bedroom, but it wasn’t even set up. I’d always laugh when I saw it because it was just a big mess. But when I started putting together Metal Massacre [the Metal Blade compilation of local, unsigned metal bands] Lars came to me and said, ‘If I get a band together, can I be on the album?’ Since he was a good friend I said, ‘Absolutely.’”

In the summer of 1980, Ulrich places a classified ad in SoCal paper The Recycler: “Drummer looking for other musicians to jam with – Tygers of Pan Tang, Diamond Head, Iron Maiden.” Guitarist James Hetfield is among the respondents.

James Hetfield: “The first time Lars and I got together to jam, it just didn’t happen. There was no vibe. But he introduced me to a whole new world of heavy music. I had heard of Iron Maiden and Def Leppard, but not too many of the other, more obscure English metal bands.

“I would spend days just going through his record collection, taping over my REO Speedwagon cassettes with bands like Angel Witch and Diamond Head and Motörhead. I was in heaven at his house.”

Slagel: “When Lars heard about the Metal Massacre compilation I was putting together, the two of them recorded Hit the Lights on a little Fostex cassette, and they had their friend, Lloyd Grant, who was a guitar teacher, come in and do the lead.”

Hetfield: “Lars came to me with the opportunity to be on a record, and that was pretty interesting. At that point in my life I wanted to play music. I didn’t want to work.”

Ulrich steals the name Metallica from friend and radio DJ Ron Quintana, who had mentioned it as a possible title for a fanzine he was preparing to launch. Ulrich and Hetfield recruit bassist Ron McGovney, who had played with Hetfield previously in the band Leather Charm, and lead guitarist Dave Mustaine to fill out the band’s lineup.

Dave Mustaine: “Before the [first] rehearsal, I went to Lars’ house, and he played me the tape of Hit the Lights. I said, ‘This song sucks. You need more guitar solos.’ And Lars went, ‘Oh fuck, reeeeaaallly?’

“I convinced him that I should be in the band and went to rehearsal. I was tuning up when all the other guys went into another room. They weren’t talking to me, so I went in and said, ‘What the fuck? Am I in the band or not?’ And they said, ‘You’ve got the gig.’ It was as easy as that.”

Kerry King: (Slayer guitarist) “I remember seeing Dave play with Metallica at the Woodstock in Anaheim [California]. He was ripping these killer solos and riffs, and he was just glaring at the crowd – not even looking at his fingers. I was blown away.”

In the spring of 1982, the Hetfield-Ulrich-Mustaine-McGovney lineup records a four-song demo with a new version of Hit the Lights. The tape comes to be known as the “Power Metal” demo due to business cards McGovney prints up with the phrase at the time.

Ron McGovney: “Lars said, ‘What did you do! What the hell is ‘power metal’? I can’t believe you did such a stupid thing!’ He was so pissed off at me.”

In late 1982, while trying to replace McGovney, Ulrich and Hetfield spot bassist Cliff Burton onstage with his band, Trauma, at the Whisky a Go Go in L.A. The two ask him to join Metallica. Burton agrees, on the condition that the band relocate to his hometown of San Francisco.

Slagel: “Metallica had a lot of problems in L.A. because all the club owners thought they were either too heavy or too punk. They went over so much better in San Francisco than they ever did in their hometown.”

Gary Holt: (Exodus guitarist) “When they first came to the Bay Area, L.A. was known for nothing more than a lot of shit bands. And then here comes this band, and we’re all into the same stuff – Diamond Head, Budgie… Metallica came along and started playing everywhere.”

Prior to Burton’s joining, Metallica had recorded the No Life ’Til Leather demo, which featured much of the material that would eventually comprise Kill ’Em All. The demo becomes a hot item on the underground tape-trading circuit.

Holt: “The tape-trading scene was how we all got heard. You would record a demo and the traders would circulate it all over the world – to all the fans, the magazines, and the independent record labels.”

King: “Metallica’s demo got passed around, big time. We all had that.”

Scott Ian: (Anthrax guitarist) “When I heard No Life ‘Til Leather I immediately thought, ‘Wow, here’s some guys from the other side of the country that are doing the same thing we’re doing; they’re just a little better at it right now.’

“I remember being there the day Jonny Z [Jon Zazula, owner of New Jersey record store Rock N’ Roll Heaven and founder of indie label Megaforce Records] got it in the mail. He put it on, and I was like, ‘That’s fucking killer! Who are these guys?’ Jonny told me, ‘They’re called Metallica, and I’m bringing them to New York. Somehow we’re gonna make a record.’”

Jonny Z: “We hustled together $1,500 for them to rent a van to come out to the East Coast and play some shows.”

Metallica set up shop at the Music Building in Queens, New York, where Anthrax practice as well. The band live and rehearse at the space and play their first East Coast gigs.

Ian: “Metallica were opening for Vandenberg [the group guitarist Adrian Vandenberg led prior to joining Whitesnake] at L’amour in Brooklyn, and we were all down there in the afternoon, waiting for them to soundcheck. Mustaine was already shitfaced by 3:30, and he was yelling at Adrian Vandenberg, ‘Get the fuck off the stage! You suck!’ And we were all like, ‘What the fuck, dude? Shhhh!’”

Slagel: “Everybody liked to drink back then and have a good time, but Dave could go much further over the line than anyone else would, and you could see that sooner or later that was going to be a problem.”

Ian: “I showed up at the Music Building for band practice one day, and Cliff was outside smoking a cigarette. He told me they had just kicked Dave out of the band. The other guys said, ‘We had known we were gonna do it for weeks now. We woke him up this morning, and he was so drunk and hungover that before he could even realize what was going on we got him out of here.’

“I asked them what they were going to do, and they said they already had another guy on his way into town. His name was Kirk Hammett, and he was the guitar player in Exodus.”

Kirk Hammett: “I was familiar with Metallica’s music before I joined the band. I had the No Life ‘Til Leather demo, and my friends and I listened to it quite a bit. It was what everyone in the San Francisco underground metal scene was listening to in 1982. Plus, Exodus played with Metallica pretty often in San Francisco.

“The first time I spoke to Lars was after they had just finished a set and I said, ‘Thanks for letting us play. I really like you guys.’ He said, ‘Yeah, yeah, cool, cool,’ but as I was talking to him, he started taking his stage clothes off, and before I knew it he was just completely naked in front of me, and I was just shocked. I said to myself, ‘Oh, he’s European. Europeans do stuff like this.’”

Lars Ulrich: “I remember the first time I heard Kirk. He had a feel that very few young players have – very rooted in European metal. It was really nice to hear an American guy who didn’t play like Eddie Van Halen.”

Kill ’Em All

In the spring of 1983, Metallica travel to Music America Studios in Rochester, New York, to record their debut album, Kill ’Em All, with producer Paul Curcio.

Hammett: “We totally trashed the place. I felt bad. But it’s four guys, you know? There was carpet in every single room, and we drank pretty much 24 hours a day back then. So you can imagine how that turned out. Moist places shouldn’t have rugs.”

Ulrich: “The actual studio was in the basement of this huge old colonial-type of clubhouse. On the second floor there was a huge ballroom; perfect for getting a good drum sound. The problem was the place was fucking haunted. My cymbals would start spinning for no reason. Shit like that. It was scary.”

Hetfield: “Occasionally we put guitar and bass amps in the [ballroom] for ambience. I remember Cliff being in that room with all his amps and his headphones on while he recorded (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth, his bass solo. He literally was just standing in front of his amps.”

Hammett: “The guitar stuff was recorded through James’ magical, mythical Marshall. He had it modified by some guy in L.A. who used to work on Eddie Van Halen’s gear. I used it too, because we didn’t have much equipment back then. I also used a wah pedal and a Boss Super Distortion. James played his white Flying V, and I used my black Flying V. Those were the only guitars we had.”

Hammett, who has only been in the band a few months, still has to contend with the looming presence of Dave Mustaine, who had written many of the riffs and solos to the songs.

Hammett: “Jonny Z said, ‘You know, you have to play Dave’s solos.’” I said, “‘No, I don’t really want to play Dave’s solos.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you play the opening to every solo, so that people think you’re going to play Dave’s solos, and then you can go somewhere else with them.’ And that’s exactly what I did.

“As a 20-year-old kid, put in a position like that, you don’t want to rock the boat too much – especially being the new guy. So I took the first four bars of most of the solos and changed them.”

Hetfield: “Dave brought the song The Four Horsemen over from one of his other bands. Back then it was called The Mechanix. After he left Metallica, we kind of fixed the song up. The lyrics he used were pretty silly.”

Kill ’Em All is released on July 25, 1983, on Megaforce. Though the first wave of thrash bands, including Exodus, Slayer, Anthrax, and Overkill, are up and running, Metallica are the first act to record and release a full-length vinyl album.

Hetfield: “It was Cliff who named the album. Originally we were supposed to call it ‘Metal Up Your Ass.’ We got a phone call from our manager telling us half the record outlets wouldn’t carry the album if it was called that. Cliff said, ‘You know what? Fuck those fuckers, man. We should just kill ’em all.’”

Hammett: “After we recorded the album and we came back to the Bay Area, there seemed to be 10 or 12 newer bands that were playing faster, really aggressive beats.”

David Ellefson: (former Megadeth bassist) “I remember early on Dave [Mustaine] got a fan letter from some kid in the Bay Area who wrote, ‘Can’t wait to hear your new stuff. Hope it’s faster than Metallica.’ We went to rehearsal the next day and everything jumped up 50 beats per minute!”

Hammett: “Part of the reason why we would play so fast is because we were just nervous. As a young musician, when I was nervous I had a tendency to speed things up. Joining Metallica, I thought, ‘This is great, because it can never be too fast.’”

Hetfield: “Lars was always nervous onstage, so he’d play faster and faster. Nobody wanted to wimp out and tell him. We just figured, ‘Hell, we’ll just play fast, too,’ and that’s what we did on the record.”

Hammett: “I would have been happy selling [a few] copies and being able to do a club tour across the States. To me, that was success. Then when we found out we were actually going to go to Europe and play shows there for the first time – I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s totally unexpected.’

“For James and Cliff and myself, we had never been outside the United States. It was all very inspiring, because there were more possibilities out there than we imagined at the onset.”

Ian: “Jonny Z had been trying to land Metallica a deal, and all the guys at the big labels would put their fingers in their ears when he played them the album. They were clueless. But when they saw how many copies Jonny sold, they realized, ‘Wow, there’s thousands of kids out there who are into this shit.’”

Jonny Z: “We printed up 1,500 copies, and they went in five seconds. We printed another 3,500, and they went in a week. We just kept on building and building, and then Elektra picked them up for Ride the Lightning.”

Ride the Lightning

After completing a European tour opening for Venom in early 1984, Metallica travel to Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark, to record their second album, with producer Flemming Rasmussen.

The result, Ride the Lightning, is issued on Megaforce on July 27. A few months later, after a gig in New York City, the band is signed by Elektra, making them the first thrash metal act to be picked up by a major label. Elektra then reissues Ride the Lightning in the fall of 1984.

Ulrich: “Cliff was responsible for a lot of the things that happened between Kill ’Em All and Ride the Lightning. He really exposed James and I to a whole new musical horizon of harmonies and melodies. [Our] whole way of writing songs together was very much shaped around Cliff’s musical input.”

Hetfield: “Touring definitely made us a little more worldly. We started to see other things that were going on in the world. And that’s when more of the punk-oriented, opinionated kind of thoughts began to appear in our lyrics. And actually having to sit down and write an album made a difference, because Kill ’Em All was just songs we had been playing in clubs for the two years before we recorded it.”

Hammett: “I tracked the whole album with Marshall amps and my Gibson Flying V, and by then James had his Gibson Explorer.”

Hetfield: “That whole album was a real huge step for us. Creeping Death was our first big, chanting, gang-vocal thing. There was almost some production value to it!”

Hammett: “When we did the crunchy ‘Die by my hand’ breakdown in the middle, we sat in the control room after we did the gang vocals, and everyone was just going nuts!”

In addition to thrashy cuts like Creeping Death, Fight Fire with Fire, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, the album features the song Fade to Black, which many consider the first thrash-metal ballad.

Slagel: “Metallica really pushed the boundaries with Fade to Black. That was the first time any of the bands tried something like that. I remember some of their hardcore fans accused them of selling out with that song, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s just a great, extremely well-written tune.”

Hetfield: “It’s a suicide song, and we got a lot of flack for it; kids were killing themselves because of the song. But we also got hundreds and hundreds of letters from kids telling us how they related to the song and that it made them feel better. It was also pretty much our first ballad, so it was challenging, and we knew it would freak people out.”

Hammett: “For the extended solo at the end I wasn’t sure what to play. We had been in Denmark for five or six months, and I was getting really homesick. Since it was a somber song and we were all bummed out anyway, I thought of some depressing things when I did the solo – and it really helped!

“When that was finished, I went back and did the clean guitar parts behind the verse. James played an arpeggiated figure while I arpeggiated three-note chords. We ended up getting a very Dire Straits–type of sound.”

Hetfield: “Bands like Exodus and Slayer don’t do ballads, but they’ve stuck themselves in that position, which is something we’ve never wanted to do. Limiting yourself to please your audience is bullshit.”

With the support of Elektra, Metallica begin to make inroads to the mainstream. Throughout 1984 and 1985 the band tour the world, embarking on the ‘Bang the Head That Doesn’t Bang’ tour across Europe and playing the U.S. with W.A.S.P. and Armored Saint.

In August of 1985, Metallica appear at the Day on the Green festival in Oakland, California, where they perform before an audience of 60,000. That same month, they play to more than 70,000 at the Monsters of Rock festival in Donington, England, where they’re sandwiched on the bill between Ratt and Bon Jovi.

Hetfield: (onstage at Monsters of Rock) “If you came here to see spandex, eye makeup, and the words ‘Oh baby’ in every fuckin' song, this ain't the fuckin' band.”

Master of Puppets

After touring for much of the year, Metallica return to Sweet Silence Studios in September 1985, to begin work on their third album, Master of Puppets, again with Flemming Rasmussen at the helm.

Hammett: “By that point, we had been playing together for a few years. We’d toured a ton; we knew each other musically and personally; everybody was contributing amazing ideas, and it was just a culmination of all the right spots and all the right notes at the right time. Maybe the planets were aligned or something, I don’t know, but that’s what it felt like.”

Hetfield: “We started getting into the longer, more orchestrated songs. It was more of a challenge to write a long song that didn’t seem long.”

Hammett: “I’ll tell you how the main [descending] riff to Master of Puppets came about. On the Ride the Lightning tour, James would always play the riff in the dressing room, but on the D string, and I’d play it simultaneously on the G string as a parallel-fourths harmony line. It sounded really dorky and funny.

“Then, one day at rehearsal, James said, ‘Let me show you this really heavy song intro,’ and proceeded to play that exact riff on the low E string. I said, ‘Ah, so you finally found a use for that dorky little thing!’ It’s anything but dorky now.”

Hetfield: “The riff for the title track was pretty messy – constantly moving. But it works good live. People love to scream Master! a couple of times.”

Hammett: “I used a Mesa/Boogie Mark II-C head and my Jackson Randy Rhoads V on that song. When you listen to the solo, there’s this weird sound right after the mellow part where it sounds like I’m hitting a super high note, like I’m fretting the string against the pickup.

“What happened was, I accidentally pulled the string off the fretboard, and it fretted out on the side of the neck! I heard it back and was like, ‘That’s brilliant! We’ve gotta keep that!’ Of course, I’ve never been able to reproduce it since.”

Master of Puppets is released on March 3, 1986. In addition to the epic title track, the album features incredibly aggressive material like Battery, Damage, Inc., and Disposable Heroes, as well as a second ballad, Welcome Home (Sanitarium).

A Sticker that appeared on the cover of early pressings of Master of Puppets read: “The only track you probably won't want to play is Damage, Inc. due to the multiple uses of the infamous ‘F’ word. Otherwise, there aren't any ‘Shits,’ ‘Fucks,’ ‘Pisses,’ ‘Cunts,’ ‘Motherfuckers,’ or ‘Cocksuckers’ anywhere on this record.”

Hetfield: “The idea for Welcome Home (Sanitarium) came from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Fade to Black worked well, and we wanted to have another slow, clean, picking type of song, this time with a chorus. I had trouble singing that chorus – it’s really high. And the riff for the song was lifted from some other band, who shall remain anonymous.”

Master of Puppets peaks at #29 on the Billboard album chart, and within a few months of its release sells more than 500,000 copies. With no help from radio or MTV, Metallica earn their first Gold-certified album. The band receive a large amount of mainstream exposure from their opening slot on Ozzy Osbourne’s tour in support of his Ultimate Sin album.

Hammett: “Going on the Ozzy tour really made a difference, because all of a sudden we were playing Master of Puppets to a pretty mainstream audience. Your typical Ozzy fan might not have gotten Metallica, but two or three years later, they were all saying, ‘Yeah, I saw Metallica with Ozzy, and they blew him away!’

“We converted people night after night. Suddenly we were selling albums, and a lot of it had to do with playing our asses off, putting on a great show, just bringing the music to the people in that way, because radio wasn’t having us.”

In the fall of ’86, Metallica embark on the European leg of the ‘Damage, Inc.’ tour, with Anthrax supporting.

Dan Spitz: (Anthrax guitarist) “The aura each night when they got onstage was incredible. I imagine Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath had that same vibe. Seeing Metallica back then, you just knew something big was about to happen. Master of Puppets was the changing of the guard.”

On September 27, while en route to a gig in Copenhagen, Metallica’s tour bus skids off the road near Dorarp, Sweden, and flips over several times. Cliff Burton, asleep in his bunk, is thrown through a window. The bus falls on top of him, killing him instantly. He was 24 years old.

Hetfield: “I saw the bus lying right on him. I saw his legs sticking out. I went to pieces. The driver tried to take Cliff’s blanket to give that to someone else. I just screamed, ‘Fuck that!’ I wanted to kill the guy. I didn’t know if he was drunk or if the bus had skidded on ice. All I knew was Cliff was dead.”

Hammett: “A part of Metallica was lost forever when he died.”

Hetfield: “The only thing I could think was: ‘The band? No way! There ain’t no band. The band is not the band right now. It’s just three guys.’”

Ian: “It was a terrible time. You just don’t imagine something like that happening to one of your friends, especially when you’re on tour, because there’s this feeling of invincibility. But I know that the rest of Metallica never considered ending the band. Their attitude was, ‘Why would we stop? That’s the last thing Cliff would want us to do.’”

A few weeks after Burton’s funeral, Hetfield, Ulrich, and Hammett begin auditioning bass players. They eventually settle on 23-year-old Flotsam and Jetsam bassist Jason Newsted.

Ulrich: “We did about 60 people in one week. And we decided that we wanted to ask four back. Jason was second of the four. We played all day, and then went out for a meal. And then we went for the big test, which was the drink test.

“Somehow, I swear it wasn’t planned, me, Kirk, and James ended up in the toilet together, pissing. So we’re standing there at three in the morning, out of our faces, all of us in a line, not saying anything. And I just said without looking at anybody, ‘That’s him, right?’ And the other guys said, ‘Yeah, that’s him.’ And that was it.”

Jason Newsted: “When I came into Metallica, I had to do justice to Cliff’s work, but I also had to put my own signature on it. No one could be Cliff Burton; Cliff Burton was the Jimi Hendrix of bass. I had to practice, practice, practice to get anywhere close to where he was.”

Holt: “After all these years, anyone who plays bass in Metallica is still filling Cliff Burton’s shoes. There was nobody like him.”

With Newsted onboard, Metallica head back out to the road, touring America and Europe with Metal Church, and ending with three shows as part of the Monsters of Rock festival. In the summer of 1987, they return to L.A. and record The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited. The set features covers of songs by Metallica favorites the Misfits, Budgie, and NWOBHM legends Diamond Head.

Hammett: “We did that EP for the fans, just for fun, and Elektra loved it and released it. All the lead parts flowed really quickly; I did them in two nights. That was when I first started using ESP guitars with EMG pickups.”

Hetfield: “We were still dealing with Cliff’s death, and Q-Prime, our management, was telling us to jump right back into it and start playing again. I guess we kind of mourned through music and doing the cover songs on that album.”

…And Justice for All

In January 1988, Metallica reconvene with producer Flemming Rasmussen, this time at One On One Studios in Los Angeles, to begin work on their fourth full-length album.

Titled …And Justice for All, the effort is the most progressive and technically challenging in the band’s catalog, boasting just nine songs for a combined length of more than one hour.

Hammett: “Things changed after Cliff’s death. Even our sound changed. On Justice, we kind of fell prey to that whole virtuosic, late-Eighties thing that was happening. All of a sudden, everyone wanted to be progressive and show off their abilities. Somehow, just playing fast and heavy took a backseat to that.”

Hetfield: “Sometimes we look back at some of our material and wonder how – or why – we ever came up with certain parts. There was a lot of urgency to that material, but a lot of it was just wank – just us showing off. But that’s where we were at that time.”

Though the album is Newsted’s first full-length effort with Metallica, his bass parts are almost completely inaudible on the finished product. This is widely believed to be the result of the rest of the band’s “hazing” of the bassist, though they deny the charge.

Hetfield: “The bass was obscured for two reasons. First, Jason tended to double my rhythm guitar parts, so it was hard to tell where my guitar started and his bass left off. Also, my tone on Justice was very scooped – all lows and highs, with very little midrange.

“When my rhythm parts were placed in the mix, my guitar sound ate up all the lower frequencies. Jason and I were always battling for the same space in the mix.”

Newsted: “I can’t explain how much grief I dealt with – and still deal with – over that record.”

Hammett: “There was a lot of anguish after Cliff died, and basically Jason was the punching bag. We vented so much on him, and it wasn’t really fair.”

…And Justice for All is released on September 6, 1988, and becomes Metallica’s biggest album to date. It is also their mainstream breakthrough. This is in large part due to the success of the song One, for which the band films their first music video. In the video, Hetfield’s dark lyrics are set against disturbing images from the 1971 film adaptation of Dalton Trumbo’s antiwar novel, Johnny Got His Gun.

Hetfield: “We’d never done a video until then because we’d never been asked to. We certainly didn’t want to get to the position where we had to beg MTV to play one of our videos.

“Our fans were calling them up and asking for our videos to be played. MTV were like, ‘Who the hell are Metallica?’ But they ended up asking us to make a video. So we finally did one, and we did it our way. And, of course, it was incredibly disturbing.”

Hammett: “I knew we were on to a good thing when I saw One on MTV at, like, 11:30 in the evening. I watched it, and afterward the VJ came on and said, ‘Wow, that’s a real bowl of rainbows!’”

In the wake of the album’s massive success – it peaks at #6 on the Billboard album chart, and is certified Platinum in less than three months – Metallica embark on ‘Damaged Justice,’ their first headlining arena tour, which takes them around the world and stretches on for more than a year.

One is also nominated for a Grammy – the first year the Recording Academy offers the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance category – but the band lose to Jethro Tull, a band whose music is neither hard rock nor metal.

Ulrich: “I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I was disappointed. Human nature is that you’d rather win than lose, but Jethro Tull walking away with it makes a huge mockery of the intentions of the event.”

A Sticker on the cover of subsequent copies of …And Justice for All reads: “Grammy Award LOSERS.”

The Black Album

After completing the ‘Damaged Justice’ tour, Metallica return to One On One Studios in October 1990 to record their fifth studio album. The music they write and record largely eschews their thrash metal roots in favor of a decidedly more commercial sound with slower tempos, simpler guitar riffs, and shorter, more accessible songs.

James Hetfield’s vocals are more melodic as well. This change in sound is credited by many to the influence of producer Bob Rock, best known for his work with radio-friendly acts like Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe.

Hetfield: “People will be saying Bob [Rock] made Metallica sound like Bon Jovi. They don’t realize that no one screws with us, except us.”

Ulrich: “One thing that Bob should be given total credit for is making James comfortable enough to take that guard down and really sing. We’ve always thought of ourselves as Big Bad Metallica, but Bob taught us a new word none of us had ever heard before: ‘soulful.’”

Hetfield: “Radio airplay wasn’t the whole idea behind our writing shorter songs. It seemed to us that we had pretty much done the longer song format to death. We had one song that has just two riffs in it, which is pretty amazing. It only takes two minutes to get the point across.”

By the time the new album is released, on August 13, 1991, Metallica have been in the studio for close to a year, and the cost of the production reaches one million dollars. They choose to title the record Metallica, though due to its stark cover image – a coiled snake against a black background – it comes to be known as the “Black Album.”

Newsted: “It took us a long time to think up that title. I guess we could have just called it ‘Five’ or named it after one of the songs. We wanted to keep it simple.”

Ulrich: “The songs aren’t so busy, and Kirk’s guitar playing fits in well when he plays with the laid-back drums. James and I tried to set things up that were easier for Kirk to solo over. Some of the things on Justice got a little out of hand. Then it was, ‘Okay, Kirk, solo over this!’ And it would be the most sideways, difficult thing.”

Newsted: “The bass sound is much weightier. I tried to create a real rhythm section rather than a one-dimensional sound. It comes down to the music – making it a real rhythm section for once, and letting the guitars do their work. I’m glad the rest of the band could tell me that that’s what was needed.”

Hetfield: “What we really wanted was a live feel. In the past, Lars and I constructed the rhythm parts without Kirk and Jason. This time I wanted to try playing as a band unit in the studio. It lightens things up and you get more of a vibe.”

Hammett: “I used a Bradshaw preamp for the lows and mids and a couple of Marshalls for the nice clean highs. We EQ’d it through the board a little bit, and it worked out great. And I used two guitars – a Strat-style ESP with two EMG [pickups] and an ’89 Les Paul Deluxe with two EMGs.”

Hetfield: “We tried a bunch of amps, but I ended up using the same Mesa/Boogie Mark II Simul Class that I’d used on the last three albums. My primary guitar was my ESP Explorer with EMGs, but I also used a Telecaster, a Gretsch White Falcon with a Bigsby, and a Guild 12-string.”

The album’s lead-off track, Enter Sandman, is propelled by a simple and hooky riff and a huge, sing-along chorus. It becomes a worldwide smash hit.

Hetfield: “I can remember when I wrote the lyrics to Enter Sandman, Bob Rock and Lars came to me and said, ‘These aren’t as good as they could be.’ And that pissed me off so much. I was like, ‘Fuck you! I’m the writer here!’ That was the first challenge from someone else, and it made me work harder.”

Hammett: “I think the time has come to reveal where I actually got the guitar lick before the breakdown in Enter Sandman: It’s from Magic Man, by Heart, but I didn’t get it from Heart’s version; I got it from a cut off Ice-T’s Power album, where he sampled it. I heard that and thought, ‘I have to snake this!’”

Mainstream music fans wholeheartedly embrace the new, friendlier Metallica. The “Black Album” enters the Billboard album chart at number one and sells 600,000 copies in its first week of release.

In addition to Enter Sandman, the record spawns five more hit singles, including The Unforgiven, Wherever I May Roam, and the acoustic ballad Nothing Else Matters. The album has since sold more than 22 million copies worldwide.

Ulrich: “You think one day some fucker’s going to tell you, ‘You have a number-one record in America’ and the whole world will ejaculate. I stood there in my hotel room, and there was this fax that said, ‘You’re number one.’ And it was like, ‘Well, okay.’ It was just another fucking fax from the office.”

Beyond the Black

In October 1991, Metallica embark on the ‘Wherever We May Roam’ tour. They stay on the road for close to three years, in the process becoming one of the biggest touring and recording acts in the world.

Over the next decade the band release a series of albums – Load, ReLoad, St. Anger – on which they continually reinvent their sound (and image), gaining – and losing – fans in the process.

In 2001, Jason Newsted leaves Metallica due to strained relations with the rest of the band, in particular James Hetfield. In 2003 he is replaced by ex–Suicidal Tendencies and Ozzy Osbourne bassist Robert Trujillo, who joins prior to the tour in support of St. Anger.

In September 2008, Metallica release their ninth studio album, Death Magnetic. To date they’ve sold more than 90 million records worldwide, and remain one of the most influential and successful bands in hard rock and heavy metal.

Hammett: “I think Metallica have a lot more to say. We’re the type of band that likes to experiment. We don’t like to stay in one spot for too long; all the albums after the ‘Black Album’ prove that. We’re not afraid to take artistic risks, even at the cost of pissing off our audience and our friends.”

Hetfield: “The cool thing about Metallica is that there’s always a new generation of angry young men who latch onto Kill ’Em All and know what I’m talking about. And maybe they grow up with the rest of the records.

“We’ve never been about creating some fantasy world with our records; we’re just documenting where we’re at at the time. There’s always going to be youth on the planet, and whether they can relate to that or not, I don’t know. But every time I look out in the crowd and see some kids battling it out in the middle of the mosh pit, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I was there, man.’”

Hammett: “We want to get out there and show people how strong Metallica are. It’s not a mask and it’s not bullshit. We feel really good about being us right now, and here we are. Now, see if you can hang on.”

This feature was originally published in the December 2008 issue of Guitar World.

In this exclusive excerpt from Dreaming Japanese, Marty Friedman’s new autobiography (co-written by frequent GW contributor Jon Wiederhorn), the ace guitarist details his auditions with Ozzy, Madonna and Megadeth.

Take No Prisoners

The first shot I had at joining a big act happened while I was living in San Francisco, sometime in the late ’80s. Ozzy Osbourne was looking for a guitarist to replace Jake E. Lee, and someone recommended me to his wife and manager, Sharon. She called and offered to fly me to Los Angeles for an audition. I was thrilled that someone in Ozzy’s camp had even heard of me and was willing to pay my airfare to hear me play.

As great as they are, Ozzy’s and Black Sabbath’s songs are way easier to play than anything by [my band] Cacophony. I had no problem learning them, and then I over-practiced until I was so confident I could have played the songs fluidly in the middle of an earthquake.

I was looking forward to plugging in and showing Ozzy my chops, but when I got to the studio, neither Ozzy nor Sharon was anywhere in sight. Only bassist Phil Soussan and drummer Randy Castillo were there, which kind of bummed me out. But they were all set up and ready to play, and I was raring to go. I introduced myself and told them how stoked I was to audition.

Phil grunted. Randy shrugged. “Are we going to do this?” Randy asked as if he had somewhere to be in 30 minutes. From their bored expressions and the dozens of manilla envelopes and cassettes lying around, I got the feeling that they had already auditioned tons of guitarists.

I played four or five songs with them and didn’t miss a note. The musical vibe was great, natural, and relaxed, and we sounded totally major league. And while Phil and Randy were polite and pleasant, it seemed like they would rather be sitting in a proctologist waiting room than auditioning me.

When I got back to San Francisco, I eagerly waited to hear back from Ozzy’s camp. They never called. A couple years later, I learned that Zakk Wylde had gotten the gig. He was the perfect choice, a highly skilled player, who probably fit in with the guys better than I did.

I don’t think anything about my playing got me crossed off the list. It was all about the magic chemistry among the band members. Playing well is a given. Great players are a dime a dozen. It is the stuff on top that lands you the gigs. Ozzy’s guys were wearing Sunset Strip regalia even at a rehearsal, and I wasn’t even sporting a shirt with a band logo. They had a casual attitude about the music and plowed through it, yet I paid attention to every detail.

Sometimes I wonder if Phil, Randy, and I had immediately hit it off, joked around, went out and picked up some tarted-up girls, and partied ourselves sick after the audition, whether tales of our outrageous chemistry might have gotten back to the boss man and convinced him that I was “one of them.” Either way, I think Zakk did a better job with the gig than I would have.

My next big audition came about a year later when I found out Madonna needed a guitarist. Being a pop singer, I didn’t think she would hire a metal player like me, but pop music had started to feature guitar solos, so I thought maybe I had a tiny shot.

It was an open-call audition, so I had no idea what to prepare. I decided to learn a bunch of Madonna’s obscure songs since I could easily improvise my way through any of her hits, even if I didn’t prepare. I really wanted the gig, not because I’m a huge Madonna fan, but because my resources were wearing dangerously thin. I was broke and getting desperate.

I lived a couple blocks from Guitar Institute of Technology (GIT), which occasionally hired me to teach seminars and masterclasses. I was grateful for the work, but many of the students also lived in my dilapidated rat nest apartment building, so whenever I finished a seminar, I had to take the walk of shame back to my fleabag room with a bunch of starstruck guitar students following me. I felt like the Pied Piper in the slums of Hollywood.

For a young, aspiring musician, releasing an album on any label is a dream come true, so when these kids came in contact with someone like me, who had released a few records, received solid press, and toured the world, they assumed I was a rich rock star. Walking back home with them to the same squalid living conditions they were subject to was both demoralizing and embarrassing. I’m sure they were surprised and disillusioned.

Just a couple days before my Madonna audition, I received an interesting call from my good friend, heavy metal insider Bob Nalbandian. He told me Megadeth had been auditioning guitarists for a long time to no avail, and their manager, Ron Lafitte, had asked Bob if he could recommend someone. Bob asked me if I was interested. I went from sitting around fanning my balls to suddenly having auditions for Madonna and Megadeth in the same week.

I was not that familiar with Megadeth’s music, but I knew I liked it a hell of a lot more than I liked Madonna’s, which, to be fair, I also liked. And I was a more natural fit for Megadeth. I looked the part, and we shared many of the same influences.

When Ron Laffite found out I was interested in auditioning, he called me and told me to learn five songs: Wake Up Dead, In My Darkest Hour, The Conjuring, Hook in Mouth, and a cover of Alice Cooper’s No More Mr. Nice Guy.

I bought a couple Megadeth cassettes at a used record shop and learned the tracks note for note. I was confident. I was good to go. Then, Megadeth’s management called again and told me to learn another few songs. I worked on those as well. More calls came. “Hey, Marty. Dave wants you to learn a couple more.”

This kept happening until it got to the point that they were asking me to learn songs from the debut album, Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good!, which was on an indie label and hard to find. I couldn’t track down a used copy and eventually found a new one, but I didn’t have the $12.99 that it cost unless I went without eating for the day. My stomach incessantly grumbled as I tried to master the last few of the 13 or so songs that I prepared for the audition.

Unlike Madonna songs, Megadeth songs are intricate and tricky and feature lots of rhythm and tempo changes, and even more solos than Ozzy tracks. I wasn’t familiar with the band members and their playing styles, so I had no idea which solos were played by Dave Mustaine, and which were handled by the guitarist I hoped to replace.

Up to that point, the mixes on Megadeth albums were somewhat muddy, and the guitars often lacked separation. I had no choice but to try to thoroughly learn every guitar part so I could rip through anything I might be asked to play.

Mainly though, I was just happy for the opportunity to audition for such a cool band, so I dug into one song after another and learned them backwards and forwards. Learning all that material was exhausting, but I knew I could handle the playing part.

Megadeth was like [my band] Hawaii on steroids. I was much more concerned about vibing with the guys. All I knew about Megadeth was that Dave Mustaine was an original member of Metallica, and I really liked Metallica’s No Life ’Til Leather demo that he played on before starting Megadeth.

When I lived in Hawaii, I got that primitive recording through underground tape trading and played it constantly. I’d pop the cassette in my Walkman when I went jogging through the lush, scenic Portlock area of Hawaii Kai, which overlooked the sparkling ocean. The demo was the ultimate contrast to the very un-metal Hawaiian vistas.

Listening to it made me feel like I had maintained my punk and metal roots. I had no idea that Dave was unceremoniously kicked out of Metallica just before they were signed and started on the path to becoming the biggest heavy metal group of all time.

I feared a repeat of the Ozzy situation since, in established bands, the chemistry between members is far more important than actual playing ability. Mastering the music is a given, as it should be, but it’s just a part of what it takes to join a band, which is like an exclusive club, or even a family.

The chemistry between members involves intangibles like childhood background, personality, and common sense in an extremely uncommon occupation. These are elements that are impossible to prepare for.

I knew I had a better shot of landing the Megadeth job than the Madonna, or Ozzy gigs. But I still wasn’t sure what to expect at the audition. Fortunately, what I lacked in familiarity I made up for in practical maneuvering. In what I must humbly admit was a stroke of genius, or a rare moment of common sense, I hired my good friend Tony DeLeonardo to tech for me.

Tony and I were already good friends when he single-handedly took on all crew duties in Maryland for my old band Hawaii. Tony was now an in-demand tech in L.A. and had even done Zakk’s tours with Ozzy.

I have always had a complete lack of interest in anything mechanical. I was never a gear guy. Not back then, not now. The thought of setting up the amps and making sure everything was running correctly sent chills through my brain.

I just knew I wouldn’t look cool humping gear, plugging it in, and setting the knobs to the right sound. I am not proud to say that to this day I don’t have the slightest idea how to adjust the length of a guitar strap or roll up a guitar cable.

When I hired Tony for 65 dollars, I was living on 99-cent bags of lollipops and white rice with La Yu chili oil, so that money, a bargain for a pro tech, was extremely hard to part with. But something told me I had to do it, and I’m glad I listened to that little voice.

Tony got technical details from Megadeth’s crew, carted my gear into the audition like a boss, made sure my guitar was properly strung, intonated, and tuned, got a great sound from the amp in no time, and strapped the guitar on me when it was time to play.

Before I hit note one, I looked like a pro. I’m sure this made a good impression, especially compared to how lame it would have looked had I been fiddling with knobs on the amps and schlepping in all my heavy equipment.

After meeting all the band members – the serious-faced ringleader Dave Mustaine, diplomatic bassist Dave Ellefson, and loose-cannon drummer Nick Menza – Mustaine called out, “Wake Up Dead.” Nick did a four count, and we dove in.

Right away, the band gelled. We sounded like a unit already. I was so locked into this heavy groove that I hardly noticed there was a massive old-school video camera on a tripod right up in my face.

“Okay, that’ll do it for now,” Mustaine said as he put down his guitar. I asked if we would play No More Mr. Nice Guy, and he said he hated that song. The rest of the band joked about not liking it either. I remember thinking, “So why did you ask me to learn it?”

We wound up playing only the first batch of songs that I was asked to learn. Having auditioned numerous musicians for my various projects, I’ve realized that countless factors go into what you ask people to play when they try out.

So, having to learn an ever-growing laundry list of songs for the Megadeth audition made a lot more sense to me a decade-plus after the fact, but at the time I was kind of miffed.

“Stick around, man. Don’t go too far away,” Mustaine said, then walked off.

David Ellefson came back and told me, “I think that means you probably got the gig. Good going, man.”

I was elated but kept my cool. “Oh and by the way, Dave told me to tell you that you played many of the wrong guitar parts.”

My heart sank into my high-tops. “Hey, I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” he laughed. “You’re good. We can tell you know your shit.”

• This is an excerpt from Dreaming Japanese by Marty Friedman with Jon Wiederhorn (Permuted Press; December 2024).

Megadeth have fired back at Peter Frampton, who recently claimed he was forced to cancel a live show because the heavy metal outfit had damaged the stage during their soundcheck a few nights before.

It truly is the guitar beef that has taken everyone by surprise. Both acts were scheduled to play at the Virginia Credit Union Live! at Richmond Raceway earlier this month, but both were forced to cancel at the last minute.

At the time, both parties remained tight-lipped over the cancellation. Megadeth cited “unexpected and unpredictable circumstances”, while blues rock guitar great Frampton ambiguously pointed the finger at “unforeseen circumstances”.

However, a few days later, Frampton seemingly shed more light on the situation, alleging it was actually Megadeth’s fault that the shows couldn’t take place.

“We had a show canceled the other day because of the weather," Frampton informed the crowd at a subsequent show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "And also Megadeth did a soundcheck, I think a couple of days before our show, and after they finished their soundcheck, there was structural damage to the stage.

“I'm not blaming them – could have been another band – but it looks pretty like it. So, sorry, Megadeth. I had to rat on you.”

Camp Megadeth, clearly unhappy with Frampton’s onstage remarks, have now fired back with a strongly worded statement, with Dave Mustaine accusing the guitarist of, erm, talking out of his “ass”.

“It seems Frampton was misinformed about our show being cancelled,” Mustaine says. “The decision was purely based on safety. It's disappointing when someone you admire talks out their ass about you.”

In a longer statement, the band’s reps said: “Megadeth did not even get a chance to sound check at all in Richmond, Virginia contrary to what Peter Frampton reports.

“Megadeth’s rigger was in the venue's steel grid system above the stage getting ready to hang the lights when he noticed there was damage to the venue's grid. He pointed this out immediately to the promoters and the venue.

“It was determined that it was unsafe for Megadeth to hang their production or put the band on stage at the risk of in-house grid failure to support the weight of the touring lighting and sound which could fall on the band, crew members, or audience, as it could cause serious injury or death.

“Therefore, Megadeth, the local promoter, the venue, and booking agents had no other option than to cancel the show.”

Mustaine recently sat down with Guitarist for in-depth discussion about his guitar collection, during which he discussed the guitars he most misses, his amp philosophy, and why he's now smitten with the amp modeler.

Until recently, Dave Mustaine didn’t seek out electric guitars; the guitars sought him out, with endorsements from Jackson, Dean, ESP and now Gibson providing the arsenal for Megadeth’s state-of-the-art metal guitar sound.

But things have changed. This artist relationship with Gibson has awakened the collector in him, and now it’s time to stop, look around and smell the nitrocellulose. Here, he discusses a life in gear, the electric guitars he most misses, his guitar amp philosophy, the advice he has for all players, and why he is now smitten by the amp modeler.

What was the first serious guitar that you purchased with your own money?

“My Jackson… no, my BC Rich Bich 10-string.”

What was the last guitar you bought and why?

“I just bought a Gibson Les Paul Silverburst; it’s the second guitar in my collection. I just started collecting guitars once I went to Gibson because… honestly, all of the guitar companies I’ve been with [have enabled me to play] really wonderfully made guitars. The collection I’ve got now includes a Les Paul Junior and the Silverburst – it’s kind of changing colours because it’s so old.”

What’s the most incredible bargain you’ve ever come across?

“I don’t know… I really haven’t bought many guitars up until the last guitar I bought, which was the Les Paul. Gosh, I can’t even think about another guitar that I’ve bought lately because I’ve been so blessed to have endorsements for so long!”

Is there a guitar that you regret getting rid of?

“There are a lot of double-neck guitars that I’ve had to part ways with. And those were especially heartbreaking because the double-neck thing is kind of a work of art.”

What’s the worst case of buyer’s remorse you’ve ever experienced?

“I’ve had guitars that I really didn’t like, though I didn’t buy them, I possessed them. One that I really didn’t like was the aluminum Jackson [Roswell] Rhoads guitar. It didn’t sound good, didn’t play good, but it was a really neat moment.

“Even though Randy Rhoads had passed on, I don’t think he was the guy who would have played an aluminum spaceship-shaped guitar. He was more along the lines of the shark fin and his Les Pauls.”

What’s your best gear-buying tip?

“Learn how to play. Learn how to play because if you can’t play, you’ll find a pedal and you’ll cheat. You’ll find a pedal that makes you sound really good and you won’t be really good; you’ll be living a lie. Once you learn how to play really good, you’ll see those pedals as exactly what they are: a simple non-moving, analogue device that is a signal processor.”

Do you have a favourite place to shop for gear?

“I like the Gibson Garage. And there are a couple of other places, but like I said, I’m not a real big guitar collector yet. But I am realising that in the next couple of years, I will be because I’ve actually started enjoying walking around.

“I guess I’m at an age now where going out and seeing and getting to know the community where we’re playing is great. I can feel like, ‘Man, I really do have an emotional connection with this city or county,’ before I can go out and play the show.”

When was the last time you stopped and looked in a guitar shop window or browsed online and what were you looking at?

“I love what’s going on with my Gibson relationship. I look at a lot of that stuff. We’re doing some models, like the Flying V with 24 frets, and we’ve talked about a couple of others and are making them perfect. One of those is the Dave Mustaine Les Paul. It will play like a beast, be a 24-fret guitar, and have the heel shaved down.”

If forced to make a choice, would you rather buy a really good guitar and a cheap amp, or a cheap guitar and a top-notch amp?

“I think I would rather have a great guitar. If you have a really bad guitar, all you’re going to be doing is amplifying a really bad guitar that’s really difficult to play. And if it’s difficult to play, it’s gonna be like anything; you won’t hear it right any more.”

If you could only use humbuckers or single coil pickups for the rest of your career, which would it be and why?

“I don’t know what the single-coil thing is with me, but I’ve never really dug them. I know that I fell in love with Judas Priest in the beginning, and part of the sound that I liked was Glenn [Tipton]’s Strat on Victim Of Changes – that solo changed my world. Though it could have been K.K. Downing because I usually get who solos mixed up… [laughs] It was wonderful to hear, but it wasn’t my sound.

“My sound is humbuckers, which are brighter and crunchy. I have my Seymour Duncans – Seymour Duncan wrote the book on pickups. There’s a winder there who knows exactly what I like, and my [signature] Thrash Factors, to me, are the best pickups I’ve ever heard.

“They were modelled after Jeff Beck’s JB pickups [specifically the one on the guitar used to record fourth Megadeth album, Rust In Peace], and when I made my pickups, I said, ‘I want to have my own pickup,’ and so I made them mine. We noodled around with them and they’re great.”

Dave's go-to rig

“I’m using a Neural [DSP Quad Cortex] effects processor now; it’s like having the key to the city. I don’t know that there are a lot of beginners who are going to be able to make that kind of financial commitment to a piece of gear, but I absolutely love the processor. It does everything you can imagine. And I’m just getting started because there’s so much in there that you can go down a rabbit hole and never come up [laughs].

“For real amplifiers, I have my [Marshall] JCM800 and a white Randy Rhoads head that I use when soloing in the studio, but I don’t let anyone play or touch it. I like the JCM800 for that natural, surging, loud English crunch.

“For guitars, it’s any one of my Gibson Flying Vs, although I love my Explorer and my Les Pauls. They all sound great. The only difference is the wood, the finishing process and if the guitar has binding because that changes the sound and how it vibrates from the centre to the edges.

“These are the things that are really neat and interesting and have to do with physics and logic and all that shit. Most guitar players don’t worry about that stuff, but I’m very picky.”

• The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! is out now via UMe.

Dave Mustaine is continuing to build on his relationship with Gibson, as the Megadeth founder has confirmed that a signature Les Paul is definitely in the works.

“I love what’s going on with my Gibson relationship. I look at a lot of that stuff,” he says in the latest Guitarist issue.

“We’re doing some models, like the Flying V with 24 frets, and we’ve talked about a couple of others and are making them perfect. One of those is the Dave Mustaine Les Paul. It will play like a beast, be a 24-fret guitar, and have the heel shaved down.”

Mustaine previously teased the release of the Les Paul in a 2022 interview with Songfacts, saying, “We're working on the Explorer, and we have a 24-fret Les Paul I finished creating, but this is something for next year, maybe the year after.”

His guitar tech, Bryan Jones, also hinted at a signature Les Paul, posting a photo of what we can only assume is this guitar on social media in November 2022. The post has since been removed.

The guitar, pictured above, has similar black hardware and inlays to Mustaine's signature Flying Vs, with added witch-hat knobs. It sports 24 frets, his signature Seymour Duncan pickups, and a black finish.

So far, the Dave Mustaine collection includes the flagship Flying V EXP model with Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor pickups, the limited-edition and higher-end Flying V EXP Rust in Peace (currently sold out online), and the Songwriter, the first-ever Gibson acoustic with a 24-fret fingerboard.

In addition to these Gibson models, Mustaine has a more affordable line of signature guitars with Epiphone and Kramer: the Epiphone Dave Mustaine Flying V Prophecy, the Custom, and the Kramer Dave Mustaine Vanguard. These models were released last year after being initially announced back in February 2021.

In other Dave Mustaine news, Gibson recently released signature electric guitar strings with the Megadeth leader. The top-heavy set promises to “bring out the best in his signature Gibson guitars” and was unveiled alongside a signature guitar strap.

Gibson has unveiled its latest batch of signature Dave Mustaine products, which sees the brand branch out into the world of signature electric guitar strings.

In the past, Mustaine and Gibson’s collaborations have been strictly electric guitar in nature. The pair previously partnered for Epiphone and Kramer Flying V signature guitars, a Gibson Flying V EXP, and even a signature Songwriter acoustic guitar.

This time round, though, the two parties have turned their attention to the accessory department, with Gibson announcing a new set of Mustaine guitar strings.

Though at first glance this may seem a fairly tame drop, it’s worth noting Mustaine’s is the only set of signature guitar strings currently offered by Gibson. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find any hint of signature Gibson guitar strings in the recent past, save the Ultra-Light Les Paul-endorsed pack.

It’s certainly an interesting move from Gibson. Could this open the door for future signature strings for its other artists? Possibly – and probably. We’d be quick to rule out a Slash set, though: he’s firmly in the Ernie Ball camp.

Regardless, the Mustaine strings have supposedly been designed to “bring out the best in his signature Gibson guitars” – though we imagine they’d work just fine on practically any electric guitar – and deliver the “powerful, heavy sound and exceptional playing performance” the Megadeth frontman requires.

And, as an extra seal of approval, these are the same strings that Mustaine has been using on all his guitars during the band’s tour. In Gibson’s words, “They’re the loudest, best-performing strings he’s ever used.”

Specifically, they’re a top heavy set, with a gauge of .010, .013, .017, .030, .042 and .052.

The strings have been joined by a signature guitar strap, which isn’t as eyebrow-raising. It joins Adam Jones and Sister Rosetta Tharpe signature straps, and is made from full-grain black leather with and embossed Vic Rattled head artwork.

To find out more about each new release, head over to Gibson.

Dave Mustaine has heaped praise on Megadeth’s new guitarist, Teemu Mäntysaari, calling him a “monster” player and “the guy I’ve been looking for for a very long time”.

During a recent interview with Colombian YouTuber Alejandrosis, Mustaine shed more light on Kiko Loueiro's departure, and detailed what it's been like having Mäntysaari's monstrous talents onboard.    

Waxing lyrical of his skills, Mustaine said (via Blabbermouth) “Teemu is a monster. He is the guy I've been looking for for a very long time. I ask him to learn a song, he learns it. I ask him to learn a solo, he learns it. I ask him to learn a vocal part, he learns it. 

“He has a really great right hand,” he adds. “It's very intelligent. It's a lot like mine. I love watching him play and I love watching him learn, because he learns as fast as anybody else could, and it's made me really interested in my craft again. 

“I was not looking at [the] guitar like something I needed to make part of my day, every single day. Sometimes I would set the guitar down and I wouldn't touch it for a couple of days. 

“Ever since Teemu came in, I'm ready to warm up, I'm ready to practice, I'm ready to go over the solos, and I'm ready to fucking rip.” 

Mustaine also delved deeper into the departure of Mäntysaari's predecessor, reflecting: “Kiko leaving was bittersweet. Kiko is a really good dad, and he loves his family, and he also loves his craft. He's a wonderful guitar player, and he's been a good friend to me, Megadeth fans, and the band. 

“We found out that Kiko was having stress and strain on his family, being away so much, and we knew that it wasn't gonna get any better; it was just gonna be more shows and more time away from home.” 

He adds that Mäntysaari, who had originally stepped in as a touring member, joined to help Loueiro relieve some of that strain on his family. 

“We all agreed [to] bring in an understudy,” says Mustaine. “Teemu came in and helped us for a little while, and then we realized that this is probably the best thing, is for us to stick with Teemu and [for Kiko to] step aside and take care of [his] little ones until everything's okay.” 

Since entering the fold, he’s blown Mustaine away for his ability to learn the music and adapt into his new surroundings. 

In his interview with Alejandrosis, Mustaine continues: “I talk to Teemu and I say, 'We need to add a new song to the set.' [And he says] 'Okay. What song?' Are you fucking kidding me? You know how much I had to beg for the last 30 fucking years to get any of the other guitar players to learn somebody else's solo?! 

“And here you come in and flail this stuff out like you're eating Rice Krispies. I'm so excited, and I can't wait for you to see this dude.” 

Mäntysaari played his first show with the band in September 2023, having done “detective work” on the techniques employed across the Megadeth discography. 

Speaking to Guitar World for his first official interview since joining the American thrashers full-time, Mäntysaari said he’s “excited to bring my spice to the Megadeth soup” and has even hinted that there might be some “Rust in Peace vibes” to forthcoming material.

Loureiro, meanwhile, has recently teamed up with Plini to pen a song for Neural DSP – and made a huge impression on the Aussie maestro in the process.

Megadeth guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari joined the legendary thrash band in something of a whirlwind last year, drafted in as a last-minute replacement for fan-favorite Kiko Loureiro, who was called away to be with his family. 

Now, in a forthcoming interview for Guitar World, he tells us that though he never expected such a dream opportunity to land right in his lap, that didn’t stop him spending years preparing for just such an eventuality…

“I never thought something like this would happen to me,” says Mäntysaari. “But at the same time, I’ve always felt like being prepared was important in case a big band like this did call me.”

Mäntysaari was already an established pro when he got the call – widely respected among the European metal cognoscenti for his fleet-fingered fretting in power metal band Wintersun, alongside Smackbound – his poppier collaboration with Finnish actress Netta Laurenne. 

However, that blend of technicality and an openness to new projects seems to have left him in good stead for the opportunity of a lifetime: joining the ranks of Megadeth.

“I have a specific skillset where I can learn fast, jump into new situations, and be comfortable,” says Mäntysaari. 

“I’ve always liked doing that; I love teaching, and I’ve been on many cover projects, so being detail-oriented is part of my skillset.”

It’s a good thing, too. The guitarist says he’s worked extremely closely with both Loureiro and, in particular, Dave Mustaine in a forensic analysis of the parts. 

“[We’d] look at the small details of how they groove, the moods, and the technical side, explains Mäntysaari.

“We talked a lot about what Dave wants to project, picking directions, being very aware of down-picking, alternate picking, and, in many of the songs, being aware of both.

“We also talked about things like dampening, the flow of songs, creating contrast, hand positions, and trying to get things right fingering-wise, all of which I enjoy doing. There’s a bit of detective work involved, and to get that information from the source in Dave was amazing.”

Learning the Megadeth catalog to such a depth is an incredibly demanding task, but Mäntysaari notes the scale of the challenge has helped him cope with the wider “surreal” experience of joining the thrash icons.

“The momentum… how fast-paced it’s been has let me concentrate on getting my work done,” adds the guitarist. “There wasn’t much time to be nervous!”

Keep an eye on Guitar World for our full interview with Megadeth’s newest member 

Meanwhile, if you want to see how he handled the challenge, check out the footage of his first show with the band above and then find out more about Megadeth's new guitarist – a man described by Loureiro as an “an amazing, incredible player”.

Late last year, Kiko Loureiro announced his departure from Megadeth – and it turns out at the time the outgoing electric guitar virtuoso recommended to Dave Mustaine and co that he be formally replaced by one of his predecessors.

In November, the Ibanez signature artist officially drew his nine years of heavy metal service to a close, mere months after it was announced he’d be stepping down from Megadeth’s tour shows due to family reasons.

No successor was immediately named in the aftermath of Loureiro’s announcement, and for a brief period, guitar fans wondered whether former Megadeth man Marty Friedman – who had reunited with the band for the first time in 23 years not long before – was poised to make a sensational return.

As events would transpire, Friedman did not end up rejoining Mustaine, with the gig instead going to Finnish metal guitar prodigy Teemu Mäntysaari, who was formally christened the new Megadeth guitarist after first temporarily filling in for Loureiro.

But before Loureiro had scouted and selected Mäntysaari for the role, he approached Mustaine and Megadeth management with another option: to rehire Friedman.

When it was put to him in an upcoming interview with Guitar World that many metal fans would have been holding out for Friedman’s return, Loureiro revealed, “Actually, I even mentioned to management and Dave that I thought bringing Marty Friedman back would be amazing.”

Though, obviously, that didn’t pan out in the short-term, Loureiro did imply that further conversations concerning personnel may be ongoing: “I have no idea if they’re talking about it or talking to him, but I did say that. But again, I have no idea beyond that, and I don’t want to make anything more complicated.”

Whether anything comes of it remains to be seen, but for now, the mantle of Megadeth lead guitarist remains firmly with Mäntysaari, who entered the fray with sky-high praise from Loureiro: “He's an amazing, incredible player.”

In his conversation with Guitar World, Loureiro – who replaced Chris Broderick – also took the opportunity to reflect on his time as Megadeth’s guitarist, and paid tribute to the fans who accepted him in Friedman’s role.

“The fans never said anything bad about me or complained, which was amazing,” he said. “But I’m a fan, and I always understood that Marty was a part of those iconic albums like Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction. 

“I understood that Marty was the guy who helped create that sound and style, you know? From the moment I joined Megadeth, I knew the fans could show me love, but I would never win their hearts over Marty.” 

What can we take away from all this? Well, perhaps the door isn’t completely closed on a Friedman return at some point in the future. As mentioned, he’s already refamiliarized himself with Megadeth material thanks to those two guest performances he completed last year.

Last year, Friedman said of his relationship with Mustaine, “We're just two rock 'n' rollers with teenage dreams that never die. Both of us did whatever we had to do to make it happen. I think with guys who have had long careers, you'll probably find that we are very much in touch with our 15-year-old selves. And that is the prime motivator to go out of our way.”

No doubt his potential enlistment would go down well with Megadeth fans, who would certainly welcome the return of one of the band's most influential past members.

Stay tuned to GuitarWorld.com for the full interview with Loureiro, in which he opens up about why he left Megadeth, and what's in the cards for his future.

Dave Mustaine has officially named Megadeth’s new electric guitar player, following Kiko Loureiro’s announcement that he would be stepping back from the band for the foreseeable future.

Loureiro, who dropped out of the band’s fall tour earlier this year citing family reasons, confirmed in a post yesterday (November 21) that he’d be extending his absence into 2024 as Megadeth eyes up yet another hectic year of touring.

In his statement, the Ibanez signature artist said he didn't “want to hinder any of the band’s plans,” and reflected on his “unbelievable journey” with the band.

At the time, fans began theorizing who his replacement would be, and now Mustaine – in a touching post that paid tribute to the heavy metal guitar hero – has finally put the rumors to bed by confirming the band’s immediate plans.

As many had been expecting, Mustaine confirmed that Teemu Mäntysaari, the young Finnish metaller who Loureiro hired and trained to fill his boots this year, would be carrying on as “the guitar player for Megadeth” for the foreseeable future.

“The 2023 tour is over, and it was long and arduous,” Mustaine said in his post. “Last year saw a substantial amount of touring, and it appears that 2024 is gearing up to be even more intense, with extensive touring commitments keeping us on the road for most of the year.

“We have had many conversations with Kiko about this, and they have all been very positive,” he continued. 

“Kiko is going to remain on an extended leave of absence due to our heavy touring commitments next year, and we are going to continue to move forward with Teemu Mäntysaari as the guitar player for Megadeth.”

The news puts to bed any fanciful theories concerning a sensational return for Marty Friedman, who recently rekindled his onstage relationship with his former bandmates in their first performance together in 23 years.

It is also a huge vote of confidence for young Mäntysaari from Mustaine, and a clear sign of just how highly the Finnish shredder is viewed by his new bandmates. 

We can’t say we’re surprised, though: Mäntysaari absolutely smashed his first live show with Megadeth (see the video below), and Loureiro himself vouched for the youngster by calling him “an amazing, incredible player.”

Similar to Loureiro’s own post, Mustaine’s update seemingly leaves the door open for the outgoing guitarist to return after 2024, should that be desired by both parties. 

Elsewhere in the post, Mustaine paid tribute to Loureiro – who was drafted in to replace Chris Broderick – saying Megadeth’s recent success would not have been possible without the services of the Brazilian virtuoso.

“I want you to know that I love, respect, and fully support Kiko’s decision,” he wrote. “He has emphasized his love for me, Megadeth, and all of you, our fans.

“Kiko is a top-notch professional, a maestro – and he did not want to hurt me or Megadeth. We came up with a solution to find a fill-in for him during that time and that’s when he presented and trained Teemu Mäntysaari to take over for us.

“In the beginning, this was only going to be until the first week of October. However, things rarely turn out the way they are planned.

“I would like to thank Kiko for his dedication and hard work these past 9 years, helping us to achieve a Grammy on Dystopia and the additional awards we have received on this latest record, The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! I could not have done this without Kiko Loureiro.”

This isn’t the first time Mustaine has reserved such praise for his right-hand man. Speaking to Guitar World earlier this year, the Gibson signature artist labeled Loureiro as the best-ever guitarist in Megadeth’s history.

“Megadeth has had guys like Jeff [Young] and Marty [Friedman], but Kiko is the best we’ve ever had,” Mustaine said. “I don’t say that because Kiko is in the band now; I say it because it’s the truth. Kiko is the best guitar player out of all of them.”

To keep up to date with Megadeth, head over to the band’s official Instagram account.

Kiko Loureiro has announced he will be leaving Megadeth after serving as one of the legendary heavy metal outfit’s electric guitar players for the past nine years.

Breaking the news on social media, Loureiro confirmed it had been “collectively agreed” between concerned parties that he would extend his absence, paving the way for a new, currently unannounced guitar player to fill his spot.

The formal departure comes mere months after Loureiro announced he’d been forced to step down from the band’s recent tour leg back in September due to family reasons.

“I want to share with you a decision that hasn’t been easy for me,” Loureiro said in a statement. “In September, I had to step away from the US leg of the tour for family reasons. Looking ahead, during 2024, we anticipate an even heavier touring schedule for Megadeth.

“After thorough reflection and discussions with Dave Mustaine and Megadeth’s management, we have collectively agreed that it is the right move to extend my absence,” the Ibanez signature artist went on. “I don’t want to hinder any of the band’s plans or the hard work of all the incredible people involved in the tour. 

“My nine years with Megadeth have been an unbelievable journey, filled with countless ‘pinch-me’ moments. Unforgettable tours, a Grammy Award for Dystopia, a Grammy nomination, and various accolades for The Sick, The Dying, and The Dead are just a few of these highlights.”

“I am sure any heavy metal fan can appreciate how incredible it is to play and create music in a band you grew up listening to, and to share the stage with a guitar legend like Dave Mustaine, along with phenomenal musicians like James LoMenzo and Dirk Verbeuren, not to mention our incredible crew.

“However, the most cherished aspect of these nine years has been getting to know the incredible army of devoted Megadeth fans around the world. Your dedication is inspiring, and I have immense admiration and respect for you all.”

By the very nature of the statement itself, the guitarist seemingly leaves the door open for a return in the future post-2024, but for now, the future of Megadeth looks Loureiro-less.

Loureiro was initially brought in to replace Chris Broderick, and will be fondly remembered for his prolific, near-decade stint with the heavy metal icons by both fans and his former bandmates. Indeed, Dave Mustaine recently labeled the Brazilian virtuoso as the best guitar player in Megadeth’s history.

“Megadeth has had guys like Jeff [Young] and Marty [Friedman], but Kiko is the best we’ve ever had,” Mustaine told Guitar World earlier this year. “I don’t say that because Kiko is in the band now; I say it because it’s the truth. Kiko is the best guitar player out of all of them.”

In wake of this announcement, fans have already begun speculating over Loureiro’s potential replacement – and it wouldn’t be completely unreasonable to suggest his successor may already be in place.

When Loureiro announced he’d be taking a step back from live duties, he was replaced by young Finnish metal guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, who made a lightning-quick start to life as Megadeth’s new fill-in fretter. Indeed, he absolutely nailed his first live show (see the video above), with Loureiro introducing the youngster as “an amazing, incredible player” at the time.

Of course, Mäntysaari certainly seems like the obvious candidate for the job – Mustaine recently told Wes Styles that he was “super-excited with what Teemu has brought” – but that won’t stop fans putting other theories forward.

Another name that will inevitably get thrown up, no matter how sensational it may seem at first, is Marty Friedman. Sure, it’s unlikely, but Friedman – a former Megadeth guitarist himself – recently rekindled his relationship with Mustaine and co, and joined the band for the first time in 23 years at a headline show in Tokyo.

That was followed by a further guest spot, with Friedman then joining the band for a four-song cameo during the Wacken Open Air festival in August. Were these shows just an excuse for Friedman to refamiliarize himself with Megadeth material? Like we say, it's unlikely, but we imagine there would be no shortage of fans who'd like to see that happen.

As such, it seems Mäntysaari will continue in his current role for the foreseeable future, and since he's been rather inactive on social media as of late, a special announcement may be incoming.

Head over to Megadeth’s official Instagram account for future updates.

UPDATE 11/21/2023: Megadeth's new guitarist has been officially announced.

With a dad like country great Steve Wariner, it’s no surprise that Ryan Wariner ended up flanking music royalty – including the likes of Gene Simmons, Dave Mustaine, Chris Cornell, and Ann Wilson.

But while Wariner shares his dad’s passion, he doesn’t share his affinity for chicken pickin’ licks, instead choosing to rock out – though his dad did influence him to pick up the guitar in the first place: “The first thing was seeing my dad play electric guitar,” Wariner says. “I thought it was the coolest thing, and I wanted one.”

“I had toy guitars as a kid in diapers, so I guess I was collecting guitars even then,” he laughs. “And I remember hearing White Room, and it being like a lightning bolt. I begged my parents for an electric guitar and never looked back.”

The youngster soon traded in his toy guitars for a real one, which his dad loved: “My dad was all about it,” Wariner says. “But he pushed me in the direction he went. I was into rock from the start.”

Through his father is a bona fide legend, Wariner erred toward his mother’s music taste, shaping his career: “The drive for the rock thing came from my mom,” he says. “She doesn’t have any musical talent but had that taste.”

He continues, “When I was nine, she said, ‘Have you heard Eddie Van Halen?’ I said, ‘No,’ and she said, ‘Oh, you’re going to like Eddie.’ She was right, and I never went down my dad’s path. I love it when I hear it, but all I ever cared about was rock.”

These days, Wariner is an established Nashville session player, though not for the same reasons as his dad. He’s bucked the trend in a city known for its twang by injecting power chords into the mix.

He’s become a go-to hired gun in situations that call for rock delivered through a Marshall stack, leading to a spot in Ann Wilson of Heart’s solo band: “Ann was working with Tom Bukovac, and he’d let her know he couldn’t do it anymore. So, word traveled through the grapevine, and eventually, my friend Rob McNelly told them I’d be good for the gig.”

“So, they called me,” he continues. “We jammed on some classic Heart songs, like Crazy on You and Barracuda, and it went great. The gig was a no-brainer, and really, the gig of a lifetime. I don’t just play shows; I get to be a band member and help write songs. I’m the luckiest guy, and it keeps getting better.”

One of your highlights is working with Gene Simmons. How did that happen? 

“I got that gig through some friends of mine who live in Nashville, Jeremy Asbrock, and Phil Shouse. They were playing with Gene and had some gigs they couldn’t do. But I wasn’t a diehard Kiss guy like them; I knew the staples.

“So, when I got there, the preparation was knowing that I had to play the songs exactly as the fans expected to hear them. Jeremy and Phil were keyed in on every nuance, and I needed to be, too. That was the most I ever dug in regarding playing everything as it was on the record.”

Was Gene easy to get along with?

“I didn’t meet Gene until the afternoon before the first show when he came into the dressing room to hang out. He brought a bass, went through a few things, and said, ‘Wow, you did your homework.’ After that, we did the show, and he spent the rest of the night telling us stories. Despite having a big personality, Gene was very kind and gracious.”

Tell me about playing slide guitar on Megadeth’s Poisonous Shadows.

“I was playing a show with my dad in Nashville – I was playing slide – and Dave [Mustaine] was there. So, afterward, he got a hold of me, saying, ‘I’m in Nashville working on a record [Dystopia], and I have a song that I don’t want any shredding on,’ and then he said, ‘I need some slide. Would you come down and play?’”

Why did Dave choose you?

“He said, ‘I love your intonation and touch on the slide,’ which was terrific. It was an immediate ‘yes’ from me, as I’d loved Megadeth since I was a kid. I can tell you that eighth grade me would never think something like that would happen.”

What gear did you use?

“The same Gibson Les Paul I’m using with Ann Wilson, plugged into Dave’s rig. I’ve had many Custom Shop Les Pauls, but there’s something about that one. But anyway, Dave gave me the melody, and we did it in about 20 minutes, and said, ‘Okay, let’s go to lunch.’ We hung out, and he was very appreciative, but they forgot to add me to the album credits… but it was still amazing.”

How did you find yourself in the studio with Chris Cornell? 

“The Chris Cornell thing was one of the best experiences ever. Chris’s voice was unreal, and Soundgarden was my favorite band of that era. The project was a Johnny Cash thing called Forever Words, and Chris was there to cut this track, You Never Knew My Mind, comprised of unfinished [Cash lyrics] from the ‘70s. Chris’s track was dark and slow-paced, and they chose me because they didn’t want a typical Nashville session guy; they wanted a rock guy.”

Was it nerve-wracking stepping into the studio with Chris?

“Well, my friends sold them on me, telling them, ‘Ryan is the guy, and he’s a rock guy.’ So, I just showed up with a couple of guitars and got set up. But Chris was super-cool and friendly, and within 10 minutes, we were rolling. I tried to treat it like any other session, started to think about the arrangement, and stayed ready.”

And was it easy to catch Chris’s vibe?

“I was sitting in this chair and getting dialed in, and we did the first take with headphones on. I was so focused that I didn’t even notice Chris entering the booth. But when he started singing, I heard it through the headphones and got cold chills. I almost stopped playing because I’d never heard his voice like that. After that, we cut the acoustic stuff with an old Gibson J-45 in two takes and then did overdubs.”

You laid down some incredible electric work there, too. Was that with a Strat?

“It was. It was a maple neck ’59 Strat that my uncle gave me. It’s a guitar that my dad also used a lot in the ‘80s, so it’s been on several famous records. My buddy Stanton [Adcock], from The Wallflowers, actually played that guitar once and said, ‘Dude, I have to stop – I’m never gonna want to play my guitars again!’”

How did you create the spooky vibe throughout the track?

“I pulled out my Prescription Electronics Experience Fuzz, my favorite secret weapon in the studio. I used that to make the spooky sounds, with a ton of delay and reverb. It’s to the point that you could barely tell what I did, and it sounds like weirdness permeating the track.”

Did you receive any feedback from Chris?

“I found out later that what I did there was Chris’s favorite thing about the track. Chris had said I created ‘a symphony of chaos,’ which is crazy because I was just trying to stay above water. Hearing that meant the world to me. It meant even more because he was gone less than a year later. Some days are like that, where they’re just pure magic.”

You’ve mentioned a few guitars you’re partial to, but what amps do you rely on? 

“I’m a real amp-head, man. I’ve been collecting vintage amps forever. My favorite is a purple ’68 100-watt Marshall Plexi. It’s the holy grail, and I’d never trade it. I’ve had a ton, but that one is the one that I can’t live without. I randomly found it on eBay, took a chance, and it paid off.

“It’s got the old Van Halen Sylvania tubes, and it’s my favorite color, so it’s an absolute powerhouse. I’ve got old Supros, Vox AC30s, and used old black-panel Fenders a lot, but I always seem to go back to my purple Marshall.”

What are your greatest challenges as a session player?

“Man, the biggest challenge is not getting stuck in my head. Not all sessions are created equal regarding their coolness, but that doesn’t matter, because everyone in the room is top-notch. And that’s another thing I need to overcome: feeling like I’m not as good as the others in the room. I have to remember that I wouldn’t be there if I couldn’t keep up. I often remind myself that I’m good enough to be there.”

And what’s your greatest triumph?

“The session with Chris Cornell. The fact that we nailed it in two takes while dialing in the sound, and that the fuzz thing was Chris’s favorite meant a lot.

“But also, working with Ann Wilson. Touring and recording with a legend is not something I take lightly. I’m very proud of Another Door because some of that stuff is my favorite to play live; everyone reacts so well to it. So, working with Ann is deeply rewarding. It’s a high-water mark.”

• For more information, head to RyanWariner.com.

Dave Mustaine recently discussed the first time he got to witness James Hetfield play guitar, describing the moment as “kind of shocking.”

These days, Hetfield is renowned as one of the planet’s finest rhythm players, but clearly that was not the case in the early ’80s – even amongst those who knew him best.

Mustaine is interviewed in the new issue of Metal Hammer and – among the other ups, downs, and, well, unadulterated chaos of life as a thrash metal legend – recalls his earliest rehearsals with Metallica.

At that time in their careers, Mustaine says the burgeoning thrash icons were still finding their feet, with Hetfield preferring to take on vocal duties and leave his electric guitar at home. 

As such, the band were hosting auditions for a rhythm guitarist, but had struggled to find a good fit. Meanwhile, Mustaine, says he wasn’t pushing himself as a guitarist, either.

“I was kind of playing at Lars [Ulrich]’s level, because Lars was still learning to play drums back then,” says Mustaine (via Louder). 

“But watching James play guitar for the first time was kind of shocking, because I didn’t know he knew how to play guitar.”

Mustaine says Hetfield’s move to rhythm duties was born more out of a lack of options, rather than any need for Hetfield to prove himself. Indeed, he compares the experience to his own fruitless search for an alternative singer in Megadeth. 

“We just got fed up one day of auditioning guitar players, just like I did with singers,” says Mustaine.

“And he picked up this guitar and started playing, and inside I’m going, ‘Get the fuck out of here. How can you possibly be satisfied being a singer when you play like that? Why not be both?’ I’ve always thought he was a really talented guitarist.”

The animosity between Mustaine and Metallica seems to be long gone now, and the Megadeth man has been dishing out the compliments lately – not least to Kirk Hammett. 

Back in Mustaine’s June Guitar World interview, the guitarist was asked his opinion on Hammett’s lead work on Metallica’s new album, 72 Seasons. 

Rather than twist the knife, Mustaine took the chance to discuss how Hammett did him an honor taking on his Metallica solos –  and pointed out just how quickly metal guitar’s armchair critics had turned on Hammett. 

“There was a time when Kirk won every guitar contest in the world, and I don't think he's gotten any better or worse as a player,” said Mustaine. “He's always been really good… he's been steady the entire time he's been in Metallica.”

To read Mustaine’s full interview, check out pick up a copy of the new issue of Metal Hammer.

Kiko Loureiro has announced he has been forced to step down from the forthcoming fall leg of Megadeth’s Crush The World tour due to family reasons.

Never one to do things by halves, though, Loureiro has already sourced his own replacement, in the form of Finnish metal guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari. The band made the announcement with a post on social media yesterday (September 5). 

“I have something that is difficult to share,” writes Loureiro in the update. “But we always like to keep you informed with the truth. I have to leave the tour for now, to be home with my children, and to help them face the difficult challenges that arise from us being Dads that work away from home.

“I found a guitarist, Teemu Mäntysaari, to fill in for me during the fall, and I think you'll be very happy. He's an amazing, incredible player. I have shared this with my partner in shred, Dave Mustaine, and to no surprise, he said, 'Go! Go be there for your family and keep us posted!'

“To my band mates and all of our fans around the world, see you all very soon, back out on the Killing Road!”

The post also states that the band have no intention of canceling tour dates and that Mäntysaari is set to make his debut tonight (September 6) at the band’s show at the Revel Arena in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So who is Mäntysaari? The 36 year-old guitarist is a star on the Nordic metal scene. He hails from Tampere in Finland, and is best known for his role in respected power metallers Wintersun, who he joined in 2005.

That gig has given him plenty of experience in front of big crowds. Mäntysaari also teaches guitar, taking on students from around the world for online lessons and posts YouTube clips and playthroughs.

In 2015, he also teamed-up with Finnish actress and singer Netta Laurenne to form the poppier hard-rock band Smackbound, which shows he’s comfortable switching styles.

Loureiro (who is married to Finnish pianist Maria Ilmoniemi, and lives in Finland with their three daughters) was no doubt already familiar with Mäntysaari’s formidable chops. 

Like Loureiro, Mäntysaari’s background in the pace-y, hyper-technicality of neo-classical power metal should leave him in good stead for the demands of the Megadeth gig.

In particular, Mäntysaari’s renowned for his jaw-dropping speed and precision, and his clips are full of insanely clean sweep picking and deadeye rhythm chops. However, pace alone won’t be enough to win his new boss over, as Dave Mustaine revealed in his Guitar World interview earlier this year.

“It's not about how fast you can shred, you know?” said Mustaine. “For me, a guitar player is evaluated the most on what type of player they really are. What kind of songwriter are they? What kind of rhythm player are they? How do they execute solos? How do they do with layering?

“That last one is big – you need to be able to layer guitar tones properly. If you can't, you're missing a massive piece of the puzzle.”

We suspect Mäntysaari has it covered. In the meantime, if you want to get a sense of the standards demanded, check out this clip of Mustaine, Marty Friedman and Kiko Loureiro rehearsing together.

While the Prophecy is undoubtedly the most sonically updated of Dave Mustaine’s new signature guitars, it still has more of a vintage aesthetic in line with the rounded edges of the original Flying Vs of the late ’50s. The Kramer Vanguard, on the other hand, is less retro and more futuristic thanks to its sharper contours and knifelike edges. 

In that regard, it bears kinship with the Megadeth founder’s previous signatures through ESP and Dean – pointy metal machines that wouldn’t look out of place in an executioner’s hands. 

Spec-wise, this signature is almost identical to the Epiphone Custom, with a pair of Thrash Factor humbuckers on an all-mahogany body and neck, as well as the ebony fingerboard and string-through tailpiece. The only discernible difference is the longer scale length that’s typical of most Strats and Superstrats, Kramer included. 

At just over seven pounds, with the others sitting in the upper sixes, it’s also marginally heavier – though the differences are negligible. It’s another thing to be aware of if you’re the kind of player that needs to try before you buy.

There are also more options in terms of colour scheme, with finishes in Ebony and Silver Metallic, as well as a limited edition Rust In Peace model in Alien Tech Green.

Plugged into a high-gain amp, our review model sounds just as menacing as it looks, churning out the classic riffs and leads to Tornado of Souls with little need for tweaking.

The Vanguard is arguably the most visually striking of Mustaine's new signature Vs, though despite sharing the same pickups and neck-through design, it doesn’t quite keep up with his Epiphone Custom in terms of brightness, sustain and playability. But if shredding is your business… then business is good.

Specs

• PRICE: $1,299 / £1,399
• BODY: Mahogany 
• SCALE: 648mm (25.5”)
• PICKUPS: Seymour Duncan Dave Mustaine Signature Thrash Factor Set
• HARDWARE: LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge, String-Thru Flying V tailpiece, Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners, Graph Tech nut
• FINISH: Ebony, Silver Metallic or Alien Tech Green 
• CONTACT: Kramer

Last week, Marty Friedman reunited with his old Megadeth bandmates at Germany’s Wacken Open Air Festival for a ferocious four-song guest spot.

It was only the second time in 23 years that Friedman had shared the stage with Dave Mustaine, following a similarly fleeting cameo appearance during the band’s show at Tokyo’s Budokan arena.

Seeing Friedman link up with Megadeth to perform a quartet of tracks from his 1990-2000 tenure was in itself enough to satisfy the most ardent metal fans, but now the band’s resident electric guitar hero Kiko Loureiro has gone one step further.

In a new video posted to his YouTube channel, the Ibanez signature artist has shared behind-the-scenes footage of the band rehearsing for their Wacken Open Air Festival set.

With Dirk Verbeuren positioned behind an electric drum kit – and the rest of the assembly squeezed into a cozy rehearsal room – Friedman, Mustaine and Loureiro first lock the fretboards of their respective Jackson, Gibson and Ibanez models to trade chugs and harmonize licks over Symphony of Destruction.

Footage of the ensemble tightening up the middle riff section of Tornado of Souls has also kindly been provided by Loureiro.

Perhaps the highlight of the video, though, is seeing Friedman’s gravity-defying solo on Symphony up close. That he’d want to spend every available moment practicing such lead lines is understandable, given he recently told Guitar World those solos would pose the biggest challenge to a Megadeth reunion.

“If there was any challenge [in regards to reuniting with Megadeth] at all, I guess it would be playing the solos the way the fans remember them, which is something I wanted to do,” Friedman offered. “My playing has evolved so much since those songs came out, and there are so many nuances I would naturally do differently now. 

“I had to resist the urge to play it like I would in 2023 and stick to the original way. For example, in a couple of those songs, I entered the solo on the downbeat, with the first note being the root of the chord. I would definitely avoid both of those things now, but apparently, I was fine with it back then!”

Epiphone launched the Prophecy Series back in 2008 in a bid to reimagine some of the best-selling Gibson designs for the new millennium with modern appointments such as higher-output pickups and added tonal options. In that regard, this latest addition, one of two Dave Mustaine Epiphone signature guitars released this year, delivers on its promise.

The most noticeable upgrades are the AAA flame maple veneer glued on top of its mahogany body, locking tuners and the inclusion of two Fishman Fluence humbuckers in place of the passive Seymour Duncans.

The active pickups were custom-voiced, boasting three modes: a warm PAF-style humbucker, a more scooped modern option and a shimmering single-coil sound, as well as coil-splits – making this the most versatile Dave Mustaine signature ever made by quite some margin.

Aged Dark Red Burst is also a new finish designed just for the metal legend, so there’s a lot to like here. Interestingly, this model features no string-through tailpiece; instead, it’s fitted with the same kind of bridge and stopbar setup found on Les Pauls and SGs.

There are benefits to both – some say there’s increased opportunity for the strings to ‘excite’ the wood and therefore sustain when resonating from within, while others might argue a stopbar allows for more control over tension and tone.

And speaking of tone, you’re almost spoiled for choice with all the voicing and splitting options – which are every bit as impressive as the Fluence units we’ve tested in the past. All in all, the Prophecy is a versatile beast that can handle just about any musical situation.

The Prophecy can certainly cover a lot more tonal ground than the Epiphone Flying V Custom and Kramer Mustaine signature range, but it’s also close enough in price to a Gibson USA Flying V for players to spend a little more and upgrade the pickups themselves – which, provided the original humbuckers are kept, will hold its value better from an investment perspective. That said, it’s the only guitar you’ll ever find in Aged Dark Red Burst…

Specs

• PRICE: $1,499 / £1,599
• BODY: Mahogany with a AAA Flame Maple Veneer
• SCALE: 628mm (24.75”)
• PICKUPS: Custom-voiced Fishman Fluence
• HARDWARE: LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge and stopbar, Grover Locking Mini Rotomatic tuners, Graph Tech nut
• FINISH: Aged Dark Red Burst 
• CONTACT: Epiphone

As one of the godfathers of thrash, Dave Mustaine knows a thing or two about high-performance metal machines. His guitar playing took what was then underground music to newer and heavier extremes, driven by his thirst for unrelenting noise just as much as his desire to eclipse the band that famously ousted him on April 11, 1983. 

He became an architect of anger, channelling all of his frustrations with the world around him into the finger-twisting riffs and neck-thickening brutality heard on songs like Peace Sells, In My Darkest Hour, Hangar 18 and Symphony Of Destruction – all of which have stood the test of time and remained relevant to new generations of metal fans year after year. 

Which is precisely why his latest signature guitars through Epiphone and Kramer have been greeted by much excitement across the world. As to be expected, the Gibson models thus far have priced out those on tighter budgets. And while this Custom isn't exactly entry-level in terms of cost, Mustaine has ensured it is as close to the instrument he’s seen with on stage as humanly possible at a much more affordable price point. 

For example, 24-fret Flying Vs – at least for these brands – haven’t been produced with much regularity over the years, so this new line gives players a chance to own an instrument with extra range. 

Even if you’re not a Megadeth fan, there may very well be some strong appeal there. The pickups have also been chosen to cater for thrash metal aficionados.

From the new range, it’s the Flying V Custom that looks closest to last year’s limited run of 75 Gibson Custom Shop guitars in Ebony VOS. Those instruments, however, were four times as expensive, and naturally there are some differences to be found on closer inspection. 

For example, the scale length on the Epiphone is what you’d expect from Gibson-style guitars, while the 2022 collector’s pieces had a longer, Fender-style scale as well as a maple cap on top of the mahogany body. 

Other cost-saving factors include swapping the mother-of-pearl Mustaine inlays for basic dots and knurled black metal knobs in place of the black witch hats, though build quality and tonewood aside, that’s really about it. 

The model sports the Megadeth frontman’s uncovered Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor set, some lavish tuxedo-style binding and a ‘hockey stick’ headstock more akin to the original Explorers than typical Flying V arrowheads. 

And some might even say the Epiphone has a bit more to it in terms of finish, with metallic sparkles dotted within its visual darkness instead of flat black throughout.

But is it capable of administering the punishment due? We’re happy to report that it passes the test with effortless ease, with a bright and loud acoustic snap that gets articulated very well indeed by said signature Seymours, which pack a direct current resistance of 7.6k in the neck and a whopping 16.4k in the bridge. As for playability – provided you have a strap – this is a guitar that virtually plays itself.

Of all Mustaine’s lower-priced new Epiphones and Kramers, it’s the Custom that plays, looks and sounds closest to what he will be using on stage night after night. It’s the most acoustically resonant of the three guitars by quite some distance and therefore feels closest to its Gibson counterpart in terms of quality.

The signature Thrash Factor pickups are surprisingly versatile, thanks to the pairing of a medium-output Alnico V humbucker in the neck and a much hotter option in the bridge. All of which makes this our favorite budget Dave Mustaine model.

Specs

• PRICE: $/£1,399
• BODY: Mahogany 
• SCALE: 628mm (24.75”)
• PICKUPS: Seymour Duncan Dave Mustaine Signature Thrash Factor Set
• HARDWARE: LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge, String-Thru Flying V tailpiece, Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners, Graph Tech nut
• FINISH: Black Metallic 
• CONTACT: Epiphone

From a lead guitar perspective, Megadeth's formative years are dominated by Chris Poland and Jeff Young.

With his fusion-inspired licks, Poland defined Megadeth's first two records, Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good! (1985), and Peace Sells… But Who's Buying? (1986). Jeff Young did, in fact, swoop in to save the day, handily shredding his way through 1988's So Far, So Good… So What! But none of that would have been possible if not for another unsung hero of the six-string, Greg Handevidt – aka Megadeth's first lead guitarist.

"I first met Dave Mustaine through David Ellefson," Handevidt recalls. "Ellefson and I were buddies in high school, and five days after we graduated, we piled into his van and headed out to Hollywood in 1983. The plan was to go to the Guitar Institute, and as fate would have it, David and I moved into an apartment directly below Dave Mustaine. Mustaine had only been separated from Metallica for two or three weeks when we met him, and it was obvious that he was still emotionally raw."

Considering Handevidt and Ellefson were only 18 or 19 years old at the time, it's easy to see why the duo would be intimidated by Mustaine, who may have only been 22 but had seen the underbelly of a world that Handevidt and Ellefson could only dream of.

"Mustaine was this brooding creature," Handevidt says. "He seemed angry, but we immediately noticed the guy was talented. He didn't talk to us at first and was super-guarded. Instead, he'd hang by the window and listen to us when we'd be talking outside, and he probably overheard us when we were practicing, too."

"So, one day, we had nothing to do, and I was like, 'Hey, let's go up and knock on that guy's door… let's see what his deal is. He seems pretty metal; I bet we'd get along.' So, we went up, knocked on the door, and then the door swung open, and there's Dave with this look on his face that all but said, 'What the fuck are you doing here?' He immediately told us, 'No interviews…' because he thought we were two guys from a magazine trying to talk to him about Metallica or get a picture of him looking all weird and shit. At that point, we turned around and almost went back downstairs…"

Suddenly, as if fate were guiding them by the hand, Handevidt and Ellefson stopped dead in their tracks, climbed back up the stairs, and pursued Mustaine again.

"We decided to go back… we wanted to see what his deal was," Handevidt continues. "He was so mysterious, and curiosity got the best of us. So, after Mustaine had slammed the door in our faces, we came back and knocked again. And once more, the door swings open, and there's Dave, 'Why do you keep bothering me?'"

"At first, Ellefson and I weren't sure what to say," admits Handevidt. "Dave can be pretty intimidating, but eventually, I said, 'We're the guys from downstairs…' and immediately, Mustaine's whole deal changed, 'Oh! You're the guys from downstairs? Man, come on in.' Then he brought us into his small apartment, and we ended up chilling out all night, just drinking beer and getting to know him. That's basically how Megadeth started… us refusing to walk away from that door."

The earliest days of Megadeth mostly involved heavy drinking and a whole lot of headbanging. But between the drunken conversations, sweaty nights, and bouts of temperamental rage, to Handevidt, it was apparent that Mustaine had magic at his fingertips… even if he didn't know it then.

"I'd hear Dave aimlessly riffing on the couch, and it's those same riffs that ended up making up many of the songs on the first two Megadeth records, and frankly, Metallica's Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, and parts of Master of Puppets, too. But anyway, I'm sitting there, listening to Dave write all these riffs, and I'd be jamming out with him. Through that, we became really good friends, and we formed Megadeth."

These jam sessions developed from a group of friends hanging about to the official birth of Megadeth.

"Eventually, I went to Dave and said, 'Hey man, let me officially try out for your new band…'" Handevidt recalls. "Dave was immediately into it, and from there, I ended up in the band with him.

"But Dave was still looking for a bass player to officially join, and he was trying out all these guys. I knew that Ellefson was way better than who he'd been trying out, so I said, 'Hey, what about David? He can do it….' So, I guess that was when Megadeth was officially born or whatever. That would have been May or June of '83.'"

Handevidt recalls some classic riffs being thrown around in those early rehearsals.

"It's hard to pinpoint that all because a lot of those songs got dissected and broken down and ended up on Metallica records," he admits. "But I remember rehearsing Jump in the Fire with Dave, but not exactly the version we hear on Kill 'Em All; half of Dave's original composition actually ended up on Ride the Lightning. And parts of Looking Down the Cross were originally pieces of tracks Dave had written for Metallica, but we developed the Megadeth version early on."

"What caused the biggest issue for Dave was when Metallica put out Kill' Em All in July of '83; he then had to rework everything," Handevidt says. "We had been playing a version of Mechanix, which Metallica recorded as The Four Horsemen. Aside from that, we played an early version of Rattlehead and a bunch of the other stuff that ended up being on the first two Megadeth records. Of course, they were a lot different and needed to be reworked because of Kill 'Em All throwing a wrench into things."

Of course, this begs the question: were any of Handevidt's early exploits alongside Mustaine and Ellefson ever laid to tape? Any self-respecting metalhead has heard the stories of Metallica's No Life 'Til Leather demo, which catapulted the band to fame. Such a tape of Megadeth's earliest lineup exists, too – but its whereabouts is unknown.

"I never got to play a show with Megadeth, but we did record a demo," Handevidt states. "We recorded one little demo in some guy's living room down in Reseda, and then I left not too long after, just before Megadeth played its first show.

"God... I wish I could get my hands on that thing because, man, that demo is somewhere out there in the world, and it is worth a ton. It's got all those old songs on it that I talked about, all the ones that ended up being fragmented, dissected apart, and turned into all kinds of other songs. It was all original stuff, and man, I'd love to get my hands on it. I don't. I had a copy of it years ago, but I have no idea where it is now."

Considering what Mustaine and Ellefson were able to accomplish soon after, one has to wonder if Handevidt regrets his decision to leave the band. There's no doubt that climbing aboard Megadeth's perpetually spinning carousel is risky business and certainly not for the faint of heart. Still, as a casual observer, it's hard not to think of how history might have played out differently had Handevidt stayed.

"Oh, yeah, there was some regret afterward," Handevidt admits. "How could I not be upset? But we were so young, and there were a lot of things pushing me to leave. I mean… I was a kid, and one big issue was that I had a hard time being away from home. But I won't lie: there was definitely a falling out, and that was a huge part of why I split. No surprise, Dave got drunk one day and kicked me out of the band while he was angry. He never told me why, and I was just like, 'Great, now I'm in L.A. with nowhere to go.'"

"But about a week later, we reconciled things," Handevidt continues. "We rehearsed three or four more times, and then it was actually me who decided I needed to go back home to the Midwest. I found out I had a kid back there, and I felt tremendous guilt about not being in a position where I was doing anything to help raise my kid. Plus, the vibe was off when I was invited back. Had things felt cool, I might have stayed. But that's not what happened."

When pressed if Mustaine's reportedly gruff stage of mind at the time influenced his decision, Handevidt acquiesces: "Yeah... that's true, too. The thing was, as history has stated, Dave – along with all of us – was pretty overindulgent and aggressive at the time. He had a chip on his shoulder, for sure. While that's made him great as a songwriter, it made it very hard for me to be in a band with him, especially since I was a kid."

For Megadeth, the rest, as they say, is history. Since Handevidt's early departure, Megadeth has run through several guitarists. Some stayed for years, imprinting themselves on the history of the band, while others proved to be blips on the radar.

To that end, what's been of particular interest of late is Kings of Thrash, an outfit first launched by David Ellefson to get his thrash-related rocks off since he'd been unceremoniously dismissed from Megadeth's ranks. Soon, Ellefson was joined by former Megadeth alum Jeff Young and, at times, Chris Poland, among others, practically making Kings of Thrash an ex-Megadeth members reunion.

"I actually did a quick show with Kings of Thrash back in February, which was an absolute blast," Handevidt explains of his involvement with the group. "Beyond that, it's a whole lot of maybe. I've been talking with David Ellefson for the last eight or nine months about doing something, and we're planning on putting something out by the end of the year. But that's about all I'm gonna say about that right now. If David wants me to do more, I'd be up for it."

"It was good to get back up there with David," Handevidt concludes. "It was cool to play with Jeff, too. I was upset back in the day, but now, I don't have any regrets. I'm where I'm supposed to be and don't bother with any woe-is-me stuff.

"I'm content with my life, and I don't hold any anger or anything as it pertains to Megadeth. It would have been cool to have been a part of it, but given Dave's history and my strong personality, I'm sure we would have had a ton of problems. At this point, Megadeth is like a Dave Mustaine solo project, and I would never have wanted to be a part of that."

For Dave Mustaine, the last few years have seen the thrash metal icon rebound from knocking at death's door to a cycle of continuous rejuvenation.

2022's The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! was a victory. And from the outside looking in, relations within Megadeth are better than ever. All that is to say that for Mustaine – a man who has battled just about every physical and emotional malady one can handle in music – things are finally looking up.

With Megadeth back on top of the world, many of those same curious onlookers are hanging on his every word and move. But if you ask Mustaine, his latter-day success is the product of hard work over anything else.

"One thing's for sure, I'm not lazy," Mustaine tells Guitar World. "I work hard. I've always tried to be purposeful and useful. And I think that's probably why this last record appealed to as many people as it did. Because I was going through radiation and chemotherapy, where they were basically trying to kill me to kill the cancer. And then, they saved me in time so I could come back. And I have to say, trying to make a record and stay creative was a challenge. Most people would have said, 'Fuck it.' But I said, 'Bring it on.'"

Music aside, the latest development from the Mustaine camp is a collaboration between the red-haired spitfire and Gibson, which has seen Mustaine unleash a line of signature Epiphone and Kramer Vs. Of course, Mustaine has long played many V-shaped guitars, but an oh-so-long-coveted Gibson-related endorsement has eluded him… until now.

Still, Mustaine is a picky player who is hyper-detailed regarding his instrument's specifications and feel. And so, one has to wonder if Megadeth's leading man would go so far as to deploy his new line of more affordable Vs in a live setting.

"I am totally comfortable playing the Epiphone and Kramer guitars with Megadeth," Mustaine responds. "I've never been a guy who goes out hunting for free things. I paid for my first Jackson, and I've paid for most of my gear over the years. So, when something like this does happen, my mindset is, 'Let me do something in return.' That means I reciprocate. It's like the old-fashioned thing where you exchange gifts when you meet your friends."

"But that's not why I'll play these guitars with Megadeth," Mustaine insists. "I'll play these guitars with Megadeth because they're great. You cannot tell the difference between them and a Gibson. They feel exactly the same in my hands. After all these years and all the guitars I've played, I'm very aware when something that's in my hands is off. But when I had these guitars in my hands, I couldn't tell that it was a different fucking guitar."

During a break from the road, Dave Mustaine dialed in with Guitar World to shed some light on his new signature line, his thoughts on the state of metal guitar today, as well as his seemingly softened stance on Kirk Hammett.

How did your line of signature guitars with Epiphone and Kramer come about?

"The whole thing really was a surprise to me. I'd heard that Gibson was looking for an ambassador, meaning somebody to be one of the faces of their company. And I thought, 'Wow... if I could be somehow involved, that would be great.' But I didn't kid myself that it would happen. I'm not the sort of guy to go into any situation and say, 'I want the world and then some.' But funnily enough, that's exactly what I feel I've walked away with.  

"Anyway, as it turned out, they were interested in doing something with me. So, I went in and met with the three head guys there. These were some new guys because Gibson had gotten rid of some of the previous administration that guided Gibson into a period of struggle. So, these new guys came in, and I must say, they're great. As soon as I talked to them, I felt like I was talking with guys in my band."

Did that inherent trust breed the results we've seen regarding your line of guitars?

"I think so. Cesar Gueikian, the CEO, and I have become very close. He's from South America, where Megadeth is enormous. I think he saw us at a breaking point when we first went down there when the dictators were lifting a lot of the embargos on music, so he was very aware of my career and history. I think his awareness has been a bonus as we put these together because he gets what I'm about when it comes to guitar."

You've played a lot of V-shaped guitars over the years. What makes these different?

"As a guitar player, of course, I've always been aware of the Gibson legacy. And after playing guitars made by almost every other guitar company in the world, to have Gibson design a version of the iconic Flying V means a lot to me. And to endorse Gibson products, on top of being able to go in and make design modifications, has been equally incredible. These are different because they're made by Gibson. That alone is a huge difference-maker."

What sort of modifications did you make?

"For starters, my V is a 24-fret V. Before I started doing it, no V had 24 frets, but mine does. I've always had that in all my V guitars. And I also made the neck shape considerably different. I did that because when you're talking about a Flying V, you're talking about a guitar known for two things: reliability and utility. They look cool, but those things are paramount.

"It's a utility guitar, especially in metal. You can look around at any metal band: most – if not all – of them use Vs. So, I took that idea and did things to make it mine. And when they said they wanted me to do both Epiphone and Kramer, I thought I was dreaming. I honestly did not comprehend what was going on. Because to this day, I live with a lot of little personal stuff from how I grew up. It's low self-esteem stuff… I don't know if you know people like that…"

Imposter syndrome often goes hand in hand with the creative process. It's understandable.

"Yeah… well, I have some of that happening. So, I couldn't believe this was happening to me. I still remember coming home from my initial meeting with Gibson, and I was a bit dazed. I was still going through chemotherapy and radiation, and that made it hard for me to keep track of stuff a lot of the time. So, I take notes because I really want to be present in my recovery. However long I have left on this earth, it's important that I'm present and I know what my obligations are.

"But anyway, when I got home from that meeting, I went through my notes, and even with all the shit happening to me, I said, 'This is the greatest thing that's ever happened in your career. Savor this.' Because I've always been a Marshall guy, and I've always loved Seymour Duncan pickups. I've never endorsed either, and I've never looked to have things given to me for free. But those are things that go hand in hand with Gibson. So, to have this happen is wonderful."

Epiphone was considered the poor man's Gibson for a long time. But they've come a long way. Can you tell the difference between your Epiphone and a Gibson?

"No, you can't. During this last headlining tour that Megadeth did, I used them. During the set, the techs will hand guitars to me when I need them. It's quick and no fluff because we need to get on with it. And so, I was getting ready to run up on stage; I grabbed my guitar and was off. And after the fact, my tech said to me, 'Hey, what did you think about the Kramer?' And I'd looked at him, and I said, 'Huh? What are you talking about?' He said, 'I handed you the Kramer when you went out there tonight…' and I said, 'Really? Get the fuck out of here.'"

You couldn't tell?

"I couldn't tell. It was a real heat-of-the-moment scenario, so I couldn't even tell you what color it was. I never looked at the headstock or body beyond noticing where the wings ended. If I had looked at the bottom of the wings and seen if they were rounded or pointed, I would have been able to tell it was an Epiphone, Kramer, or whatever. But I didn't even really do that. And the thing is, the guitar has my neck shape. That's all that needs to be said about it. If you're a guitar player and you've ever held my guitar, you know what I'm talking about."

What makes your neck shape unique?

"Hold one, and you'll see [laughs]. But I created a profile that I hoped would exist for years. Many men and women have tried to create guitars with looks in mind only – I didn't do that. Because when it comes to guitars, it ain't about what it looks like; it's about how it plays. So, if you're one of those guys that has to have your thumb over the top of the neck, hey, great, you play a certain way. And that means you'll need a certain neck. But if you're a guy that presses your thumb on the back of the neck and does legato stuff, you're gonna need a specific guitar. My guitar is that guitar."

Is that to say it's only built for metal? Or is it versatile enough to handle other genres, too?

"It's associated with metal, but I go back to what I said about its utility earlier. My guitar has got the perfect shape where it's like a shredder neck. But it's also got the strength to have that bottom-end needed to get that gritty, chunky rhythm sound that some people need. And the other thing is that the Epiphone is a beast for people who want to do baritone stuff."

Is that why you chose Fishman pickups?

"I really liked the Fishman pickups for that. But we're also doing some research and development with Seymour Duncan about some baritone stuff. I'm not a baritone player, but I wanted the option for people who were. I've done a little in the studio here and there for a few songs, but it's never been a big thing for me. But I do like to experiment. And through that, I found that the Fishmans were satisfactory to me for that. So, we'll see what happens with Seymour Duncan in the future."

I assume you have played Epiphone or Kramer guitars in the past. What surprised you the most?

"No, I hadn't. And you know what? The Kramer was the biggest surprise for me. I'd heard about how Epiphone was supposed to be a shadow of Gibson, that they were the same company, and blah blah blah. And that turned out to be true. But I had no idea what to expect from Kramer. So, I was really looking forward to trying one for the first time.

"It's kind of like when you go out on a first date, or you go someplace new. And I have to say, I was shocked at how great the Kramer guitars were, too. They're quality instruments, and I'm just as proud to endorse them as the Epiphone guitars."

Are there any players out there today who you feel are the future of heavy metal guitar?

"I've seen a lot of guys and gals that can play well. So, those people are out there. I don't want to name any specific people, but I have noticed that a lot of these people are faster and fancier. And, yeah, they're all doing the proper things. But the thing for me is that it's not about how fast you can shred, you know? I mean… I can do that, so I know how difficult it is. And the truth is that it's not really that hard to shred really fast if you learn the patterns.

"And the other truth is that most people who are watching these people shred really fast don't know what they're actually watching. So, for me, a guitar player is evaluated the most on what type of player they really are. What kind of songwriter are they? What kind of rhythm player are they? How do they execute solos? How do they do with layering? That last one is big – you need to be able to layer guitar tones properly. If you can't, you're missing a massive piece of the puzzle."

Are there any other guitar trends out there that grind your gears?

"You know what? There was a comment of mine out there about the tremolo bar that people think I said recently, but it wasn't recent. And that comment that I didn't recently say was not meant to be a dig at the people who used the tremolo bar, because a lot of people who use it do use it well. Jeff Beck was a great example of that. Dick Dale was another.

"I think those two guys come to mind when you think of the tremolo bar. But I will clarify that I feel a lot of guitar players that are filling the lead position sometimes shake the whammy bar instead of using it to dive in and make a note swell a bit. If you can master that, you'll be able to make a guitar sound beautiful. A perfect example is what you hear at the start of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game."

I'd be remiss if I didn't ask for your opinion on Metallica's 72 Seasons. Have you heard it?

"No, I have not heard Metallica's latest record. But there was a time around 20 years ago when we were not being friendly toward each other when I couldn't listen to their music when it came on the radio. But none of that bothers me anymore, and it's not why I haven't heard the record, especially after the Big Four thing that we did. I really think we should do that again."

How do you feel Metallica stacks up against the current iteration of Megadeth?

"It's probably not ideal for people to ask if they stack up against what Megadeth is doing. I really do liken Megadeth and Metallica to comparing the Ramones and The Clash. I actually remember one of the guitar magazines said that long ago, and it made sense to me. So, I've always thought that idea is a cool thing. So, it's fun to make comparisons, and I think they stack up just fine against us. We're different in some ways, but we still share many of the same fans."

Do you feel the recent flak that Kirk [Hammett] has taken for his solos is fair?

"It depends on which solos you're talking about [laughs]. Jokes aside, I've always kind of poked fun at Kirk. And unfairly so, as he never did anything to me. Whenever I felt singled out, picked on, or antagonized by James [Hetfield] or Lars [Ulrich], it was really easy to pick on Kirk. But the truth is Kirk did me an honor by trying to play my solos on those early songs the way he did."

How so?

"Well, I think that some people would have just started over again. So, I thought it was honorable that Kirk took my solos and did his best to play them as I did. That couldn't have been easy. But as far as his new solos on the new Metallica album, I haven't heard them, so I can't comment. But I will say that I think it's sad how quickly some people can turn on people.

"There was a time when Kirk won every guitar contest in the world, and I don't think he's gotten any better or worse as a player. He's always been really good. Kirk was a good player when he was in Exodus. And he's been steady the entire time he's been in Metallica. But does that mean Kirk Hammett is Dave Mustaine? No. And is Dave Mustaine Kirk Hammett? Also, no."

Signature guitars aside, what's on tap for you?

"We're going crazy with all we've got going on, but it's great. We've got a bunch of headlining dates coming up in the States and Poland coming up. We're going to be doing something overseas that's like a battle of the bands, but I can't give too many details just yet. After that, we've got some dates down in South America, and we've got a lot of festivals planned, too.

"And lastly, my family is getting involved with a wine company. We're taking our first shipment from Italy this week. I'm not much of a drinker anymore – I can't even tell you the last time I had a beer – but I'm excited to see how this goes. It's going to be fun."

• For more information on Dave Mustaine's new electric guitar models, head over to Epiphone and Kramer.

Dave Mustaine has said that most people do not really know how to use a whammy bar, citing only two exceptions to the rule – and you can probably guess who they are.

The Megadeth man recently sat down for a generously lengthy interview with Canadian DJ Jeremy White and discussed everything from working with Gibson, to his changing gear habits (musical and substance-based), plus his surprisingly stringent views on the use of whammy bars.

“I used it on a couple songs,” says Mustaine, of his personal whammy bar history. “I used it on When, I used it on Wake Up Dead and that's about it… For me, my personal belief is that whatever you do on the guitar with the whammy bar you should be able to emulate with your fingers.”

To add some context, we’re assuming that Mustaine is talking specifically about using the tremolo bar to bend to the correct pitch – that is, in key with the melody – as you would intend with a string bend.

The Megadeth icon seems to regard this in contrast to the hit ‘n’ hope approach adopted by many players. [Not that you’d find anyone on the GW staff doing that, no siree… – Ed] 

Indeed, Mustaine has a very short list of guitarists who he thinks actually do it well – and, sadly, one of them is no longer with us.

“Somebody that, for example, who was a master with the whammy bar – who we recently lost – was Jeff Beck,” says Mustaine. 

“Jeff was the guy that I liked to listen to his technique with the whammy bar more so than anyone else. Most other people – besides David Gilmour – do not really know how to use a trem bar.”

Elsewhere in the interview Mustaine ranges over material including his switch to using Neural DSP’s Quad Cortex and the development of his Gibson signature guitar line.

On the latter, the Megadeth man points out his role in shaping the firm’s metal credentials as a brand ambassador – a relationship that has also led to new Mustaine-endorsed Kramer and Epiphone guitars.

“It was just a love affair from the very beginning,” says Mustaine of his first Gibson signature models. 

“Then going through the other lines with Epiphone and Kramer, it wasn't really that difficult to make these lines all of a sudden have serious metal credibility. Because somebody said to me when I first went to Gibson they said, ‘Gibson isn’t a metal guitar company.’ I said, ‘It is now.’”

So there. If you do one thing after reading this piece, though, it should probably be to check out his brief but beautiful Spinal Tap accent that comes when discussing the British blues movement (around the 21.50) mark. 

It’s time well spent in our book. In the meantime, we’ll be practicing on our hardtail Strat. Though it should be noted that, when it comes to people getting the whammy bar wrong, Donald Trump’s NFT trading cards take the crown.

Gibson has unveiled the latest additions to Dave Mustaine’s ever-growing collection of signature guitars: a trio of long-awaited Epiphone and Kramer electric guitars.

More affordable Epiphone and Kramer signature models were promised way back in February 2021 when the Megadeth frontman’s partnership with Gibson was first announced, with these V-style models joining the flagship Gibson Flying V EXPs.

As such, they take the total tally of Mustaine-named Flying V models to a very generous six, with both brands closely following the precedent set by their parent company's premiere EXP Vs.

For fans of Mustaine, the Kramer and Epiphone models will no doubt be some of their most anticipated releases of the year, not least because of the price tags associated with the Gibson models – indeed, the most premium EXP available weighs in at $6,999.

Here, though, the prices are far more digestible: $1,399 for the Epis and $1,299 for the Kramers.

Starting with the Epis, a Stop Bar tailpiece-loaded Flying V Prophecy and String Thru-designed Flying V Custom make up the drop, with both featuring the same core components.

That means bound mahogany bodies, Artist Profile necks, Graph Tech nuts and bound 24-fret ebony fingerboards are present across the board, with the 24.75”-scale models also flashing bound headstocks and “Dave Mustaine”-embossed truss rod covers.

Elsewhere, similar control layouts have been employed – two volume controls, a tone pot and three-way switch – though each model comes equipped with slightly different pickup sets.

The Prophecy, which takes cues from Mustaine’s standard Gibson EXP variant, swaps out his signature Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor humbuckers for Fishman Fluence alternatives. As such, a push/pull tone pot has also been selected.

The Custom, meanwhile – which is more reminiscent of the $6,999 Limited Edition EXP – retains the Thrash Factors and a standard tone knob.

Other model-specific specs, aside from the hardware and electronics, can be found in the cosmetic department. While the Prophecy arrives in Aged Dark Red Burst – which is a nice nod to the EXP’s Red Amber Burst – the Custom is a no-nonsense Black Metallic.

Cosmetically speaking, it’s really only the finer details that set the two examples apart: the Gibsons, unsurprisingly, add some finer flourishes in the form of Black Watch Hat knobs and Mother of Pearl Mustaine inlays, while the Epiphones stick with knurled metal knob covers and standard dot inlays.

“It’s mind-boggling to think, ‘If I didn’t look at the headstock, I couldn’t tell this guitar apart from my Gibsons,’” Mustaine said of his new Epis. “I have to admit, I knew nothing about the Epiphone Flying V when I was offered my ambassador role with Gibson guitars. 

“I’m happy to say I know a lot more now about Epiphone, the manufacturing, the playability, and the incredible sound that they offer. My favorite is the red antique model, but we’re just getting started.”

The Kramers are perhaps the most anticipated of all Mustaine models, and not only mark the Megadeth maestro’s first-ever signature Kramers but also the most affordable Mustaine signature electrics currently on offer.

Weighing in at $1,299 each, the Kramer Dave Mustaine Vanguard is available in Ebony, Silver Metallic and a limited-edition “Rust in Peace” Alien Tech Green, with each flashing identical spec sheets.

With an ever-so-slightly longer scale length – 25.5” instead of 24.75” – and an altered symmetrical Vanguard body shape, these sigs are aesthetically even more metal than the Epis, though come loaded with Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor humbuckers for similar tones.

There are no surprises in the spec sheet, with a mahogany body, custom profile neck and 24-fret ebony fingerboard once again making the cut. Dot inlays are also utilized, as is a String Through design, two volume controls and master tone knob.

What's also notable is the fact there's no sign of the Natural-finished Vanguard that was showcased back in 2021. Whether that specific model has been shelved or will arrive further on down the road remains to be seen.

Whatever the case, the guitars themselves have already seen live action, with Mustaine using them extensively throughout Megadeth's recent Crush the World tour.

“I get handed my guitar each night by my guitar tech and I head out onto the stage to do my job,” he said. “Imagine my surprise when I was a few songs into our set and I realized I was not given my Gibson signature Flying V, I was given my new Kramer signature Flying V. The playing ability of this guitar is superb.”

These Vanguards – which have been wielded on stage by Mustaine – might be the first in a number of signature Kramer models to bear Mustaine’s name, after the heavy metal heavyweight teased the existence of a Super Strat-style Kramer late last year.

In that same post, Mustaine seemingly confirmed an upcoming Explorer signature guitar, so brace yourselves for even more signature models in the coming months.

For more information, head over to Epiphone and Kramer.

Having beaten alchoholism, come back from a career-threatening arm injury and bested throat cancer, it’s not a stretch to call Dave Mustaine bulletproof. Stronger than ever as he snatches another victory from the jaws of defeat, Mustaine is now triumphantly celebrating 40 headbanging years of Megadeth.

“There have been times where shit got hard,” Mustaine says. “There have been times when I needed to stop and figure out how to move forward. But there was never a time when I thought this would be over for good. I’m built differently; I’m not designed to give up. Things have stood in my way, but my attitude and faith have kept me going when most people wouldn’t.”

Mustaine’s habit of twisting trouble into triumph dates to being jettisoned by Metallica while on the precipice of success. Not to be deterred, the red-haired battle axe sunk his teeth into the opposition, coming out the other side a thrash metal icon.

“When the shit hit the fan, I dug in,” Mustaine says. “I didn’t pussy out. I instilled a mindset into this band that we would not be deterred or fucked with. We’ve always picked ourselves up off the deck, and that has been gratifying because it shows that my vision was right. I’ve been able to have success and maintain my integrity. Not many people can say that.”

Some 40 years after the formation of Megadeth, Mustaine remains a spitfire, albeit wiser. Now surrounded by a cast of characters with whom he shares a genuine brotherhood, life seems more manageable for Megadeth’s alpha leader. While his penchant for ill-tempered moods and face-melting heroics remains, the menacing madman has found a soft spot for those he’s closest to.

“If I’m being completely honest, [guitarist] Kiko [Loureiro], [drummer] Dirk [Verbeuren] and [bassist] James [LoMenzo] are the most pleasant people I’ve ever been in a band with,” Mustaine says.

“They work hard, aren’t money-driven and live to play. There have been a lot of people in this band, and I’ve dealt with a lot of assholes. Not everyone can handle this level of exposure. Not everyone shares my vision. But I’m not bullshitting you when I say that Megadeth, as it sits right now, is the best it’s ever been in 40 years.”

Mustaine’s relentless nature remains luminous, as does his desire to plunge into new ventures, culminating in the yet-to-be-released Dave Mustaine Signature Gibson Les Paul, aka “a Les Paul for thrash guys”.

And while the 24-fret single-cut remains a mystery to the world and is still in what Mustaine calls the ‘final tweaking stage,’ the red-haired firecracker gave me a sneak peek of his namesake rig in all its impending glory. 

As he prepares to celebrate a victory 40 years in the making, Mustaine checked in with Guitar World to discuss his new Les Paul, his influence over Metallica, the legacy of 1992’s Countdown to Extinction, and why Kiko is a better fit for Megadeth than Marty Friedman.

What can you tell me about your still-under-lock-and-key signature Gibson Les Paul?

“It’s got my Seymour Duncan pickups and Grover tuners. It’s got my handpicked burst finish. We’ve shaved the back of a neck down where it meets the body for easier access for soloing. [With] most Les Pauls, access stops around the 21st fret, but with mine, you can get all the way to the 24th. 

“That extra access lets you nestle your hand in the cutaway on the back, which is a significant design change. The headstock is the classic Les Paul headstock. But it does not have the Gibson Custom Shop inlay; I’ve got my little insignia. The part I’m still working on is the poker chip. I can’t decide if I want cream or black. I’m leaning toward black, but I’m still mulling it over.”

Did the success of your signature Gibson Flying V spur on the Les Paul?

“I’m known for using Vs, but I’ve been planning this with Gibson for around 18 months. I’ve always wanted to design a Les Paul for thrash players but never got around to it. And Gibson was pleasantly surprised with the orders for my V, so we made it happen.

“I went to the Gibson factory a couple of weeks ago, and when I got there, every room had my Vs stacked up and being built. The success of the V has been incredible; I’ve never seen anything like it when I’ve visited the ESP or Dean factories.”

What was it about V-shaped guitars that initially drew you in?

“My first electric guitar was an $80 Gibson SG copy; after that, I got a Les Paul copy. Not long after I started playing in Panic, I started using an Ibanez Destroyer, a copy of a Gibson Explorer. And when I joined Metallica, I came upon the V, but I didn’t think much of it because of the weird shape. I didn’t think it was very playable, but I soon realized its versatility because I could do a lot with it once I got comfortable.

“Once I learned I could rest the guitar between my legs, that was a game changer in the studio. With that, I could take my hands off the guitar and have them float instead of holding the neck upright to keep a grip. And I eventually got comfortable with it live, too. After that, I became fascinated with its beautiful shape; it’s iconic. So much so that it’s become a signature of what I do in Megadeth.”

Megadeth’s current lineup seems to have granted you some much-needed serenity.

“To understand how important that is to me, let’s remember how we got there. We had gotten a tour with Iron Maiden, but the whole thing ended because Bruce [Dickinson, Iron Maiden vocalist] got sick. In the blink of an eye, an entire year’s worth of work was canceled, which was financially devastating for [Megadeth’s] Shawn [Drover] and Chris [Broderick]. 

“So, the management we had took it upon themselves to call Shawn and Chris and say, ‘The tour is now canceled; you should probably go find another job.’ But I didn’t know about this; all I knew was that my drummer and guitarist had quit. I understood the circumstances, and I might have done the same thing, but I would have fucking told me before I went and quit. 

“Having me find out afterward tells you all you need to know about Shawn and Chris’s characters. But it’s okay; they’ve got Megadeth on their resume. We had some good times together there for a bit.”

How important have Kiko, Dirk and James been to flipping the script?

“This is the best group of people I’ve ever worked with. When I first heard Kiko play, I was enthralled. Megadeth has had guys like Jeff [Young] and Marty [Friedman], but Kiko is the best we’ve ever had. I don’t say that because Kiko is in the band now; I say it because it’s the truth. Kiko is the best guitar player out of all of them. When Kiko came in, the wounds from my personality conflicts with Shawn and Chris were fresh, and I had this paradigm of how things were, which I knew I needed to change.

“But Kiko and I got along, and I eventually knew he was a good fit, personality-wise. So, I said to Kiko, ‘Look, you’re gonna join Megadeth, and your life is gonna change.’ And we had Chris Adler helping us on drums, and I hoped he would stay, but he decided to stay with Lamb of God.

“So Chris recommended Dirk, and I fell in love as soon as he came in. I could tell that Dirk was the sweetest man, a phenomenal drummer and very humble. With that, I told Dirk the same thing I told Kiko when he joined: ‘Your life is gonna change, so be ready for it.’

“We still had David Ellefson on bass, but as we know, shit hit the fan. I had to dismiss David from the band, and that left us in the position of needing a bassist. The last thing I wanted was some asshole who would get a brain swell from being in Megadeth. I go back to Kiko, who went from being a guitar player in a band that plays in bars to being in a band that plays in arenas, theaters and stadiums, but he took it in stride. 

“That’s when it dawned on me to invite James back into the band. James has played with Ozzy and has circulated in our industry at the highest levels. He has been great as a band elder, helping those guys when I’m not there. And if I’m being honest, he’s a significant upgrade as a bassist.”

You mentioned that Kiko is the best guitarist Megadeth has ever had – better than Marty Friedman. Can you expand on that?

“Marty is a superb guitar player, one of the best in the world. I’ve said a lot about Marty, but above all else, people need to know that I feel that Marty is a great guitarist. Kiko is better for Megadeth. 

“That has nothing to do with skill as much as it has to do with the whole pie. What is their outlook toward touring? What is their outlook toward recording? What is their outlook toward songwriting? We all know that Marty is a unique guy who goes to the beat of his own drum. 

“That’s great, but it wasn’t great for Megadeth. I love the music we made together, but people change, and we change with it. Kiko and I share a mindset, and I needed that. I need someone who will contribute and has a shared mindset regarding touring, recording and growing musically.”

How do you view your role as a guitarist within Megadeth?

“I’ve always looked at myself as a utility player. Many people wonder how we divide the solos up, and it’s simple: if the rhythm is easy, then it’s better for me to solo over it, and I’ll have the other guy play rhythm. If the rhythm is difficult, then it’s better for me to play that and have the other guy do the solo. I’m a very advanced rhythm guitarist who can play complicated rhythms and sing over the top of them. 

“Most people can’t do that because their left and right brains don’t communicate. And my lead style is a very punk-rock and blues-on-steroids thing. I don’t claim to be somebody that knows Mixolydian or Phrygian scales; I stay in my pentatonic box. I’m surprised I even remembered those two words just now because I’m self-taught. [Laughs]”

How have your arm injury and throat cancer altered your mindset?

“It’s a fucked-up thing because I play guitar and sing, and both threatened me to my core. It’s been trying, but it’s helped me increase my faith. My mom was born in Germany, and after she came to the U.S., she became a Jehovah’s Witness. She impressed that upon me from a young age, but when I was about 15, I renounced my faith. 

“I let go of everything I’d been taught and went in a different direction. I was living on my own, and I figured, ‘I don’t need this stuff. I can make my own choices.’ Things stayed like that for a long time, but as life worsened, I needed to consider altering my thinking and look for something to believe in.”

How did you apply that to your recovery?

“It goes back to when I was deep into alcoholism and going down a path that would kill me. Look, I’m a tough guy – tougher than most – but anyone who drinks at that level for long enough isn’t going to live to tell the tale. I was constantly drinking, and I was becoming unrecognizable. 

“So I got sober and went to AA. And in 12-step programs, they talk about a ‘higher power’; they won’t mention God because people’s ass cheeks clench and they come mentally unglued when you say ‘God’. They tip-toed around Jesus, but I still found a power that seemed greater than myself, and considering nothing else had worked, I had to try. I didn’t know if it was gonna work, but I began reading and spending time in prayer meditation, and sure enough, my life started to get better.

“And then I had the arm injury. So, now I’m sober, but my arm is fucking ruined, and I’m being told I won’t play guitar again. What the fuck do I do? I dug deeper into my faith. Okay, I got through that, but then the neck issues came. I had arthritis, degenerative disc disease and stenosis from a life of headbanging. I again dug in deeper and kept my faith. 

“They went through the front of my neck and had to rip apart the muscles in my collarbone to get into my vertebrae to fuse my neck together. They lifted the hood and fixed it; I’m thankful for that. I’ve got lingering side effects where my head falls forward sometimes, but I lived, and I feel like I’m a better person for it. My faith was the thing that made it possible, and that’s a big change for me.”

How did those experiences affect you musically?

“I’m not the same guy I was. When I decided to change my life, many people said, ‘Dave is gonna become a pussy.’ When I got married, those same people said, ‘Okay, now Dave is gonna become a pussy.’ I chuckle when people say shit like that because they don’t know who the fuck I am. I know who I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t change. I’m a constantly evolving organism, and that’s allowed me to heal. 

“So, to be able to sit back down and say, ‘What could possibly be worse?’ I nearly died in ‘92. I had my arm blown out. My neck has been ripped to fucking shreds. I got cancer. What else can happen? All of that has made me who I am, and that is reflected in my music. 

“I proudly wear the scars of those injuries in my guitar playing and vocals. I’ve played some dangerous games, and when you do that, you’re gonna get some serious injuries. I’m surprised I haven’t had anything worse happen, but I’m still here, and in case you’re wondering, I’m not a pussy. [Laughs]”

Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction turned 30 years old in 2022. How do you measure its importance?

“It was our biggest record. That’s pretty much the way I measure it. A lot of it was because of the timing; it came out in ‘92, and ‘92 was when everything was imploding because of alternative music. You had Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone and Blind Melon fucking things up, and radio gravitated toward that. 

“They thought the yuppies would listen to alternative music while drinking their Stella Artois. [Laughs] The types who don’t drink Miller High Life and definitely don’t listen to metal. And the advertisers who handled brands like Lexus, BMW and shit like that would advertise on alternative stations, which fucked metal.

“So, as these metal stations went the way of the great white buffalo, we had to decide, ‘Are we going to be alternative? Are we going to change like every other band?’ Metallica cut their hair off, put makeup on and all that stuff, and I got little haircuts during that time, but I never chopped it off. We decided we wouldn’t change to fit the trend and would tough it out. 

“Sure, we made some minor changes at the behest of the record label, but that was as far as it went. The fact that Countdown succeeded despite the shifts in popular music showed that the music was more potent than any trend. We didn’t sell out like other bands. We didn’t change who we were. I think that’s the greatest measure of Countdown’s importance.”

How do you view the perceived competition between Megadeth and Metallica?

“In my mind, there is no competition between Megadeth and Metallica. We’re different bands, and I believe Megadeth has been more consistent. But the sad thing is that the drama between us has been more popular than the music ever was. And remember, Metallica got a big head start, and they did so on the back of what I helped create. 

“They became one of the biggest bands in the world, and here’s one of the biggest bands wasting their breath trying to discredit me by saying, ‘Dave’s not a good guitar player.’ Excuse me, what the fuck did you say? [Laughs] I think I wrote many of the songs that made you famous, so you probably should recheck that bullshit statement. But this is the shit those guys say, and you’ve got the sheep who follow them around believing it.”

In your eyes, who’s at fault for perpetuating the issues?

“The issue is that people don’t know their history and take sides. I never wanted to take sides; I wanted things to be reconciled and to be friends, but for whatever reason, they didn’t. And Metallica is represented by the same agent as Megadeth, and I’ve asked our agent, ‘You’re Metallica’s agent, too; why won’t those guys play with us? What are they afraid of?’ And they’ve confirmed they’re going out with Five Finger Death Punch and the Pantera thing, so it’s clearly about the money. 

“The fact is simple: the world wants to see Megadeth and Metallica play together. And in case anyone is wondering: there’s fucking money in that. The fans want to see Metallica and Megadeth share the stage. Does Megadeth need Metallica? No. But Metallica talks about their fans, but they don’t give them what they’ve been asking for. What are they afraid of? I don’t know. It’s not me; it’s them.”

This begs the question: how do you measure your influence over Metallica?

“In the early days, I was the only guitar player in the band and wrote some of the songs that ended up on their earlier records. So, for a guy who ‘couldn’t play guitar’, I sure did fucking influence things. The only reason James even played guitar early on was that we couldn’t find anyone else. So who was it that couldn’t play guitar?

“We had one guy named Brad Parker, whose real name was Damian Phillips. He showed up and had an oversized feather earring; we did one show, and that was the end of him. And that was why we ended up having James play guitar. There was no other reason.

“Also, early on, James was terrified to talk to the crowd, and I would look at him and say, ‘Talk, man. Get up there and fucking talk,’ but James didn’t do it; he stayed in the background, and he’s the fucking singer. So, I – the guy who can’t play guitar – went up to the mic and started talking. That’s how it was until I left; James only started talking to the audience after I left; he had no choice. 

“You can hear it on the tapes from the shows we did in San Francisco at the Waldorf and the Stone; I did all the talking. And most of what I said on stage was things James would then copy after I left. So how do I view my influence on Metallica? It’s pretty fucking deep.”

Why do you feel they relegate you as a guitarist?

“Ego, probably. If we look at the things I played, I guess Kirk Hammett did a noble job of trying; he took a swing. But I ask my guitar players for a bit more than taking a swing. When they’re doing a previous guitar player’s solo, I ask them to do it right and pay tribute; that’s how you honor it. 

“When you go into an established song and don’t do the solo right, that’s a problem. If you can’t do it, that’s one thing, but if you can and you choose not to, that’s another thing. It’s not about you or your ego; it’s about the song. If you can’t do it as well or better than the original, then don’t do it at all.”

After 40 years, to what does Megadeth owe its longevity?

“A lot of it is the take-no-shit attitude. People know Metallica has always tried to hold me back. They never expected me to do what I did after they fucked me over, but I succeeded and made better records along the way. But I don’t care because I’m happy with my success, and I’ve had plenty of it. The music we make now tells you all that you need to know. But I hope we can tour together before it’s all said and done, but I don’t know if we will. 

“As far as looking back at everything from the beginning, I think I’ve maintained my integrity. When I injured my arm, I sold off all my gear to pay the people I owed money to. When most bands end, they say, ‘Fuck it,’ and leave their vendors holding the bag. Not me. I’m way different. I’m old-fashioned. I’m old-school. I do what I say I’m going to do. That’s why Megadeth is still here.”

• The Sick, The Dying. And The Dead! is out now via UMe.

Earlier this week, Megadeth finally reunited with their long-estranged guitarist Marty Friedman, who joined Dave Mustaine and co during their concert at Tokyo’s prestigious Budokan arena for a three-song cameo.

The performance was historic on a number of fronts. Not only did it mark Megadeth’s first-ever headline show in the country, it was also the first time the heavy metal heroes had shared the stage with Friedman in over two decades – 23 years, to be precise.

Despite the wait, Friedman and Mustaine showcased their evergreen chemistry with three devastating performances of tracks from the guitarist’s 10-year tenure with the band – Countdown to Extinction, Tornado of Souls and Symphony of Destruction – with the former also neatly slotting in next to the band’s current electric guitar hero, Kiko Loureiro.

Given the clear compatibility between the two parties, everybody had the same question when Friedman’s cameo came to a close: “When will we see that happen again?” Naturally, another 23-year wait seemed implausible, but without any word from the band, fans feared another Friedman feature was a long way down the road, if at all.

Fortunately, after voicing his enthusiasm for another guest spot to Consequence, Friedman has now shed even more light on his next potential Megadeth performance – and we might not have long to wait.

Speaking to Guitar World, when asked if there were any imminent plans for another Megadeth cameo, Friedman teased, “We [Megadeth and Friedman] are both playing at Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany this summer, so you never know.”

Though the specific date and time of Friedman’s first-ever Wacken Open Air Festival set is yet to be announced, the guitarist confirmed he’d be performing at the German event in a video message posted to Facebook last month.

Megadeth’s own spot on the festival running order is similarly undetermined, though Mustaine, Loureiro, James LoMenzo and Dirk Verbeuren have already been confirmed as one of Wacken’s standout performers.

Furthermore, the festival itself is scheduled to kick off on August 2 – exactly five months today (March 2) – and if Friedman’s cryptic hints are to be believed, there’s a high possibility that he could join the stage with Megadeth for another cameo.

Nothing has been confirmed yet, and we imagine if Friedman and Megadeth do plan on sharing the stage again, it will be a surprise, spur-of-the-moment thing, so don’t expect to hear anything about it until the weekend itself. That is, of course, if anything does actually happen.

Elsewhere in his interview with Guitar World, Friedman reflected on his Budokan cameo, and said the biggest challenge he faced was performing his guitar solos the same way fans remember from his original stint with the band.

“If there was any challenge at all, I guess it would be playing the solos the way the fans remember them, which is something I wanted to do,” Friedman noted. “My playing has evolved so much since those songs came out, and there are so many nuances I would naturally do differently now. 

“I had to resist the urge to play it like I would in 2023 and stick to the original way. For example, in a couple of those songs, I entered the solo on the downbeat, with the first note being the root of the chord. I would definitely avoid both of those things now, but apparently, I was fine with it back then.”

Earlier this month, Megadeth announced their first-ever headline show at Tokyo’s prestigious Budokan arena, for which they would be reuniting with the band’s former electric guitar player, Marty Friedman.

That show took place last night (February 27), marking the first time Friedman had performed alongside Dave Mustaine and co under the Megadeth banner in over two decades.

Friedman – whose highly successful spell with the band saw the release of some of Megadeth’s biggest albums – was introduced to the stage near the end of the first set, and helped Mustaine, Kiko Loureiro, James LoMenzo and Dirk Verbeuren through three iconic tracks.

Specifically, Friedman donned his Jackson Kelly for renditions of Countdown to Extinction, Tornado of Souls and Symphony of Destruction – three songs from his 10-year tenure with the band.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my dear friend, Marty Friedman,” announced Mustaine at the start of Friedman’s cameo, with whom he shared an embrace after the three tracks had been performed.

Simply seeing Friedman back in the Megadeth fold, even just for one night, will no doubt be enough to satisfy Megadeth fans, but witnessing the band’s former guitarist engage in some ferocious triple guitar action with Mustaine and the band’s current resident shred star, Loureiro, would have no doubt made the spectacle even sweeter.

In the first track, Countdown to Extinction, Friedman rolls back the years for his cameo, nonchalantly strolling around the stage as he warms up for some harmonized face-to-face soloing action with Loureiro at the 3:50 mark in the video above.

More of that same six-string action can be heard in Tornado of Souls and then Symphony of Destruction, with the latter bringing the curtain down on Friedman’s 14-minute feature, which ended with an impenetrable riff wall courtesy of the three onstage guitar heroes.

“Last night at Budokan with Megadeth was so cool on so many levels,” Friedman wrote on social media after the event. “Proud to be part of this band’s history, and the fans mean the world to me.”

There’s no denying it was a historic night for Friedman and Megadeth, particularly when the context surrounding Friedman’s exit is taken into account.

Speaking to Guitar World recently, Mustaine voiced his regret of Friedman’s departure, which was caused by managerial miscommunication regarding a guitar solo in Risk’s Breadline – a solo that had to be rerecorded at the request of Meagdeth’s managers, but whom failed to inform Friedman of the decision.

“What happened to Marty was definitely not okay,” Mustaine reflected. “Our management was supposed to tell him and, for whatever reason, they didn’t do it. I think that was a terrible thing to do to him.”

Now the floodgates for a Friedman/Megadeth partnership have opened up, there’s no telling where the pair will cross paths next – let's just hope it doesn't take another 23 years…

The contentious relationship between Dave Mustaine and Metallica is well documented, and though recent insights from the Megadeth frontman led many to believe such conflicts have been resolved – a reunion was discussed between Mustaine and James Hetfield not too long ago – it seems as though the conversation will always be a touchy one for the two heavy metal icons.

In a recent interview with Guitar World, Mustaine offered another in-depth reflection on his time with Metallica, and discussed his influence on the band, his opinion on Kirk Hammett tackling his guitar parts, and the current state of affairs surrounding a potential Megadeth/Metallica supergroup.

When the conversation touched on ‘Tallica – and the supposed competition with his own band – Mustaine began, “Metallica got a big head start, and they did so on the back of what I helped create. They became one of the biggest bands in the world, and here’s one of the biggest bands wasting their breath trying to discredit me by saying, ‘Dave’s not a good guitar player.’

“Excuse me, what the fuck did you say?” he continued. “I think I wrote many of the songs that made you famous, so you probably should recheck that bullshit statement.”

To that end, Mustaine then went on to discuss the “pretty fucking deep” influence has had on Metallica, frankly shooting back, “For a guy who ‘couldn’t play guitar’, I sure did fucking influence things. In the early days, I was the only guitar player in the band and wrote some of the songs that ended up on their earlier records.”

But Mustaine’s influence went beyond songwriting, apparently. In the same breath, the Gibson signature artist claimed Hetfield only played guitar because they “couldn’t find anyone else”, and that he was “terrified to talk to the crowd” during early live shows.

“We had one guy named Brad Parker, whose real name was Damian Phillips,” Mustaine went on. “He showed up and had an oversized feather earring; we did one show, and that was the end of him. And that was why we ended up having James play guitar. There was no other reason.

“Early on, James was terrified to talk to the crowd, and I would look at him and say, 'Talk, man. Get up there and fucking talk,' but James didn’t do it; he stayed in the background, and he’s the fucking singer. So I – the guy who can’t play guitar – went up to the mic and started talking.”

After discussing Hetfield, Mustaine then turned his attention to Kirk Hammett – the guitarist who replaced him back in 1983 – and seemingly suggested that, although he does “a noble job of trying” to play the guitar parts he wrote, he doesn’t put too much effort into doing so.

“If we look at the things I played, I guess Kirk Hammett did a noble job of trying; he took a swing,” Mustaine commented. “But I ask my guitar players for a bit more than taking a swing. 

“When they’re doing a previous guitar player’s solo, I ask them to do it right and pay tribute; that’s how you honor it. When you go into an established song and don’t do the solo right, that’s a problem.”

Of course, when Mustaine talks about Metallica, the conversation is always going to touch on a potential pair-up between the two bands, with the Megadeth frontman now suggesting Hetfield and co are “afraid” of agreeing to a collaborative live show.

“The fact is simple: the world wants to see Megadeth and Metallica play together,” Mustaine asserted. “And in case anyone is wondering: there’s fucking money in that. The fans want to see Metallica and Megadeth share the stage.

“Does Megadeth need Metallica? No. But Metallica talks about their fans, but they don’t give them what they’ve been asking for. What are they afraid of? I don’t know. It’s not me; it’s them.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which goes on sale February 21.

In other Megadeth news, the band recently announced they would be reuniting with Marty Friedman for the first time in 23 years for an upcoming show at Tokyo's Budokan arena later this month.