If you were asked to pick your favorite Dave Mustaine guitar solo, it would probably be a fair while before you came back with an answer. Given the electric guitar hero’s melting pot of lead efforts, to say we’ve been spoiled rotten over the years would be a criminal understatement.
Mustaine himself, however, seemed to tackle the question with relative ease, and quickly named a handful of tracks from Megadeth’s current crop of setlist songs as containing some of his favorite solos he’s ever written.
The Gibson signature artist made the reveal while filming a video for Cameo – an online platform that lets people purchase personal and tailor-made video messages from a host of celebrities.
When quizzed by a fan about his favorite solo, the Megadeth frontman responded (via Blabbermouth), “It’s kind of hard to say, because there’s certain solos that have a great payoff, but we haven’t played them live for so long.
“I’ve forgotten so many of them,” he continued. “Two hundred songs and all of the solos and stuff. Out of the songs we play live that I’m really familiar with, the solos that we play that we like, I like The Threat Is Real.
“I love Holy Wars. Wake Up Dead is a great solo for me to play, too. I really like that. That was one of my first really big solos that got everybody interested in Megadeth. That and [In My] Darkest Hour, too.”
But revealing his favorite solos was only part of the discussion. Upon name-dropping the tracks, Mustaine went on to say he plans to offer people informal solo lessons on Cameo, which will see him pick apart and teach the previously mentioned tracks.
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“I will be showing people here at Cameo how to do those solos,” he said. “Piece by piece, little bit at a time, so that it’s not too much for anybody to handle. I don’t really give guitar lessons, so this isn’t a structured kind of format for lessons or anything like that.
“So, I hope if I do this, and I hope if you do it with me that we’ll have fun together. If not, just say it’s somebody from another band.”
Head over to Dave Mustaine’s Cameo page if you fancy purchasing a personal message.
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Matt is a Senior Staff Writer, writing for Guitar World, Guitarist and Total Guitar. He has a Masters in the guitar, a degree in history, and has spent the last 16 years playing everything from blues and jazz to indie and pop. When he’s not combining his passion for writing and music during his day job, Matt records for a number of UK-based bands and songwriters as a session musician.
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