Dave Mustaine on the secret to playing Megadeth: “A lot of the technique is in the right hand. It's not what the left hand is doing at all”

Dave Mustaine
(Image credit: Per Ole Hagen/Redferns)

Megadeth leader since the band’s formation in 1983, Dave Mustaine will forever hold a seat in the pantheon of thrash metal greats, his furiously accurate electric guitar playing a goal of many aspiring metal guitarists.

And while the eye is naturally drawn to Mustaine's fretting hand while he plays classic Megadeth cuts like Holy Wars... the Punishment Due and Tornado of Souls, he actually places far more emphasis on what his picking hand is doing when talking about the nuances of his playing.

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Sam Roche

Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.