{"id":4140,"date":"1985-07-01T00:00:51","date_gmt":"1985-07-01T00:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=4140"},"modified":"2014-11-17T23:47:38","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T23:47:38","slug":"feature-megadeth-mf12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-megadeth-mf12\/","title":{"rendered":"MEGADETH – Love It To Death (MF12, 1985) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEGADETH – Love It To Death<\/strong><\/span>
\nBernard Doe<\/span>
\nMetal Forces, Issue 12 (1985)<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
Megadeth (l-r): Dave Ellefson, Dave Mustaine (front), Gar Samuelson (back) and
Chris Poland<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Ever since he parted company with Metallica and put together Megadeth<\/a>, Dave Mustaine has become a much acclaimed figure on the underground metal scene. Indeed, the first Megadeth demo was voted number one in our end of year reader\u2019s poll for 1984. However, for many people, including myself, the initial reaction to Megadeth\u2019s debut vinyl offering, Killing Is My Business\u2026 And Business Is Good!<\/em>, was one of disappointment; lacking the punch, production-wise, of many recent metal releases. But more on the album later.<\/p>\n

Now, a Megadeth feature has been somewhat long in coming in Metal Forces<\/em>, but it hasn\u2019t been for not trying. Indeed, the last attempt very nearly fell through too. You see, Dave Mustaine had apparently locked himself out of his California hotel room unable to reach my initial call, and having failed to respond to numerous messages left with the receptionist I was just about prepared to forget the whole thing. But, thanks to the efforts of Linda at Music For Nations, the interview eventually took place a few days later.<\/p>\n

As it\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve spoken to Dave I decided to begin by asking him about the split with Metallica? “It was more or less an attitude problem, not ability. We\u2019ve tried to patch things up but there\u2019s still certain vibes there. It\u2019s not something I really want to go into as I still like the guys and I don\u2019t want to hurt their success by putting them down or try and make myself look better. Basically, when they told me to leave, I packed in about 20 seconds and I was gone.” <\/p>\n

Upset? \u201cOh no, I wasn\u2019t upset at all as I wanted to start a solo project during the middle of Metallica anyway. In the past, we had tried to kick both Lars (Ulrich) and James (Hetfield) out of the band. Lars started to cry because he didn\u2019t want to leave and we gave James a second chance because he wasn\u2019t singing too well at the time. But I really care about the guys a lot. They\u2019re doing really well and I\u2019m getting money out of this, so why should I put them down and hurt my bank roll?\u201d <\/p>\n

So what did you do immediately after you left Metallica? \u201cWell, at first I didn\u2019t really know what I wanted to do. I wasn\u2019t really sure if I wanted to stay the same style as Metallica, play harder stuff or just join another band that was bigger than Metallica at the time; maybe a major label band?\u201d<\/p>\n

When you formed Megadeth didn\u2019t you have difficulty in finding a line-up? \u201cYeah, we had a real hard time. I found the bass player Dave Ellefson immediately; he\u2019s a fucking raging bass player who will definitely start getting in all the polls as soon as people can spell his name right! We went through about 15 drummers, because we wanted someone who could comprehend the changes in the music, as I wanted the music to gradually climax. I wanted every song to build up to a high point. But we just couldn\u2019t find a drummer who could mix up a beat. They could do the same beat slower or faster, but they couldn\u2019t do a different beat. So, it took us almost a year to find Gar Samuelson, and he used to be a jazz drummer. He\u2019s still coming around as far as speed and everything, but the breaks and mixing it up \u2013 as you can hear on the album \u2013 he plays real different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t really get a chance of getting a good guitar player in the beginning because we wanted to go out and play right away, so we had Kerry King from Slayer<\/a> stand in while we kept looking for someone, but we couldn\u2019t find anything. We tried it out as a three-piece while we were breaking in the new drummer. Then we found Chris Poland, who did session work with us and of course he is the guitarist on the album. But we\u2019ve now got a permanent guitar player called Mike Albert. He\u2019s been playing the guitar for over 16 years and used to play with Captain Beefheart. He plays a little like Steve Vai from Alcatrazz and is really good. By the way, Mike Albert is the guy that got Eddie Van Halen to use a wang bar, and that\u2019s the honest truth. You see, Mike and Eddie used to live real close and used to go to gigs together, and one day he told Eddie to get rid of his black Les Paul and get himself a Strat and put a fucking tremolo arm on it. He did, and now he\u2019s a millionaire!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n

<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
Dave Mustaine<\/b><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

What made you become the band\u2019s vocalist? \u201cWell, we couldn\u2019t find a singer, so I decided about a year and a half ago to do the singing myself because at least we could get going until we found someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vocals on the album are quite impressive. Did you ever contemplate singing in Metallica? \u201cYeah, Lars asked me that one day when we were driving to rehearsals. I was singing along to one of our tapes and Lars said, \u2018Man, fuck you\u2019d be a great frontman, have you ever thought about singing?\u2019 and this kinda shit. I said, \u2018Yeah, maybe\u2019. But that\u2019s about as far as it went, because I kept thinking that this was trying to be too starstruck. I mean, I didn\u2019t want to be a big lead guitar player, frontman, singer, this, that and everything under the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

You mentioned Kerry King earlier. Isn\u2019t it true you wanted Kerry to become a permanent member of the band? \u201cA long time ago we did, but the members of Megadeth like to get close to our fans. They buy us a drink, we buy them a drink. We smoke a little pot together or do a little whatever together. But Kerry doesn’t get high at all, and we\u2019d have promo photos with the three of us crawling, stumbling around with pints of ale in our hands and Kerry would be sitting there with a bottle of coke or something! It would just mismatch the whole image of the band a little bit. Also, we play a lot of advanced stuff, and Kerry… well, he can play the fuck out of a guitar but I think he likes playing the Slayer stuff better.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much gigging has Megadeth done? \u201cWe started about two years ago and we\u2019ve played in San Francisco, a couple of times in New York and a place called San Diego in Southern California. All the shows went pretty well until we tried to do it as a three-piece and that wasn\u2019t really what we wanted, because when it went into the lead breaks and stuff the bottom kind of dropped out. We also had management problems at the time, and he convinced us we didn\u2019t need a great wall of cabinets and another guitar player. Anyway, we quickly got rid of him and went back to our original format of being a four piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did the album deal with Combat Records come about? \u201cI looked at a bunch of labels \u2013 Megaforce, Neat, Shrapnel etc \u2013 but they didn’t really thrill me too much. They\u2019d say what they\u2019d do and I\u2019d ask about tour support and what their budget was, and really everything was a pittance compared to what we needed to come up with an album that was expected to be as good as Metallica \u2013 not necessarily the same, but as good \u2013 and we needed the budget to compete with that. As it was, we fired the producer of the album half way through the recording because it wasn’t turning out right, and we wrapped up the rest of the album on $4,000. So I definitely think our next album will be far better than this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re not happy with the album? \u201cOh, we\u2019re happy with it for what we put into it. With the producer we had, we started the album up and it just wasn’t metal, it wasn’t sounding right, and the problems we had I got fed up with the guy. With the budget we had left we just took over and produced the album ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I said earlier, I found Killing Is My Business\u2026 And Business Is Good!<\/em> a little disappointing, but once you’ve got used to the somewhat weak production and accepted that the album wasn\u2019t another total thrash \u2019n\u2019 bash, Kill \u2019Em All<\/em><\/a> or whatever, then you\u2019ll find some rather intricate material, proving that Megadeth are far from a one man band. Each member gels to produce a fusion of thrash, jazz, power metal and\u2026 anyway, how would Dave describe Megadeth\u2019s music? \u201cWe\u2019re trying to play something that\u2019s really working the fuck up out of a guitar; something that you can headbang to and that could also be used as a real nerve-wracking soundtrack where you can picture what\u2019s going on. I try to portray a whole painting behind the lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have you consciously kept away from the black metal \/ Satanic image? \u201cYeah. Well for one thing, someone who\u2019s into Satan doesn\u2019t go professing it about and start bragging and trying to explain it. That\u2019s one of the secrets about being a magician; you don’t go telling everyone your secrets. I do know a lot about the black side of the shit. It interests me and I like reading about it, but I don’t really want to practice it. It takes years to get good, and once you\u2019re good, you\u2019re hooked and in trouble. I mean, it\u2019s great to thrash and pound, cut yourself up, scream and have fun, but you don\u2019t have to take out a Pagan attitude. Why support the Devil? He\u2019s already there. I\u2019d rather just fucking thrash and be a metalist and listen to whatever I want to than be forced to listen to one style of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you listen to? \u201cI listen to everything; black metal, speed metal, I even listen to fucking violinists and stuff. Paganini is a violinist \u2013 I think he\u2019s from the 17th century \u2013 who smokes over any band or instrumentalist alive right now. They can\u2019t even find anyone to play his music; that\u2019s how good he was. And that\u2019s the sort of stuff I\u2019d rather promote instead of sitting there trying to be real tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
Megadeth (l-r): Dave Ellefson, Gar Samuelson, Dave Mustaine and Chris Poland<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Going back to the album; what made you include \u2018Mechanix\u2019 (an early Metallica song that was reworked and included on Kill \u2019Em All<\/em> under the title of \u2018The Four Horsemen\u2019)? \u201cThat was just to straighten Metallica up. They\u2019re saying I\u2019m a drunk and I can\u2019t play. It\u2019s real funny how Kirk Hammett ripped off every lead break I\u2019d played on that No Life ‘Til Leather<\/em> tape and got voted number one guitarist in your magazine. It\u2019s also funny how they play their second album and they\u2019ve still got a reel-to-reel of all my riffs and stuff. God knows when they\u2019re gonna stop writing the songs that I originally wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that when Metallica have got all their gold and platinum records, they should have the decency to say: \u2018Here, send one to Dave too, \u2019cos he wrote all the shit and Kirk played every one of his solos\u2019. On Ride The Lightning<\/em> Dave Marsh, who used to be Lars\u2019 drum roadie, told me they had Kirk going over old practice tapes and Cliff (Burton) was even writing lead solos. How can people vote this guy number one guitar player when he\u2019s ripped me off? If anyone should have been voted number one it should have been me. Not that I\u2019m jealous. I mean, I\u2019m glad they\u2019re doing well as I\u2019m getting paid for it\u2026 well, one of these days!\u201d<\/p>\n

How about the inclusion of \u2018These Boots\u2019 (the Nancy Sinatra hit) on the album. That was rather a strange choice for a cover song? \u201cWell, everyone\u2019s doing copies, but instead of going back five years or even 15 years, why not dig back 25 years to the 60s when things were really corny with horn sections and take something like that and re-construct the lyrics so they\u2019re a little nastier. We really done it so bands out there know that you can pull this shit off. It\u2019s also easier for the young metalist to have their parents accept something. Like, \u2018Hey Mom! Hey Dad! Look, they\u2019ve even got one of your songs on here!\u2019 And they’re gonna go, \u2018No, I can’t believe it.\u2019 Of course, they\u2019ll hate it once they read the lyrics!\u201d<\/p>\n

What about your own material. Have you got any new songs for the next album yet? \u201cYeah, we have two new tunes, \u2018Black Friday\u2019 and \u2018Bad Omen\u2019, that are a total blur \u2013 much faster than \u2018Rattlehead\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the next Megadeth album is still some way off, but the band\u2019s immediate plans include some extensive touring. As I speak, the band are on a US \/ Canadian tour with Exciter and should be coming over to Europe in August.<\/p>\n

Despite the guy\u2019s reputation of being abusive and difficult to interview (many statements of which have been totally unfounded), I must say I found Dave Mustaine pretty much down to earth and a pleasure to talk to.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll leave you with Dave’s message to all our readers: \u201cYeah, I just want to thank the readers of Metal Forces<\/em> for voting us the best new demo and I hope they all enjoyed the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interview taken from Metal Forces, Issue 12 (1985)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEGADETH – Love It To Death Bernard Doe Metal Forces, Issue 12 (1985) Megadeth (l-r): Dave Ellefson, Dave Mustaine (front), Gar Samuelson (back) and Chris Poland Ever since he parted company with Metallica and put together Megadeth, Dave Mustaine has become a much acclaimed figure on the underground metal scene. Indeed, the first Megadeth demo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-megadeth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4140"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4156,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions\/4156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}