Megadeth isn't trying to make fans wait six years between records again. According to new guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari in an interview with Detroit's WRIF radio station, Megadeth's follow-up to their 2022 effort The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! is underway in terms of collecting riffs.
Mäntysaari also notes that the new Megadeth record is likely going to be very collaborative, or at least that's the impression he's getting from band mastermind Dave Mustaine.
"Yeah, actually, already a while back Dave started talking about making the next album and kind of starting to do pre-production," said Mäntysaari. "And as soon as he mentioned that, and kind of before that already, once it was clear that I'm gonna be staying with the band, then I kind of started putting my ideas down and just recording any riff ideas that I feel like could be something that could be used in Megadeth.
"And by now I have a bunch of riffs and ideas that I've gathered. And then Dave told me that he likes to work the way that everybody does their riffs and then at some point we're gonna get together and then review things and see which riffs are gonna work together and then work out the parts between the riffs to kind of connect things and then that way come up with the skeletons for the songs.
"And I'm really looking forward to doing that and hearing how he feels about my ideas as well. But what I've done so far is whenever I have a moment to sit down, I usually just record a little video of myself playing a riff idea and then when we have a day off at the hotel, then I would record that properly and then just like have this folder of riffs that we can look into at some point.
"So, [I'm] really looking forward to that. And Dave has been really supportive and sounds like he wants to have all the guys' input on the next album, which is really exciting."
The new Megadeth record will be their first with Mäntysaari, who recently replaced Kiko Loureiro.
