Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine is promoting his new book, Rust in Peace: The Inside Story of the Megadeth Masterpiece, and offered a rare one-on-one interview to our friends at Loudwire. The interview covered a lot of ground including his current thoughts on his former Rust In Peace-era bandmates, guitarist Marty Friedman and drummer Nick Menza, and just how coked up the band was while recording this thrash classic.
Mustaine admitted that the whole band was under the influence. “I’d be bullshitting you if I said [cocaine] did not influence [Rust in Peace] because we were all under the influence of the drug at the time.”
Mustaine said he himself was not that big of a fan of the drug saying “I didn’t really like coke that much. I liked the way that it tasted, but I didn’t like the way it made me feel. It never ended well, put it that way.”
He also did not hold back his feelings on Menza and Friedman. "The chemistry of Nick and Marty, don't get me wrong — that was amazing. And my heart aches when I think about that. And, in fact, that's why I wrote at the back of the book 'In Loving Memory' and not 'In Memory Of'.
"When I would read the stuff that he would [say about me], I would just be so hurt. 'Cause when we went to do the reunion, you see Ellefson tell the story, I wasn't the one that said Nick wasn't ready — Dave said that. I was really bummed about that; I wanted things to work out with Nick. And then in fact, I even said, 'You know what? If it's not gonna work with him playing in the studio, let's have somebody else go into the studio and play, and then we can have Nick play live.' I was bending over backwards to get a place for Nick. And then he said he wanted this exorbitant amount of cash to work for us and to be able to sell all kinds of merchandise that he had."
As for Friedman, Mustaine said "Marty has a really successful career in Japan where he makes quite a lot of money. And this is the part where I thought it was a little weird, where he said he said that he has to pay all his team while he's gone instead of just himself. 'Cause I thought we'll pay you what you're making so that's switching horses in the middle of the river — it's no big deal unless you fall off. And then when we found out that he wanted to sell his merch, his this, his that, his this, his that, then he wanted this crazy amount of money and he wanted to fly first class everywhere. I said to our management, 'I can't deal with this.'"
He briefly mentioned former guitarist Chris Broderick and drummer Shawn Drover, saying they "disappeared into the night" and didn't tell either him or David Ellefson they were doing so.
Elsewhere in the interview, he noted that his son, Justis, is his barometer for new Megadeth music. Dave noted that when he played his son both Super Collider and Dystopia, his son said both albums weren't heavy enough. Dave noted that with Super Collider, it was too late to change anything, but with Dystopia they had a chance to improve on the songs. Mustaine concluded that his son said the material they are working on now is, in his son's opinion, the heaviest stuff the band has written.
Overall, the entire interview is a very intriguing watch.
