A Brush With Deth
Around three and a
half minutes into Megadeth’s ‘High Speed Dirt’, a track off their iconic 1992
record, Countdown To Extinction, the
brutal riffage is momentarily interrupted by an acoustic, bluesy lick. At
first, it seems at odds with the rest of the song, and indeed, the album as a
whole, but given the blues is where metal came from, it also feels oddly
relevant, sitting comfortably amongst the guttural thrash the band does so
well.
“Oh yeah, the
Elvis part,” laughs frontman and guitarist Dave Mustaine. “Yeah, that’s my
Elvis part. I think we were just doing a goof on Blue Hawaii, because Marty (Friedman, lead guitar) loved Elvis so
much… it was always fun to play with him.”
Mustaine, known as
much for being one of Metallica’s original guitarists as he is for founding
Megadeth in 1983, is talking about various aspects of Countdown… because, and he struggles to believe this as well, it’s
an album which is now two decades old.
As such, the band
he and bassist Dave Ellefson allegedly began as a middle finger to Metallica
(who fired Mustaine before they released their 1983 debut, Kill ‘Em All), have recently released a live version of the album,
recorded last December at Los Angeles’ Fox Theatre.
“It was fun,”
muses Mustaine laconically, on revisiting the record after 20 years, an
exercise which included a US tour where the band played the album in full,
something they also did in 2010 for the twentieth anniversary of 1990’s Rust In Peace. And it’s a fitting
tribute, Countdown To Extinction
being one of thrash metal’s all time classics.
“When you’re
listening to one of your records, and people have said something like, ‘This is
a classic’ or something, you immediately… and I don’t know how to say this
without sounding like I’m having a hard time saying it, because I’m having a
hard time saying it,” he laughs. “But when people say stuff like that, a lot of
times it’s hard not to come off sounding like you know that.
“But we knew when we were making Countdown…, we just knew we were in the middle of making a good record.”
Arguably, their
first five records (Countdown… being
the fifth) were, as the man modestly puts it, good. Megadeth, with the release
of debut Killing Is My Business… And
Business Is Good in 1985, quickly established themselves as one of the Big Four thrash bands, along with
Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, effectively playing a major part in the
invention of this particular brand of heavy metal.
“Yeah, I’ve sat
back and watched it [over the years], and have participated in it too [obviously],
and it is kinda hard to do both,” he says on one of metal’s most popular veins.
“And there’s definitely been a lot of changes over the years… and with
technology. In the beginning, it was so difficult… now you just press the red
button and away you go.”
The band itself,
which released its 14th studio album, Super Collider, in June this year (almost 28 years to the day after
their debut), has now been around for almost three decades, an incredible
achievement in anyone’s book. And while Mustaine has a reputation for being somewhat
of a tainted character (before you interview him, you get the now ubiquitous,
“No questions about Metallica, drugs or religion” ultimatum), you can’t deny that
he’s one of metal’s greats, that the band he created is worthy of legend
status.
“Time flys, 30
years seems like a long time, but boy, it’s over so quick,” he marvels.
“Sometimes I sit back and think how many things have happened over the years,
and I guess the thing that makes me feel the best is when I see how many people
who’ll say, ‘We met at a concert’, ‘We got engaged at a concert’, ‘We got
pregnant at a concert’, all these things that they share. These landmarks,
these mementos, they’re really cool.”
The band are
currently on tour in the US, and will head back to Australia in February for
the Soundwave tour. They’re working as hard now as they were back in the early
‘80s, and listening to Mustaine talk, you get the impression the only thing
that’ll stop this heavy metal juggernaut is old age, no longer being able to
physically perform this incredibly technical and demanding music.
“I never thought
I’d be doing this this long, David Ellefson and I, it’s crazy,” he finishes.
“And the fact we can have fun doing what we do, on top of that, just makes it
so much more enjoyable.” For metal heads the world over, Megadeth have played
an incredibly important role in defining the genre, in turning it into the
behemoth it is today. The fact there’s no end in sight, is icing on the cake.
Samuel J. Fell
Gig: Soundwave, February 23 2014, Sydney Showgrounds
Tickets: www.soundwavefestvial.com
/ www.oztix.com.au / Outlets
Live: High speed thrash metal
Best Track: ‘Hanger 18’, from Rust
In Peace
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