Late last year, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine gave a wide-ranging interview to Guitar.com where he explained the falling out he had with Metallica over band royalties on the group’s early songs.
He also said the re-release of Metallica’s “No Life ’Til Leather” demo, which features Mustaine on guitar, didn’t happen because “James and I wrote ‘Metal Militia’ and ‘Phantom Lord’ — every note,” he explained. “And somehow, on the record [‘Kill ‘Em All’] it says (drummer) Lars (Ulrich) gets 10%. And on ‘Metal Militia’ that Kirk [Hammett, Metallica’s current guitarist] gets some of it, and he wasn’t even in the band.”
Mustaine went on to explain that he wouldn’t agree to splitting royalties on the re-release with anyone who didn’t write the songs, referencing Ulrich and Hammett.
The Megadeth singer also threw shade at Ulrich saying: “I would love to work with James. I’d like to work with Lars again, too, but I think the real talent in Metallica has always been around the guitar — everybody makes fun of the drums.”
In a recent interview with SiriusXM, Mustaine praised New Wave Of British Heavy Metal legends Diamond Head, who had a profound influence on Metallica. He also took a shot at Lars again, calling him a Diamond Head “fanboy.”
“[Diamond Head was] probably one of the most influential bands in the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, if only for the fact that they were in the right place at the right time,” Mustaine said. “I thought they had a great singer, and I thought the guitar riffs were amazing. And the press had gone as far as to say that they were the heir apparent to Led Zeppelin.”
“That was a massive compliment for Diamond Head. So at the time, when I first heard them, it had come through my last band, Metallica, from the drummer, Lars [Ulrich], who was evidently touring with Diamond Head; he would be a fanboy and follow them. I got to meet them on a little different level; I met them as equals, or as myself, as an established musician. So I got a chance to kind of really, eyeball to eyeball, meet this guy Brian Tatler, the guitar player from Diamond Head. And just a sweet man — a tremendous talent on guitar.”
“The Diamond Head that I know and love was the Diamond Head in the beginning,” Mustaine explained. “And I’ll tell you, there were so many of those songs that we played in Metallica: ‘Helpless’, ‘The Prince’, ‘Am I Evil?’ And a lot of people think those are original songs in Metallica. They’re not; they’re Diamond Head songs.”
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