Megadeth’s new self-titled album will be released on January 23, and frontman/guitarist Dave Mustaine has been making the press rounds recently to promote it. Mustaine was famously fired from metal legends Metallica way back in 1983, and his relationship with band co-founders James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich has had its ups and downs over the years.
Mustaine told SPIN.com, however, that Megadeth including a cover of the Metallica song “Ride The Lightning” on their new album is an homage to his former bandmates. “It was to complete the circle and pay respect to my partners, James and Lars, and make clear that, to anybody that has any doubts, I believe that James is an exceptional guitar player, and that Lars is an exceptional songwriter,” Mustaine said. “I’ve always thought that. It wasn’t doing a cover song, because I wrote it with James and it was our creation.”
Mustaine continued: “One thing I’ve always believed is when you do a song from someone else — even if it’s your band from an earlier time period — do it as good or better. We were thinking of songs we were going to do, and our management said, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Ride The Lightning’?’ At first, I thought people will think that’s kind of strange for me to do that. We talked about it a little bit, and it just became clearer that it was a good idea. We sped it up just a teeny bit, and we made sure that we beefed up a couple of the parts.”
Mustaine then opened up on what his relationship is like with Metallica, James and Lars specifically, in the current day. “James and I were talking about something, and I said, ‘Well, there’s your version, there’s my version, and then there’s the truth,” Mustaine said. “I believe that the truth is the only one that’s accurate, because I don’t really remember everything.’ And he had said, ‘We don’t remember stuff and we’d like to go over it.’
“We’re constantly working on improving our relationship, me and James and Lars. I really do love those guys. That’s why we fought so much — it was that I missed them. And the idea of leaving the band, it was just hard to fathom. You try and put things into perspective as you get a little bit older. I think about where I am at in my journey: I’m on the backside of the mountain, and I want to make sure that every day counts and that the people that I encounter, that I’m not obnoxious to them if they don’t deserve it. If they deserve it, man, you got it coming, and here it comes.”
Check out Megadeth’s latest single “Puppet Parade” below.
