by Bret Miller

Megadeth is one of the highest charting, gold and platinum record selling metal bands in the world. That they're creating such high-quality music this long into their career is affirmation of their drive, their focus and their work ethic. Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine took some time out of his busy schedule to talk about Megadeth's past and wide open future.

Until we get the official tablature, it should be interesting to see what fans come up with after listening to the phenomenal amount of guitar on Endgame. Do you write out the music as you go?
No, I'm self-taught. I don't know anything about tablature. Chris (Broderick, guitarist) does and I've asked him a couple of times if he wouldn't mind putting everything into official sanctioned tablature for the band. He was not only able to do this fantastic work on the new record but he was also able to go back into our repertoire and learn all the stuff and learn it right. It sounds just like the other guys. It's really cool because he can play the guitar and look up and look out into the audience. Marty (Friedman, guitarist 1990-2000) could do that too.

Are you secretly or not so secretly jealous?
I don't think its secret, it needs to be said: I can totally recognize talent where credit is due. Both of those boys are extremely talented guitar players and they're both in a league above me. But I have other jobs to do besides play lead solos.

Since your last album you've built Vic's Garage near your home. How did that change the whole dynamic of creating the album?
I think it helped us because it gave us the time to go in and work on things instead of being on the clock. It's a weird dynamic when you know that you're being timed versus having the luxury to be able to... if you're having a writers block to go outside for a second and think about rather than... "come up with something, fuck!" That isn't the way to make records, that's the way to make mistakes.

So having it stop becoming a job.
Pretty much. For some people it can become a job. For me there was a period where it did become a chore but still it's never been like that for me. I knew I was in control of my own decision-making process and that if stuff didn't turn out the way I wanted it, there's only one person that was really responsible, and that's me. The opportunity has come to me from the divine power. There's a lot of times over my career where there were choices needing to be made and with you being in the public you're not aware of all the deciding factors that made me make my choice, sometime it was an obvious choice, sometimes it was really labored. It is difficult because I have to think of three other guys and their families and their kids. It would be easy if I'm a selfish, single dude and I'm just going out to get loaded and get laid. But I'm not.

Things started to change, everybody was getting married and kids were coming on to the scene and the music business turned itself inside out. That's hard. Some people look at it like it's not a difficult thing if you're a musician. But the odds are tantamount when you get into situations like with Countdown, when it came out it was number two and the record label wanted me to do it again. So if it's that easy to just go out and do another number two record again, don't you think everybody would be doing that?

I'm glad that you maybe have less pressure from Roadrunner, but you're still putting pressure on yourselves to work really hard and make awesome music.
Thank you. At the end of the day we're the only ones we really have to answer to. The record labels don't really look at the talent that they work with as people, they look at us as product. I was called product once by the label over in Germany, my previous label was EMI and it was a disparaging comment. You don't need to talk about people like that, especially if they're there and understand German.

Tell us about Chris Broderick.
Chris came as a bolt out of the blue. We were on the road and Glen (Drover, former guitarist) had a checkup and they said he had an enlarged heart. He had some problems with his digestive tract and stress. He needed to go home. Glen is a good daddy and he wanted to be there for his little boy. I understand, I did it too. Unfortunately, I think I did it too late because there are some things you just can't correct with somebody once it's too late. I think there's a lot of things that are too late with my son that I've missed out on. But Glen made the right decision: he went home. He ended up being the best talent scout I've ever had because he got me Shawn (Drover, current drummer). You remember, at the time that Glen came into the band, Shawn was not drumming, Nick Menza was drumming. When Nick was drumming, every time we'd finish a song he would get out of his drum set, hop on his mountain bike and ride off. It was so bizarre, because sometimes he wouldn't come back for a half hour, and for the life of us we could not figure out what was going on. But then he got really sick one day and had to go to the hospital and that's when we got Shawn.

Then we went through some growing pains with (former bassist) James MacDonough because much as he was great to play with, he's a leader and I don't think that he really should be subordinate, he shouldn't answer to anybody because he's a leader. When James LoMenzo came along then everything came into focus. When Junior (David Ellefson, original bassist) had departed, I felt it would be really hard to fill that place and then we got Shawn. Shawn made it really easy to forget about Junior because he took over that role of in the band of second in command. When James LoMenzo came in he picked up the playing, he's as good as Junior is but the one area he's better at is the singing. Remember he was in White Lion and they had all those songs with tons of harmonies and that was his thing.

I think we stepped up in one particular position that looked like it was never going to be changed. When we did make the change a lot of people were really mad about it but what they're missing is I slept on my arm funny, my arm went to sleep and I had to break the band up. I didn't break it up to hurt anybody, I said "Listen, I can't play right now, I won't be able to play for a year and a half. I don't want you guys to sit around and wait for me."

You wanted them to have their lives.
That's the best thing I could possibly do was to give them my blessing and just say "I release you with love, please do what you need to do to take care of your family." At first Junior said "Thanks man." And then later that night he said "You're moving on with your life, I'm moving on with my life" and starts screaming at me. Junior of all people knows I have three black belts and I'm thinking to myself "what, do you have a death wish or something?" He was so out of control. My son was with me and he popped the trunk on my Mercedes and sat inside because he thought I was going to put a beating on Ellefson. I didn't, of course, because I've already beaten people up for Dave, I didn't want to beat him up because it would be totally mismatched and unfair. Whether or not I don't like him, I still love him for what he did in my band, helping me. The lawsuit was terrible and really showed me what kind of person you can have right under your nose and how careful you have to be. If anything it may have ratcheted up my paranoia a little bit.

Now you have Chris. Are you trying to keep up with him now?
(Laughs) I can't do that man! He's way better than I am. That's the thing that just cracks me up, when I look at these charts and these polls. Wow, it's totally flattering and I feel like I'm finally getting recognized now. Even though it's been happening for a long time, I kind of felt like I was in the shadows, I was one of those names you wouldn't say, like when Ramses was talking to Moses in the Ten Commandments and he says "His name shall be stricken from everything in Egypt." You have to pick sides. You're either on their side or you're on my side and it was pretty obvious for a long time what side everybody was on. I think perseverance and staying true to myself really has paid off and whether there's a feud or not it doesn't matter to the guys in Metallica. There's not even a feud anymore, it's just gone back to how it was back in the beginning where everyone is just playing because they love to play. We're all trying to save something, we were trying to save our music scene and right now, frankly, I think that the music business is in terrible shape. This is my last record with Roadrunner and my last record with EMI so I'm a free agent. I don't know if I'm going to retire or if I'm going to do another record, or what I'm going to do right now. I can honestly tell you that if it ends right now, because all my commitments are done, I don't know any other musician that's ever lived up to all their commitments and I think it would be a great way to go out. Having said that, it doesn't look like fans are going to let me go out because Endgame turned out really good and people are really responding to it.

We're not going to let you go.
It's not like I didn't want to be here, it's just that I had commitments to my relationship and to my kids and it's really been difficult because you're sitting in a hotel by yourself and I hear some of the other guys in the band and they've got girls everywhere, it's really frustrating. If you spend too much time out there on your own you start to question what your motives are out there. It's kind of like the military where they go away from home and you just don't know what you're coming back to either.

You were saying how it's nice to finally be recognized. You've won a few awards over the past two years. Golden God was for Revolver in the States and Riff Lord was for Metal Hammer.
I have a hard enough time right now trying to be humble. I try really hard but I have a big mouth and sometimes I say things I shouldn't say. When it comes down to all these accolades and stuff I really try to keep it in perspective. It's really hard because sometimes you're doing stuff and you can believe your own hype. I don't want to do that.

Years ago we talked about the hopes of hearing a Mandatory Megadeth daily selection to be on rock radio. Now I understand you have an online or satellite station in the works?
It's called Megadeth Radio, it's going to be on IHeartRadio.com and the show is called Predictably Unpredictable. We're going to have a lot of little shows within in it, like I made friends with the people at Bizarre magazine over in the UK. It's a great magazine - it's appropriately titled. We're going to have something where every month we have some weird fact that comes from them that we talk about. I have a friend that is a high-roller in UK radio and I thought we'd have the UK session like Led Zeppelin did the BBC Sessions and stuff like that and we could have an update and what to expect from the festivals going on during the summer. I can also go out and interview all my guests on Gigantour and any of the tour/festivals I'm on plus I can have the guys in the band do it too, because it's Megadeth Radio not Dave Mustaine radio.

It sounds like you have plenty to work with.
Tons of stuff. It's going to be a multidimensional radio station. I'm very aware of all the stuff that happened to me while I was growing up and I'm really a good story teller, I know how to get the point across without grossing somebody out or saying something that is inappropriate. I don't want this to be one of those shows that people say it's pretty cool but it's got the obligatory swearing and he's really trying too hard to be cool, telling all these terrible stories. I'm not going to be like that, I want it to be like it sounds like Dave's sitting right next to me and we're just talking like two friends.

Is it going to be a few hours a week?
It's going to be 24/7, syndicated around the world.

I'm excited about it! I read something online about you seeking listener requests. What is a song that you can't wait to play?
I couldn't even answer that because there's so many hundreds of songs. One of the things we're going to do with the request taking is that people can call in or email. We're also going to be taking comments about the show. Because I know the nature of people who know who I am. I know that with every good person who is going to say something constructive there is going to be someone with accolades and then there's going to be the one piece of vomit who is going to be on the other end of the phone naked cussing me out getting their rocks off. We know that's going to happen so we're having someone else filter them. So I won't have to hear that crap. It's good for the fans who want to do that kind of stuff because they can get it out of their system. It's good for me because it doesn't effect me personally, I don't have to hear it. If they have something to get off their chest and they say it in an inappropriate way but it's helpful for us, then we're going to want to hear that.

Endgame is out now on Roadrunner Records.

Go to www.Megadeth.com and www.myspace.com/megadeth for tour information.

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