DAVE MUSTAINE TALKS NEW ALBUM 'SUPER COLLIDER', GIGANTOUR & MORE

Dave Mustaine was the guest on Full Metal Jackie's radio show this past weekend. Mustaine spoke all about the bands new disc, "Super Collider" and the recording process of the album. He also expressed his enthusiasm for this years Gigantour and why spreading the word about new music is fulfilling to him. If you missed Full Metal Jackie's show, check out her interview with Dave Mustaine below

FMJ: Success and longevity can build an entire machine around a band; it can become bigger than just music thus far into your career, whats the trick to Megadeth still being a rewarding creative endeavor?

DM: I think its just being true to yourself and not settling on anything and note resting on your laurels because there are a lot of guitar players that are better than I am but when you get to the point where your thinking starts becoming like a birds nest you tend to miss the plot. I think that a lot of people that are really great, they make their music too complicated and people just cant get into it.

I remember one time hearing this advice somebody had given me and said that, A good song is beat, melody and ten simple words, and I was like, God, I cant fit 10 simple words in a sentence let alone in a whole song, but the point of it is its like beat, melody 10 simple words, dont make it to complicated.

If you are going to make it complicated make it at least musical and I think theres a lot of bands out there Im not going to say Megadeth was responsible for the prog-rock starting, I think that happened more with Genesis and stuff like that. As far as thinking mans metal and having a lot of twists and turns, we always liked doing that stuff and I think if every song had that it would become predictable and you would know what youre going to get. Megadeth is a predictably unpredictable band and you never really know what youre going to hear with the songs. You heard more songs than just about anybody off this record so far when we were making them and there were a lot of surprising tracks on there.

FMJ: Lets talk about Gigantour for a moment, its back and a really great lineup. Dave, how big is the satisfaction you get from turning people onto new or different bands with Gigantour, especially with the lineup for this year.

DM: Well the satisfactions won when you turned somebody onto a band that sounds really cool. Theres a completely different satisfaction when the band actually thanks you for it. I remember the guys in Stone Temple Pilots, we took them out when they had just changed their name from Mighty Joe Young to Stone Temple Pilots and nobody knew who they were and nobody wanted to touch them because they thought that they were a spoof band because they sounded like a Seattle band. I heard them and I went No, these guys are the real deal. I love this band, Im taking them out, I dont care what you say and I took them out on the Countdown to Extinction tour and they went on to become legendary.

Scott and Robert both thanked me and said, You gave us our break, and it was so rewarding to see somebody who has made it, to go back to the person who gave them their chance and thank them. Its very rare, its called class.

FMJ: Dave, you cant help being a different musician now, even a different person than 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even five years ago. What aspects of who Dave Mustaine is today made the biggest impact on the music we hear on Super Collider?

DM: I think probably the surgery on my neck probably had the biggest effect, now they got that bone out of my spinal chord Im not on medication anymore. Its funny when you listen to certain stuff you hear it and you can tell well, That kind of sounds a little bit like he was drinking when he wrote that one because he was pretty damn mad with those lyrics or you listen to some lyrics and its like, Well this must have been the acid phase, not that I ever took acid.

You look back at your career and if I remember Joe Elliot from Def Leppard said he cant listen to his first record without being drunk and its like God man I cant believe he said that. I cant listen to any of their late records without being drunk but I love that first record. Man, I can listen to all my records without being drunk.

FMJ: Do you still get that excitement of sharing your new music with the world? You have it, youre in the studio, youre precious with it, how do you feel when people finally get a chance to hear it?

DM: Well in a very weird way, its kind of like body shame where youre looking around and checking other people out on the beach and its like, Okay mirror mirror on the wall kind of thing. You dont really know if your songs are going to hold up or What were they listening to on their way to the studio before they heard this song? Were they listening to something better?

Your mind plays tricks on you, sometimes you can be working on a song and you can go past the point where the song is done to where its well done and then it turns into char. I think thats when you learn as a musician when enough is enough.

FMJ: Just like a sports team, a band is only as good as its players. What did you see from Shawn , Chris and David Ellefson during these latest sessions that really got you fired up?

DM: Shawn I think was probably the most surprising performer on this record because he played better on this record than hes played since Ive met him. I think a lot of that was because we were just challenging him everyday and we have this one outtake where Shawns grumbling and hes going, Daves trying to kill me. I wasnt trying to kill him, I swear to God. I walk in there and Ellefson is doing his bass parts and Shawns got his hand on the side of the chair and hes wiggling his fingers and he goes, I cant feel my hand .

FMJ: This record was like a work out for your guys.

DM: He said that, he said its a total workout. The funny thing is that people misinterpret stuff so pathetically, so badly. David was working Dancing in the Rain and he goes, This song reminds me of the first record because it sounds like Looking Down the Cross a little bit and so now everybodys saying, When I hear the record I disagree with David Ellefson, it doesnt sound like the first record and its like Dude youre misinterpreting what he said.

FMJ: How do you feel from when Megadeth started to today. Things have changed so much in terms of the digital age and people tweeting and posting. It used to be so different in terms of before a record comes out or even when youre out on tour. Do you look at it in a positive way how connected we are and how quickly information gets out or are you not a fan?

DM: I am a little bit leery about how much people can find out about other people without a person wanting people to know about them. Theres so much to be said about advancement in technology for the good of things but also theres a lot of bad thats happened with the advancement of technology people have gotten lazy.

I was going in the grocery store the other day and there are all these robot checkout stands and its like granted its good for the business owner to automate stuff like that but wheres the American workers. You want to know why the workforce is dwindling its because everything is becoming automated, no more tellers, theres ATMs. Pretty soon everything is going to be like that.