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- [00:01]
Sean Ryan
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity.
- [00:17]
Dave Mustaine
If your identity is stolen, a US.
- [00:19]
Sean Ryan
Based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Dave Mustaine, welcome to the show.
- [00:40]
Dave Mustaine
You're welcome. Thank you for having me, man.
- [00:43]
Sean Ryan
I've been super excited about this. Huge Megadeth fan. Grew up listening to that stuff and just to have you here is like, unreal. So thank you for coming, of course. But yeah, so we're going to do a life story on you, starting in childhood all the way to today, so could be a long day. You in for it?
- [01:04]
Dave Mustaine
I remember I was there, so it should be pretty, pretty easy.
- [01:09]
Sean Ryan
Cool. Well, everybody starts with an introduction, so here we go. Dave Mustaine, co founder of Metallica, where he helped lay the groundwork for thrash metal before parting ways in 1983. Mastermind behind Megadeth, a band that sold over 50 million records, earned six platinum albums, and even a Grammy in 2017 for Dystopia. Working on your 17th Megadeth album to be released later this year. In June, you'll celebrate the 40th anniversary of Megadeth's debut album. Killing is My Business and Business is good. Thrash metal pioneer whose guitar prowess has landed you among the top guitarists of all time, influencing generations of headbangers. Cancer survivor, having beaten throat cancer in 2019 while still crafting one of Megadeth's fiercest album, the Sick, the Dying and the Dead, which is the topic of a book you're working on called In My Darkest Hour. Now, Vitner with House of Mustaine, blending your passion for music with fine wine making. Relaunching Megadeth beer in the UK and Europe with a Pilsner IPA and zero beer called Rattlehead. A family married to Pamela since 1991 with two children. Electra, injustice. And most important, out of everything, you're a Christian. Did I miss anything? I'm sure I missed a lot.
- [02:42]
Dave Mustaine
No, I think that that was very, very honoring. Thank you for that. You know, I did sell about 40 to 50 million records with Metallica, so, you know, about 100 million records, so.
- [02:56]
Sean Ryan
Wow. 100 million records. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a third of the country. That's insane. That's insane. But so everybody gets a gift on the show. Nothing crazy. Vigilance Elite. Gummy Bears. Made here in the USA, legal in all 50 states. It's horrible for you.
- [03:26]
Dave Mustaine
38%. I'll be eating these during the show, man.
- [03:31]
Sean Ryan
Just candy. Yeah, candy. And then. My pleasure. And then lastly, we have a Patreon account. It's a community and subscription service. It's actually turned into a community. And they've been with me since the very beginning when I started this in my attic. And then we moved here and now we're moving to a new studio, and they've just supported me and they're the reason that I get to sit here and do this.
- [03:56]
Dave Mustaine
Wow.
- [03:57]
Sean Ryan
And, yeah, so one of the things that I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. And so this is from Stephen Casey. I heard Dave practiced. Excuse me, I heard Dave practiced Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. How did you get into that? Also, how does your worldview affect your music theme and focus?
- [04:26]
Dave Mustaine
I'll ask the second question first. How does it affect my worldview and focus? How does martial arts affect my worldview and focus?
- [04:35]
Sean Ryan
I think that's where he's going. I think he's talking more about your music. How does your worldview affect your music theme and focus?
- [04:43]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, that's what I thought. So my worldview is, you know, it's in flux. It changes over time. You know, something that I thought was okay when I was a teenager certainly isn't okay now. Stuff that I thought wasn't okay seems absolutely normal right now. You know, my thinking evolves. Just like anybody who has an open mind. I've been around the world and I've seen so many things that it makes me really grateful for where we live, but it also makes me grateful for the way in which we live. Going to some of the other countries that are socialist countries or other countries that maybe are third world countries, and the poverty level is extreme, you want to say, hey, this person is just like me. And they are physiologically. But when it comes down to anything beyond them just standing in front of you, their whole existence is completely different. You know, I can't go down to South America, for example, and expect somebody who's a fan, who is living under those. Those pressures of. Of poverty to know what it's like to have your own house. I learned a long time ago that young people in Japan had a decision to make whether they were willing to purchase a vehicle or a house. They could not do both. And then to get back to your first question about Brazilian martial art. I'm working on my fourth black belt right now in bjj. And it started with Benny the Jet Yukitas, who was in the Black Belt hall of Fame. And he was my first black belt that I got in Yukitocon. And that was back in the 90s. And after that I moved to Arizona, so I was unable to train with Sensibani anymore. And the closest, most convenient place for me to go work out was a Taekwondo school that was there. And I got a black belt in that really fast. And I was going for the master program and I started to notice there were holes in the program, like I was teaching a kid's class. And I grabbed the bottom of his gi and I pulled on it and he fell and started crying and I felt terrible. And then I thought, you know, this program doesn't teach people how to fall. But in the meantime, I had gotten my black belt with that organization and then we went to Korea and I got my third black belt in taekwondo and I got my fourth degree with the World Taekwondo Federation. And Mr. Chung was the, he was the president at the time. He was the one that had presented me my awards and my belts. And then the one thing that I always wanted to do was ground fighting. Because Yukido Kan is a hybrid of nine different styles. And one of the styles is Jiu Jitsu. And it doesn't mean that it's Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or Man on the Moon Jiu Jitsu. It's Jiu Jitsu. But I found a school here. I went there and I didn't like the instructor, but I liked. Or the owner, but I liked the head instructor there. And so much so that I helped him get a school on his own. We moved away from that original school. He opened up a school in Spring Hill and he opened up a second school in Columbia and it's Renzo Gracie Jiu Jitsu. So I have my brown belt right now. And if everything goes according to plan and I stay in my training routine, I probably will have my black belt sometime the end of this year or next year. Wow. Wow. Long question. I'm sorry.
- [08:41]
Sean Ryan
No, that's. I mean, what got you interested in it at the beginning?
- [08:46]
Dave Mustaine
Getting beaten up.
- [08:47]
Sean Ryan
Getting beaten up?
- [08:49]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. The one thing I did know before I knew how to fight was that I didn't like taking shit from people. I didn't know how to defend myself, but I knew I did not like taking shit from people. And 12 years old, I joined the YMCA. My brother in law was the Chief of Police in Staten, California. And he told me that the YMCA across from the police department was doing free karate classes. And I went. It was Shorin Ryu, so it was more the traditional karate style. And I remember when I went and started taking classes there, the first thing we did, it was like within the first couple classes was a tournament and you know, I was still a white belt. And you know, there's no striking to the face, no striking to the groin. And first guy that I competed against kicked me in the groin and smacked me in the face. And he was DQ'd, but didn't change the fact that I could not finish. And so I just said, that's it for me. And I went a different route and I started training in Kung Fu San Tsu after that for a little while. So I've had various training in different styles, but I still think the best defense is to, you know, keep your eyes open and don't be a dick.
- [10:10]
Sean Ryan
Wow. Wow. Four. Four. Soon to be four black belts.
- [10:15]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, soon.
- [10:16]
Sean Ryan
Holy shit, man. That's a lot of training. What's, what's your training regimen like? Do you train often?
- [10:22]
Dave Mustaine
Well, I have two privates a week and I have a gym in my house. One of your friends knows where we're at and has been there. So it's a little bit more than home gym. It's kind of like a semi professional gym. We still need some stuff there, but it has everything that you need to get a good workout in.
- [10:45]
Sean Ryan
Damn, that's awesome. Well, Dave, let's get into the life story. Where did you grow up?
- [10:54]
Dave Mustaine
All over the place. My mom and dad got divorced when I was four and I was born in La Mesa. And at that time all I really Remember was about 4 years old when I was baptized as a Lutheran. And then my mom and dad got a divorce. And thus started the leaprogation game with my mom and the two youngest children that she had, myself and my sister Debbie. And whenever we would move, my dad would find us and usually would show up drunk. And I loved him. I didn't understand alcoholism at the time. I was just a kid and I certainly didn't understand why they didn't try to get him into a program, like a 12 step program, because they weren't existence at the time. But so 4, 4 years old until 13, I was with my mom. We'd move from one sister to another sister, to my aunt on our own, back to another sister, back to the other sister. And it was always me and my, my sister Debbie who would be doing this leapfrogging because my two older sisters had both been married and had family, so they had some stability. I never knew that my mom was a Jehovah's. And when I was 13, I started playing guitar. And at about 15 years old, she said she'd had enough, and she moved out and left me alone in an apartment and no money to pay rent. So I did not know what to do. And I knew it was just a matter of time before I was going to lose the apartment. So I did what any kid would do. I. I became an entrepreneur, and I became a distributor of sorts. And so I was able to sell some stuff and be able to pay my rent. And eventually I was making enough money where I had a car and I was able to get some musical equipment. But the meantime, we're still facing all the moves that had happened before then. And then as soon as I hooked up with Metallica, the moving continued. I moved from Huntington beach up to San Francisco, out to New York, back to California, to Costa Mesa, then up to Los Angeles, where I finally started Megadeth.
- [13:29]
Sean Ryan
Whoa. Let's rewind a little bit. There's a lot to unpack there.
- [13:32]
Dave Mustaine
Sure.
- [13:34]
Sean Ryan
Four years old. Your parents separate. How many siblings do you have?
- [13:38]
Dave Mustaine
I have three. Debbie is three years older than me, and the other two were 15 and 18 years older than me and are both deceased.
- [13:48]
Sean Ryan
Were you close with them?
- [13:50]
Dave Mustaine
The oldest one, yeah. But after a while, because they were following the guidelines of their religion and I was supposedly a worldly person, and they did what their religion calls for. I was disfellowshipped, not officially, but basically I was not allowed to be around anybody. I couldn't come to meetings. I couldn't go to Witnesses houses and stuff like that. And I didn't care because I hated that religion.
- [14:24]
Sean Ryan
So were you. I mean, my editor and good friend grew up as a Jehovah's Witness, and then, I don't know if you would call it escaped it, but that's what I call it. Escaped it because it sounds very extremely cultish.
- [14:41]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [14:42]
Sean Ryan
And. And they have. They have destroyed his. His relationship with his son and the rest of his family. Did you get sucked into the religion?
- [14:57]
Dave Mustaine
No, I didn't. I didn't like it. I. You know, I'm a kid. I want to watch cartoons, man. I don't want to go to church. And when they would say, okay, you're gonna. Not only are you gonna go out to church, but on the other day, on the weekend, you're gonna go out and knock on strangers doors and try and sell them shit that they don't want. Right? I mean there's people that the houses you knock on the doors probably have the same outlook I do. I don't want to be bothered on Sunday because I'm scratching my belly in my pajamas and I'm watching, you know, college sports. So, you know, that kind of a thing, to me it just sucked. And then having the holidays taken away, not being able to hang out with friends, you know, you make friends in school and then they say, hey, you want to come over? Oh, I can't. Why? Because my mom's nuts.
- [15:44]
Sean Ryan
Geez. What age did that start? What age did you start getting started?
- [15:50]
Dave Mustaine
I think I was 7 when she started and it went on until she moved out because, you know, I was selling pot for a living. I, you know, what else does a 15 year old have to do? Sell his ass? Sell pot. You know, I wasn't going to sell my ass, so I sold pot. And you know, I would go to rehearsal and I would say to my mom, before she had moved out, you know, I had a beginning of a relationship with marijuana. So sometimes I would have some and I would leave it and I would say, hey, somebody's coming by. Just, just, there's something by the door. Just tell them to leave the money. You know, say that. I think that happened maybe like two, three times. And then that was it, she was gone.
- [16:38]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [16:38]
Dave Mustaine
Older sisters. Michelle, the oldest one, she actually was not one of the witnesses for a very long time. She actually went into witchcraft. That's where I learned my witchcraft from, was my oldest s sister, Michelle. And then she, she somehow got, you know, re recruited and, and she ended up being a witness again at the end. And she would talk to me, but it was like kind of like a, an aunt kind of thing. And then my, my sister that was younger than her, the one who was 15 years older than me, she was, did. She didn't want to have anything to do with me. She just died. And even though she was awful to me, I did the right thing and paid for her to go to hospice and paid for a nurse to be with them. For me. I work really hard for my money and it was for anybody else. It would have been a difficult decision if I would have thought about this is the sister who's treated you like shit your entire life. Why are you gonna do this? And it ain't about what she thinks, it's about what God thinks. You know, am I doing the right thing with what I'M getting given, you know, my funds, my gifts. You know, it can be used for very bad stuff.
- [18:05]
Sean Ryan
Was that a. Was that a tough decision for you.
- [18:09]
Dave Mustaine
To help my sister try to pass into the next world? You know, I thought she, being a Jehovah's Witness, would be so eager to get into heaven, you know, I mean, I don't understand the concept of heaven, so I would have thought she would have said, you know, chuck this old body, man. I'm out of here. But, you know, she fought and fought and fought and fought and fought and fought and fought. And finally the government out in California put her into hospice. You know, I'd been paying for a very long time for a nurse for her. You know, when people wonder what I spend my money on, that was a lot of it was paying for my sister's transition into death. And then the youngest one, who's a little bit older than me, she's got a little bit of a mental illness. So I don't know what you would call it, if it's depression or if it's what, I don't know. But. But we still talk. But she kind of talks like a baby when she talks to me, so that's a little weird. And, you know, every family has this stuff. We all do. You know, it's either. It's either your immediate bloodline, your family of origin, you know, maybe your family of choice, your best friend. You know, I mean, I know a lot of people who I've been close with that aren't here anymore. And I'm thinking, for fuck's sake, man, I'm only 63. How is it that you've died already? I feel like I've still got a lot of life left in me, man.
- [19:54]
Sean Ryan
Did you. Did you ever get to make amends with your sister before she passed?
- [20:00]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, yeah, I did that a long time ago. I did go through the 12 step program, and I made my personal moral inventory of everything that I'd done, and I read it to my sponsor, and then I got prepared to go out and make amends to everybody, except when to do so would injure others. You know, I'm not going to say my skin is somebody else's expense. And then I just continued the last three steps, you know, keep taking moral inventory of myself and carry the message in all my affairs. And I'm not in a 12 step, but it shows you how it worked in my life. I can recite a lot of it. And it all goes back. If you boil it down, it goes back to The Sermon on Mount. Anyways, it's just the Beatitudes, you know, that was adopted by the Washingtonian group who got adopted by aa and then AA was the groundwork for the other fellowships that came after that, like CA and NA and GA and oa.
- [21:10]
Sean Ryan
I know we're going to dive into this in a little bit, but how did your sister get involved in witchcraft?
- [21:16]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, Michelle was, she was a very determined woman. She was one of the first people who applied to join the Navy in our county. And for some reason the Navy wasn't accepting women at the time. And I don't know if it was a moment where they weren't accepting them or if they hadn't opened up the idea of having women in the Navy because I seem to think that there were women in the Navy that were really old and it just kind of defies logic that she wouldn't be able to do it unless there was a, a moment where they said, we're not taking any more women. But she was really determined and she married a guy that I, I really just, I, I looked up to him so much. He's my, my brother in law, Stan. And I already told you about the first one who was the chief of police and, and Stanton, California. Well, this one was a motorcycle cop for the California Highway Patrol. I don't know what's up with my sisters being drawn to Leos, but, you know, it is what it is. So that particularly sucked when my mom would move in with my sister because they were both very large men and they would have to do the unthinkable and I know they hated it, but they would come home and my sister would say, well, David was the oldest and these guys got in trouble. So he's had his nose in the corner for an hour and you need to give him a spank. And the fuckers both had gun belts. And that's what I got spanked with, was the leather belt that they kept all of their tools on. But I thought he was.
- [22:59]
Sean Ryan
So your sister's husbands would discipline you?
- [23:03]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, because I didn't have a dad in the picture. My mom would empower them to be my surrogate role model, surrogate father kind of thing. So it was really fucked up. It was psychotic. This is part of that whole witness thing. So you know.
- [23:18]
Sean Ryan
What do you mean it's part of the witness thing?
- [23:20]
Dave Mustaine
Well, when you have problems with somebody who needs to be disciplined, they help women that have kids that aren't listening by singling them out and getting people around them to talk to them in usually a less than edifying way. And you know, I was never put in one of those situations where my sister Debbie was, she had done something, gone out somewhere with another guy that was in the church that they went to, and some girl that liked the guy made up a story that they were and never happened. But the church believed this other girl because her dad was one of the executives in the church. They call them overseers. So of course you're going to believe the daughter of an overseer because they're, they're hierarchy, they're, you know, they're, they're pious, they're, they're without remorse, without any, any, they're without any spot, no blame. They're, they're spotless, you know, so their kid can come up with a story like my sister banging some guy and, and never happened. And of course she's disfellowshipped. And that traumatizes her because again, the social circles and what happens when you don't have people that you associate with on a regular basis? I was talking to Darren earlier and I told him, I said, you know, we have the people that we would associate with and there would be, you know, two days that we'd see people on Wednesdays and on Sundays, unless you went out in service on Saturdays. And you didn't really get a chance to associate with people. So your social life was very stunted. It was. I feel like a lot of the young people in organized religion, you know, this particular one didn't think about the social hardships that it was going to be for young people growing up. You know, it's kind of like M. Night Shyamalan's movie the Village. You know, we were, we were in the Village.
- [25:27]
Sean Ryan
Wow. Wow. And your sisters were okay with her. Were they husbands or. They were husbands, yeah.
- [25:37]
Dave Mustaine
They're my brother in law's.
- [25:39]
Sean Ryan
How bad did it get?
- [25:41]
Dave Mustaine
The spankings?
- [25:41]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [25:42]
Dave Mustaine
Well, you know, the gun belt's like 2, 3 inches wide. It's about 38 of an inch thick leather. So one swat with that hurt like hell. And you know, it wasn't like I was beat every day, but whenever anybody got in trouble, I got it because I was the oldest and I had both of those sisters had kids that were just a little bit younger than me that were boys. So we would all be together, even though I was their uncle. We would go out and do stuff as three kids because we're all we had. We didn't have anybody else. You know, we weren't allowed to play with Normal people. And, you know, we would go someplace, we would shoplift something, we would light a fire in a field, we would break something, we'd throw a ball, you know, break out a streetlight, throw somebody's shoes over a wire, whatever. And they would just go nuts.
- [26:38]
Sean Ryan
So damn, how did she get into witchcraft?
- [26:42]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, Michelle. Yeah. So she got into this thing with Stan. She married Stan. Stan was, like I said, he was a really, really terrific guy. It was really awesome guy, good looking and, you know, wrote a Harley. I mean, first thing in the morning the whole neighborhood vibrated. And who wouldn't want to be married to a cop like that? And his tour that he had to do every day was Pacific coast highway in Huntington Beach. That doesn't suck, right? So anyways, he left her and she was heartbroken and she went crazy. And she started pursuing alternate means because God had not worked for her. The God of the witnesses that she'd been praying for her husband to come back didn't work for her. And she. I had ran away from home and I moved up to Idaho and I was living with her and her kids in a trailer, which was awful, just fucking awful. And she went to work one day and I started playing hooky from school because my nephew had told people at the school I was a martial artist guy. And the first day I got there, I got cold cocked and I figured I'm not going to this school because I'm not going to deal with this every day. So I started playing hooky. I figured I would run away, back to home. But. But one day I went back into where her bedroom was and there was a candle that was on her desk that had melted and it had some substance in the top of it, it looked like moss. And there was a picture that was burnt in half and it was a hex. To have him leave the girl he left my sister for, who was a big blonde bombshell from a bar, and to come back to my sister, who was not a big bombshell blonde. And I'll be damned if he didn't come back.
- [28:50]
Sean Ryan
Are you serious?
- [28:51]
Dave Mustaine
He came back. He came back. So I figured, wow, this has got to work. And I saw the book, it was just a little piece of paper, it was like, you know, you fold it in half and that's a page. And it was like a 20 page booklet or something like that. And it had a couple hexes in there. And I tried two of them and they both worked too. So at that point I had to tell my wife what I had done. And we Started on the journey of trying to get the oppression, the demonic oppression that had happened to me by opening up my defenses and asking for the Dark Prince to help me put hex on somebody that really fucked my life up. And it took years for us to get out of it because we were going to, like, San Francisco up to Filipino priests that would lay hands on you. And I had some Indian rajahs that would do cupping and acupuncture and crazy stuff like that.
- [29:52]
Sean Ryan
What were your hexes?
- [29:54]
Dave Mustaine
Well, one was. One was something that had to do with the guy that actually punched me at school. What happened was we went to school that day. Excuse me. We went to school that day, and the guy walked up to me and just slugged me. And he said he was going to see me after school. Now, we rode a normal school bus to one point, and then the bus stopped, and all the kids got out for a smaller bus that would take us out into the rural area. And so we stop, we get out, and everybody circles around the two of us, like we're gonna fight right there. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, this is going down. So everything I'd learned up to that point was going through my mind. And the second bus shows up, and we get in the bus and we take off. And he's coming up to his house, and he walks through the walkway in the bus and elbows me in the back of the head as he's getting out. And I was trying to fit in, so I had a mouthful of red, man. And I was trying to get into the whole chewing tobacco thing, because that's what everybody else was doing. And when he hit me, I went and I swallowed that shit. So I went back to my sister's trailer, and I got really, really sick. And I figured, that's it. I'm going to do something about this. So I looked through the book, and I found something that would do what I wanted. And I did that hex. And then there was another one.
- [31:34]
Sean Ryan
What did you want to happen?
- [31:35]
Dave Mustaine
Well, I really don't want to get into it because I don't want anybody to be misled and try and figure out what I did and go down that route, because it was a terrible deviation from what was good and right in the world for me. Of course, that power's out there. Without black, there's no white. But it was just. It was just for me. After that happened, I realized that I don't want to really want to talk about this. Really don't want to get anybody interested in it. You Know, so, so I'll talk about it to the degree that I'm comfortable with, where I know that nobody can be misled from it.
- [32:12]
Sean Ryan
And then you, and then, and then you did another one.
- [32:14]
Dave Mustaine
I did a second one and that one was, it was something when I had moved back to California already and there was some, somebody that I wanted and I was just, you know, I was an ugly, red headed, freckle faced kid with short hair and sweat rings and, and I, I didn't have any chance of being with this girl, but everybody in school wanted to be with this girl. So I figured, what the hell, you know, I say that quite a lot in my life. Right. And we were together and then we.
- [32:52]
Sean Ryan
Weren'T and it worked again. Wow.
- [32:56]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [32:57]
Sean Ryan
So what it, what is, I mean, I don't know much about witchcraft.
- [33:01]
Dave Mustaine
You don't want to.
- [33:02]
Sean Ryan
What, what is the. In a snapshot? What, what is it? Is it.
- [33:09]
Dave Mustaine
Well, there, there is a understanding that there are black witches and white witches, that there are witches that do good. But witchcraft is the witchcraft. It's the use of the elements. And there's alchemy, there's wizardry, sorcery, electricity, magic, there's use of blood, use of spit, use of sperm, use of all of these things that are all part of what was created and being used in an unnatural way. So, you know, for me, when I walked away from practicing any kind of witchcraft, because I didn't practice it. I did it two times and both of them worked. And then I went, this is bigger than I am and I'm not going to mess around with this. And so wrote the song the Conjuring. And there was another song that was kind of along from that inspiration from that experience. It was Bad Omen.
- [34:22]
Sean Ryan
Wow. You know, earlier you had mentioned, we were talking about your sister passing. You had mentioned that you don't understand the concept of heaven. Do you still not understand the concept of heaven?
- [34:36]
Dave Mustaine
Well, see, that's probably, you know, as soon as I said that I thought, you know, there's probably going to be some people that think I don't believe in heaven. See, the thing is, is I'm willing to believe in it and I'm willing to be wrong. It's like Pasquale's equation when he said it's better to live like there's a God and die and find out there isn't one, than to live like there is no God and die and find that there is one. So for me, I like to try and live my life as if there Is a God. And I like to look forward to my life. I want to live a long time. I don't want to die and go to heaven right now because I'm, in a very human way, selfish. And I want to spend time with my family, with my granddaughter, with my son, with my daughter, with my wife. I love making music. My career's full stop right now. And, you know, the idea of just saying, oh, I give up, let's go. Ding, ding. That to me, is not what I want to do. Do I believe in streets of gold and. And all that kind of stuff? Well, there's a lot of documentation about that in the word, but, you know, I don't. I don't necessarily remember everything because of part of the cancer treatment. The chemo brain is something that happens when you get chemotherapy and the radiation and chemo treatment that I had was really gnarly. So do I believe when I die I'm going to go to heaven? Yeah, Hope so.
- [36:21]
Sean Ryan
What do you envision heaven like?
- [36:23]
Dave Mustaine
I don't know. See, that's the whole thing. I always have this picture of clouds and the gate, and you walk through it, and then it's like, I think, you know, do I want to go to heaven? No, I want to spend more time with my wife. Because if I go to heaven and I'm not with her, if I go to heaven and we're not together as a couple anymore, that would make me sad. And I get real emotional when I think about that. So I don't want to talk about it.
- [36:50]
Sean Ryan
Rewinding just a little bit. If you don't mind, I'd like to dig a little bit more into childhood of man.
- [36:56]
Dave Mustaine
Do whatever you want.
- [36:57]
Sean Ryan
I've had a. It sounds like you've had a rough go as a kid, and I find that a lot more common than I'd like to, especially during these interviews. It blows my mind how many kids grow up in a dangerous, abusive, uncomfortable shit environment. And so, I mean, growing up with an alcoholic father, I mean. And you'd mention that he would find where you guys live and you would have to move again. I mean, what kind of stuff. What kind of stuff were you dealing with? And the reason I'm asking is because I know there's a lot of kids that watch this that are going through that, and I know a lot of them feel trapped in where they are, and they're looking. They're looking for hope. And so just want to kind of talk about your experience with an abusive father and the stuff that happened with you with your sister's husband?
- [38:00]
Dave Mustaine
Well, see, I loved my dad. I didn't know what was going on. I was still really young. I remember to this day when we were living on one particular street in Costa Mesa and my mom and my dad were still together. They must have tried another time, because I don't believe I was four at the time. I believe I was a little older, but they for sure got divorced at 4. And I remember kissing him good night and his stubble on his face. And he always smelt like a pipe, like cherry vanilla pipe. So I grew up to love that smell. Now, the things that I was told about my dad that I never saw was that my dad had slashed all my mom's tires so she couldn't get away, that he had cut his hands and he rubbed his blood all over my mom's face, and that he smacked her a few times and spit in her face. And what do I know? Do I know? Do I think that's real? Probably. Is it? Probably is? Do I wish I knew? Yeah. But do I know now after going through treatment so many times that a lot of times when people are in the throes of spirits or medication or street drugs, any kind of thing like that, the whole reason that people do anything like that is to break the reality. Just to have a momentary break in reality so that you can feel anything but what you're really feeling right now. I just want to feel something. Something different. I don't know if I want to go up or go down or go sideways. I just want to feel something different. I hate my life. I hate my job. I hate my relationship, and I have nothing to live for. And I know I don't want to kill myself because I'm afraid of killing myself. And the choice is sit there and just be miserable. Or someone will come around and say, hey, man, let's have a drink. And she's the outstarts. A drink. Another drink, Another drink. And if you're someone like me, the reason why I don't drink hard liquor is because once I get to the point where I take one and I go, ah, the second one I'm going to go, oh. And the third one, I'm going to go, whoops. And there's just no place in my life right now for that. I'll see people when they're in our presence, meet and greets, concerts, stuff like that, and they'll be clearly inebriated, and we'll try and be real considerate of that and make sure that they're being handled in a proper way. Because sometimes they say stuff that makes them look like they're an aggressor, but they're just a rambunctious fan who's intoxicated. So back to the thing with my dad, there was those stories that I had heard. But then again, I go back to the same thing I said previously about. I don't know why they didn't try and take him to a treatment facility. Because he was a vet, he was in the army. I know he had a problem with the va and I know he had some kind of disease. He had gout. That was one of the things he had. And he had some other kind of diseases. Because when he passed away, I went to his apartment and I found his Masonic ring. And then I found these jars that were full of medication. And they were big chars. They were like peanut butters sized jars, not the little ones you get from the pharmacy. They're big. So whatever he was dealing with, he had enough medication there to last, in my estimation, a very long time, unless he was eating them like candy.
- [42:05]
Sean Ryan
When did he pass? How old were you?
- [42:07]
Dave Mustaine
I was 17 when he died. And he had been working in a bar. He was working for National Cash Register at the time. He went from being the west coast branch manager of bank of America to being a guy that worked on cash registers because of his alcoholism. And I'm sure that that was unbearable for him. So he's at a bar, he's working on a cash register. They said he fell off a stool. All I know is that he was in a bar and his head hit the ground. Whatever transpired between him walking through the front door and him walking out in a stretcher, it's an enigma to me. But he had a mass cerebral hemorrhage, and he was in the hospital. My sister called me up and they said, daddy's in the hospital. You need to come now. And all I had for transportation at the time was a moped because my mom had left me. And that's. I took the moped with my surfboard down to the beach every day. That's all I needed transportation for. But I got the call and I grabbed a bottle of whiskey. It was this stuff called Old Granddad. It was awful. And I started driving down Pacific coast highway from Huntington beach to Costa Mesa to go to the hospital where my dad was. He was already dead. He was in a coma. And he was in the fetal position. And I walked in, and my sister Suzanne, the middle one goes, you're gonna end up just like Daddy. And I hated her from that moment on before then, I didn't hate her. I was confused why she had ostracized me. But when she said that, I just figured, you're just rotten and I not going to have anything to do with you anymore. And we stayed out of touch for a very long time.
- [43:52]
Sean Ryan
How much time had passed since between the last time you saw your father and when he died?
- [44:00]
Dave Mustaine
Well, the funny thing was when my mom moved out, I had called him up and it was the first year. And like I said, I was 17 and I had. It was Father's Day. And I called him up and I said, hey, dad, I'm living on my own now and I'd really like to come down and see you for Father's Day. And he said he'd really like that. So I went down and I saw his apartment and it was just bare bones. And I opened up his fridge and there was a piece of meat in there on a plate like a pot roast and nothing else. And at the time, I didn't put everything together that this is not acceptable. This is not okay. This is my dad. What's going on here? I just went down and I figured this is the first step because it's the first time I'd ever seen my dad in a neutral territory where my mom wasn't saying her mantra, which was, you're going to go live with your father. So I was always threatened with my father at the end of the sentence. You know, you're going to get your head shaved with your father. Anything like that stupid shit. They would just say, you're going to get this with your father. And when they would say I was going to go move with them, after a while I started to fear that and I needed to find out for myself. And I went and I met him. I saw him for the man that he was. He was a. A sick man. And he wasn't weak by any means. He was sick.
- [45:36]
Sean Ryan
What was the conversation like?
- [45:38]
Dave Mustaine
I mean, it was very, very shallow. It was very strained. I think he knew how badly he had. Had let me down. As his son, I can tell you when, when I do stupid stuff like cuss around my son's daughter, I feel like I've than the unthinkable, you know, so like when my dad had to face what he did, I'm sure it was, you know, a hundred times manifest and, you know, so many times worse. All the things he had to face and think of because I've never done anything like rub Blood on my wife or spit on her or slash her tires or anything like that. Whenever we get in an argument, I know that I love her too much to say anything that I. I would regret. So I usually walk away. And, you know, I get hit with stuff as I'm walking away. Don't walk away. Come back here and fight. But, you know, it's usually better I let her cool off. And then, you know, every couple has that. You know, if you really love somebody, you got to face the fact that you're two completely different people trying to live together.
- [46:51]
Sean Ryan
Did you. Did the relationship with her, with your dad develop more, or was that the only time he saw him before he died?
- [46:58]
Dave Mustaine
That was the one and only time I'd seen him.
- [47:02]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [47:03]
Dave Mustaine
Ever, without any kind of conditioning by my mom. Usually he would come over the first week of school, and my mom would let him bring over stuff like pencils and school products for the list that they give you when you start each school year. You need to get your notebooks and your this and your that. My mom would have him provide that for us. I don't know that he ever gave her child support that could have possibly been a problem. But see, it's just. Like I said, it's an enigma. I just don't know how did the.
- [47:38]
Sean Ryan
So your mom left at 15. Did you continue a relationship with her?
- [47:44]
Dave Mustaine
Tried. We talked. She would come over and. And maybe once every couple weeks and do stuff like clean my house or come over to maybe cook something. I think it was her way of making sure I didn't die. But, you know, because she still was a mom and I still was her son. No matter what religious organization had a hold of her mind, her heart still belonged, you know, to her. Maternal production, for lack of a better word, that I was, you know.
- [48:22]
Sean Ryan
How did you get into dealing?
- [48:25]
Dave Mustaine
That was like I said, I started off messing around with it a little bit, and then I figured out, you know, I would. I would sell it. And it wasn't like something that. That happened overnight, you know, we were. I was going to Marina High School. There was a place they had that went over this moat that went around the school. It was called the Bridge. And all the kids that were the bad kids would go out on the bridge. So I would go out there and people would sell joints and stuff that you hear on Cheech and Chong Records. Acapulco Gold and Colombian and Sinsemilla and stuff like that. That's what the pot was called back then. And I remember we would go out there during lunch, and everybody smoked joint. You know, you'd get one puff off of it, and then you'd go back to go eat lunch and then go to class. Unfortunately for me, algebra was after lunch, and I got an F in algebra, but all the other classes I had that were philosophical in a sense, like English, stuff like that, social studies, those were things that were enjoyable for me when I was. When I was in high school.
- [49:40]
Sean Ryan
Did you. Did you deal with any other types of abuse, Any sexual abuse, anything like that?
- [49:45]
Dave Mustaine
Me, myself.
- [49:46]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [49:47]
Dave Mustaine
You know, it depends on what people say abuse is, because if you see stuff that you shouldn't see, that's abusive. And I saw stuff I shouldn't see. And for me, I think that, you know, it's one of those things that you have to break the chains. You have to. Because maybe it wasn't my dad, maybe it was his dad, but doing something like that, I believe, is a spiritual trespass on somebody.
- [50:24]
Sean Ryan
You're talking about generational trauma.
- [50:26]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, any kind of bloodshed or any kind of sexual abuse, stuff like that, because the sins of the father are revisited onto generations. And, you know, I was having a hard time with stuff. And we did a bunch of ancestral research and found out that there was a lot of war in my family and a lot of warriors and a lot of bloodshed, consequently. So we had to. Had to really face a lot of that stuff. And, you know, I'm not a violent person by nature. Like I said, one of the best things I've ever learned about fighting is not to.
- [51:06]
Sean Ryan
If you don't mind me asking, we don't have to go there. What kind of stuff did you see?
- [51:11]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, sexual stuff. Well, I saw stuff with some cousins that I had that were kind of fooling around with other people, and it was something that they thought it was kind of fun to show us kids. And to me, I think that's sexual abuse. At nine years old, you don't need to witness somebody having intercourse with somebody else. And, you know, as far as, like, anybody trying to sexually abuse me, that hasn't happened, fortunately for me. And as far as my family's concerned, we're golden. Ever since our children were born, they've been treated like gold. And there was never anything that, you know, we would make sure that they didn't watch any inappropriate at movies for their age. You know, even at this time, with Elektra being in her mid-20s, when she's in the front room watching movies with her mom and there's too much cussing, I'll Go, you guys. You know, here I am. You know, I can't get to a sentence without saying fuck. And, you know, it's like that guru that's on the Internet that says all the great ways so you can use fuck in a sentence, but when I hear it and I hear my family saying it, I'm like, come on, man, don't do that. You're. You're a lady. Stop it. You know, Goofy, right?
- [52:37]
Sean Ryan
I get it. I get it. Well, I want to ask you. We'll take a break here in a minute, but before we do, like I had mentioned earlier, there's just. There's a lot of kids that are in broken homes right now and facing the unthinkable. And so what advice would you have for a kid that's in that kind of a situation?
- [53:01]
Dave Mustaine
The first thing is to say something about it, as embarrassing as it is, to let it continue to happen in a very twisted way, kind of allowing it to happen. And, you know, you don't want to be a co conspirator in your own sexual abuse. You know, there are certain circumstances I'm sure of, I have a vivid imagination where people are in circumstances where they cannot get out of a circumstance where they're being sexually abused. And that's where I think you need to say something. To who? To anybody. The first person you fucking see say something. You know, because that if you're being sexually abused and you're a child, that person is doing the unthinkable. If you're adult and you're being sexually abused, there are laws for that. Equally. The same ones with children and stuff that's taken by force. There are laws for that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if we should go back to the death penalty for rapists. Like, part of me says yes and part of me says no. But I think when you do that, because you're taking a piece of somebody's life away.
- [54:24]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [54:25]
Dave Mustaine
Forever.
- [54:27]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. You're. You're destroying their innocence.
- [54:32]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. And they're going to think about that moment for the rest of their life. Something's wrong with me.
- [54:38]
Sean Ryan
Do you. Do you. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious about, you know, some of your family downstairs, your wife and your son. Seems like you've broken the generational curse.
- [54:50]
Dave Mustaine
Yes, we have.
- [54:52]
Sean Ryan
Did your siblings. Did your siblings. Were they able to break that?
- [54:58]
Dave Mustaine
I don't know. Let's go down the chain. Michelle, she passed away recently from leukemia and a bunch of blood diseases, and I think that could be because of what she Did I talked to my uncle, her husband Stan, every once in a while because he's still kind of like my childhood hero. My next sister, Suzanne, she passed away from Parkinson's disease just this year. And her husband died a long time ago. And he was the police chief. And I made amends with him before he passed away, which was good. And the amends with him was really weird because I told him, I said I needed to make amends for you, and I'll never get over my drinking unless I clean up the records of my past. And I see and I've done the following harm to you. I made you have to discipline me. And I know you didn't want to do that. And I need to say that I need to know what I can do to make it right. Not sorry, because I said sorry so much, it became a fucking character reference. But when I would say, I need to make amends to you, and I see I've done the following harms, you know, and what can I do to make this right? Some people would say, I don't ever want to see you again. Some people will say, you know what? I'm looking forward to see you in heaven, but not down on Earth. And other people would say, you know what? Just stay sober. Or one guy said, I want a guitar. And I went inside, I was rolling my eyes, but on the outside, I went, okay, that's what you want, and that's what I'll do. That's the price, the dummy tax that I spent.
- [56:54]
Sean Ryan
Right on. Right on. Well, Dave, let's take a quick break.
- [56:58]
Dave Mustaine
Sure.
- [57:11]
Sean Ryan
All right, Dave, we're back from the break. Let's get into how you got into heavy metal.
- [57:20]
Dave Mustaine
Well, that was, again, not having a social network of people that were my age that I hung out with. I had to hang out with my sister's boyfriend's little brother. So my sister got married when she was 17.
- [57:43]
Sean Ryan
Oh, wow.
- [57:44]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, to this guy who they're divorced now, and he's not anybody I ever wanted see again in this world. And he had a guitar, but his little brother had a bass. And I remember going to the little brother, his name was Mark, to his house, and he was listening to some records with his friends, and we just smoked a joint, and we thought that we were the coolest kids in the world. And we had some. There were some girls that were in the neighborhood. Mark had a girlfriend, and her girlfriend had a friend, so. So I hooked up with her, and we had everything to be in a rock band except talent and instruments. Right. So my brother in law, Mike, the older one, had this guitar, it was a piece of junk called the Supra. And he was playing guitar. He was playing some Deep Purple at the time, which is not a band that I'm really fond of. I respect the players tremendously, but it's not really my type of, of music. But I, I did understand the playing was very cyclical. It was something. It did not reminisce in any way American music. Because American music was a lot of rock and roll stuff. So there was a chord followed by another chord, followed by another chord which would go verse, chorus, verse, chorus, little bit of a middle eight section, like a refrain and then a chorus. And the song's over maybe 2 minutes, 3 minutes. Then it started getting a little longer. So I had my first introduction to playing the guitar through Mark and Mike Valley. The first time I ever actually played the guitar was my cousin John o' Dell. And he, he had Gibson Les Paul back then. God, what I would give to have that guitar from him. But he showed me how to do a bar chord and I knew how to do that. And. And one of the first songs I ever learned was a song called Panicking Detroit that was done by David Bowie. And the next one was all the Young Dudes by Mata Hoople. And I can't remember which one was first, it was one or the other of those two, but those were basically the two songs I started playing. And then I heard Led Zeppelin and I thought, God, this is just amazing, but it's so difficult. And I started to learn how to play and started to get drawn more to the guitar. Right after Led Zeppelin, it was Ted Nugent and Kiss, those were really influential bands. And so now I'm starting to see the visual. I'm starting to hear the mystical with Led Zeppelin and I'm hearing the Blue Collar stuff with Deep Purple and so on. Ted Nugent being back in the day, the Motor City Madman, he had some really amazing songs for the time. I still think he's an amazing guitar player. I know that a lot of people don't like Ted, but I think that my guitar playing has a lot of influence from Ted Nugent as, as well as once I started to get into the new wave of British heavy metal. Because the first time I got involved in music was the British Invasion. So for my songwriting, learning how to songwrite, it was primarily bands like the Stones, the Hoob, the Beatles, so on and so forth. And then when I started to pick up guitar, I started to learn the new wave of British heavy metal, which was bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Diamondhead, Motorhead, so on and so forth. And there was a total difference. Because how I write. Because how I write a song is not based off of what I can play on guitar. Because I can play guitar to the level that I can. I can write songs that are a little bit more explorative.
- [62:07]
Sean Ryan
So you learned how to write before you learned how to play?
- [62:12]
Dave Mustaine
Well, what I'm. No, that's not exactly right. What I learned about songwriting was from the British Invasion.
- [62:19]
Sean Ryan
Oh, God.
- [62:19]
Dave Mustaine
So from listening to the Beatles. Also, My sisters were very much into Motown. So Megadeth has its swing and its groove from the Motown influence that I had. You know, Sam and Dave, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, you know, Sly and the Family Stone, Chaka Khan. There's so many bands from back then that R B stuff would be played at my house. Plus, it was sometimes the only thing you could hear on the radio. There's a radio station in Los Angeles called K Earth. K Earth 101. And it plays oldies, and I love the oldies.
- [62:58]
Sean Ryan
So you pick that up. It sounds like you picked it up relatively quick.
- [63:02]
Dave Mustaine
Picking it up. It happened at a really good time in my life where I was looking for something because I was playing Little League, and I was really, really good at it. But I also knew the reality was that I was never gonna be a professional baseball player. Because, you know, I'm not stupid. So that's when, you know, I'm not stupid.
- [63:28]
Sean Ryan
So I became a rock star instead.
- [63:30]
Dave Mustaine
Well, that's not. That's hilar. It's not a dichotomy. It's more along the lines of me knowing the odds for being able to become a professional baseball player. I was not huge in stature. I was not a big person, in order. The position I played was a catcher. And most catchers in professional baseball are solid guys. They're much more tolerant and heavier than I was. So I was thinking part of the reason that I liked playing that position was because I got to almost sit down the whole game.
- [64:11]
Sean Ryan
It's just. Excuse me. It's just funny that, you know, what are the odds of becoming a professional baseball player? I don't know. What are the odds of becoming a rock star?
- [64:20]
Dave Mustaine
Well, see, that was. I made up my mind I was gonna do that. That's different.
- [64:26]
Sean Ryan
You made up your mind that you were gonna become who you are today. All the way back then, or. It just happened when I was a.
- [64:33]
Dave Mustaine
Child, after I stopped playing Little League, I knew That I needed to make a decision in my life. Obviously I'm living on my own. I'm selling marijuana and I'm not happy. I'm alone. And as bad as things were, this was worse. Being alone was worse. I knew that I needed to do something.
- [65:02]
Sean Ryan
How old were you when you started playing guitar?
- [65:05]
Dave Mustaine
I was 13. My mom had gotten me an acoustic guitar when I graduated from some grade. I don't know what it was, but she got me an acoustic guitar from Pier 1 Imports. And it's a piece of shit, but I started plunking around on it. My sister was playing piano and my mom had got her a piano and me a piece of shit acoustic guitar. So again, here I am, the last kid getting the, you know, tough kids, blue jeans that are somebody else's already for a few years. So I started playing guitar to play along with her and then became clear to me that she wasn't getting any better. So I stopped playing with her and I started playing by myself. And once I met. Met her boyfriend and her boyfriend's little brother, that's when I started really focusing. And I just, I. The thought of me not being that person, not being a rock star, it just didn't cross my mind because I had nothing else to, you know, it's like an Officer and a Gentleman where the guy says, I don't have anywhere else to go. I didn't.
- [66:12]
Sean Ryan
Damn. And so when, when was. When was Panic born?
- [66:18]
Dave Mustaine
About when I was 18.
- [66:19]
Sean Ryan
18 years old?
- [66:20]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [66:21]
Sean Ryan
Had you done any live performances before then?
- [66:25]
Dave Mustaine
Little weird stuff. Like I went with the little three piece group that I was in for like a day for. It was for a dance and they were having a battle of the bands and we only knew one song and they said we were too loud, so we, we missed out on that one. And then I started playing at my cousin's house down in Dana Point and we did several concerts down there. And that's basically where Megadeth was born. Was out of my cousin John's front room in Dana Point.
- [67:04]
Sean Ryan
Wow. Wow, you mean, you mean Panic?
- [67:08]
Dave Mustaine
No, Megadeth was born there. Because the songs that are in Megadeth were being played in Panic at that time. So Megadeth was born at that time. Although I didn't know it, I was in the guise of Panic. But really Megadeth had just broken surface terra firma. And now I'm going to watch this whole thing unfold before my eyes. Am I going to be able to handle the pressure? I think so. I've had a Lot of pressure in my life. Am I going to be able to stay relevant? I think so, because I've had to almost teach myself because of dropping out of school and having to figure everything out for myself. You know, right now I'm writing a song on the Art of War because I've got a song that just sounds like a fucking samurai song. And I thought it'd be really great because I've read the Art of War so many times to maybe put that book as a muse to help me write a story about something related with the samurai culture or the way of life.
- [68:16]
Sean Ryan
How did you get into the Art of War?
- [68:19]
Dave Mustaine
I've read a lot of really good books to help me. I started very early reading all the self help books you could get. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in the Way of the Peaceful Warrior. All those books. How to Win Friends and Influence People. I read a bunch of C.S. lewis books, read tons of books. And just stuff that gives you a different perspective on stuff. It may not be real, it may not be appropriate, it may not fit, but it helps me to maybe understand somebody else a little bit more.
- [68:52]
Sean Ryan
And how did you guys come up with the name Panic?
- [68:57]
Dave Mustaine
Panic, man. I was a teenager. That was the best thing I could come up with.
- [69:04]
Sean Ryan
Pretty good name.
- [69:05]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, it was pretty good at the time. And I remember there was another band that was called Panic at the Disco. And I always wondered who had it first because I never really did the research and see when those guys actually started. Started. But I think there was another band that was called Panic two at some point.
- [69:27]
Sean Ryan
What was. I mean, so let's just talk about your first time doing something live. How many people showed up and. And was that a rush to you to see?
- [69:40]
Dave Mustaine
Well, we were. The, the first time that we played, we were in my cousin's apartment. And you know, apartments, they're. They're not generally gigantic places to live in. So I think the room probably was. His front room was probably about 2/3 the size of this room. And we had our gear set up and my cousin was very well known in Dana Point and he had let all his friends know, hey, my cousin David's coming. I hate when he calls me David. My cousin David's coming down from Huntington beach to do jam with his band people there. It's a block party, no. Yeah. And so I'm hiding in the bathroom and getting ready to play and we, we go out and we start playing the song set we'd learned. And we played a couple originals I had. We played what ended up being Hangar 18 there, because it was called N2R HQ at the time. It was a tail number on a plane that I had seen one time. And I thought, what does that say? And I. And I wrote down into rhq, it's probably not what the fin had on it anyways, or the tail had on it was what. But. And I thought about what it would be like to have a place in outer space that was a new existence. Like, for example, Skylab. And so that was how that song started. And it morphed as it went into Megadeth. We changed the name and changed the lyrics just a little bit.
- [71:13]
Sean Ryan
How did it. I mean, just like five minutes ago, you're talking about how alone you felt as a kid. And, and. And that got you into. Kind of got you into music and stuff. And so what's it like to go. I mean, how did it feel for you to go from completely alone to an entire block party wanting to see you play it?
- [71:37]
Dave Mustaine
Well, it was, it was. It felt wonderful, obviously, but it was very foreign. I never experienced anything like that. I mean, the games at the Little League park, that was great. You hit a home run. I was tied for first place for our home runs that were hit in one of the last seasons I played down there. And I wasn't by any means a ringer, but, you know, was two kids. He hit four, I hit four. But kids weren't hitting home runs. And, and that was cool. I don't know why I keep going off on this baseball stuff, but, you know, the people that were in the bleachers cheering and stuff like that, that felt good. That felt good. But it wasn't a routine occurrence.
- [72:26]
Sean Ryan
How routine did it become?
- [72:27]
Dave Mustaine
It was a ba. It was a weekend thing with Little League. Sometimes you would have an after school game, but usually it was weekends. And, and not always. Did we win or not always? Did I have VIP performance.
- [72:41]
Sean Ryan
I mean, the concerts.
- [72:44]
Dave Mustaine
The concerts. Okay, so that would happen about maybe once every once a month.
- [72:50]
Sean Ryan
Maybe once a month.
- [72:53]
Dave Mustaine
It only happened, I think, four or five times down there. And then we did a couple parties up in Huntington Beach, Orange county area. And then I left because it was just getting the drugs that were going around. There was a whole nother scene that I never knew about till we started playing. As soon as we started playing, we were at a friend's house, there was a party, and some people from another neighborhood came to this party and they dumped a bunch of things that were called reds. I think it's barbiturates. And they dumped that into the fruit punch that they made. They had fruit punch and vodka. And somebody came there and dumped a bunch of these other drugs in there, and everybody was falling out in the place, and they ended up getting robbed. It was just a bad scene. So that. And everybody seemed to start showing up with somebody who did or somebody who knew somebody who did or had cocaine. And it was just. That was the time of the. In my life where cocaine was prevalent everywhere. It was in the 80s, and. Yeah. Yeah.
- [74:16]
Sean Ryan
How old were you at this point?
- [74:18]
Dave Mustaine
Well, it depends what part of the anus I'm talking about. If it was when Megadeth started, that started later. I didn't go from being functional to being Megadeth overnight. When I was in Panic, obviously, I went to Metallica and then got back in Megadeth. And the stuff that I learned in Panic, I took with me to Metallica. And I think that's part of the reason why Lars was letting me help settle shows and being the spokesperson for the band until we got management. Right.
- [74:54]
Sean Ryan
I mean, I'm talking about the very beginning of Panic.
- [74:58]
Dave Mustaine
How.
- [74:58]
Sean Ryan
How old were you when that. When that started?
- [75:00]
Dave Mustaine
That probably, like I said, it's probably around 18, maybe.
- [75:07]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [75:07]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, I think so. Maybe about 18. Wow.
- [75:11]
Sean Ryan
And you mentioned this other scene. What. What else was going on in the other scene that you. That you did not like. It sounded like. Like Panic was kind of a dark. Not kind of a dark period in your life. I know you lost some friends.
- [75:26]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, yeah. Well, a lot of people died and just kind of seemed like. Like there was bad stuff that was supposed to happen to just test me.
- [75:42]
Sean Ryan
What did happen?
- [75:44]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, well, that. That first band, Panic, was a lot of death. The. The guitar player, myself, the drummer, the bass player and the singer were down in Dana Point. And it was our first show, and it was time for everybody to go to bed, right? So my cousin says, you can sack out here. You can sack out here. You can do this. And the drummer and the sound guy. Guy's name was Joe, and the drummer's name was Mike. They say, no, we want to drive home. And I said, it's Dana Point. It's nighttime. You guys are buzzed, and you're going to drive all the way back up to Huntington Beach. Bad idea. Don't do it. And they did it. And the driver, Joe, fell asleep while he was driving on Pacifico Sideway, right south of the Huntington Beach Pier. He hit a control box for the traffic signals, and the car flipped on its side and burst into flames. The Driver Joe was impaled by the steering column, and he broke his neck, and he died at the scene. And Mike never woke up in the backseat. He was burnt to death. And then shortly after that, Tom, the guitar player, had driven off of the freeway where there was a huge embankment, like roads up here. You know, when they had those things that are down the side and you can look down. There's a parking lot down there. Well, he went up off the freeway and he hit the parking lot, and his Jeep somehow pinned him underneath it and slid for a long distance and just ground him into nothingness. So. So that was really sad. And I know that our singer had some issues, but he's. He's doing great now, from what I hear. It was just that, the whole scene, the drug scene. And we did a concert out in the woods for these bikers one time. It was down in Fallbrook area. And we specifically learned songs like Bad Motor Scooter by Montrose. And we were out there, and we play our set, and we're done. We're getting ready to go. And the guys come up and they go, you're not done. You're gonna play again. And I said, no, we already played our set. You ain't leaving until you play another set. And I thought, this is bad. We're out here with a bunch of bikers, and they're pissed. Pissed and drunk right now. So one of the guys that was with us, two of the guys that were with us, decided it was a novel idea to go try and steal a keg from the bikers. They had taken it and rolled it up a hill and lost grip on it, and it rolled down the hill and went bung, bung, bung, bung, squish into the water. So, you know the sound a keg makes, it was like the ringing of bells in Notre Dame. And all of a sudden, these guys are wanted men, and the bikers are on the hunt. So I hear one of the guys, he's up in a tree like a moron, going, cool, cool. Trying to talk to us. And I thought, this is not going to end well. So they said, you can play again. We'll pay you to play again, and we'll give you this big, giant bag of magic mushrooms. So everybody passed them out. Everybody ate them. And then the singer, I remember him walking around with the trash bag full of beer with a hole punched in the bottom, and he was just drinking, like, a giant Boda bag. It had gotten so out of control. And the next morning we woke up, and it Was time for us to get out of there. You can imagine what else could go wrong. The car that we drove down then in there burns out its clutch. So now we have to hitchhike from the woods out in the forest and fall, fall brick back up to the freeway and try and hitchhike home to Huntington Beach. It was probably one of the worst days of my life playing music.
- [79:59]
Sean Ryan
How did you. I mean, were you guys close within the band?
- [80:03]
Dave Mustaine
In Panic? We, we, we were kind of pat. The singer was much older than we were so he kind of had a fatherly, you know, I'm not going to say condescension, but just a little bit of a. He just seemed like he was older than us and it just felt like that was being made clear. You know, he's the guy that's responsible. He's the guy with the wife, he's the guy with the kid, he's the guy with the house. We're all derelicts that do drugs and live in apartments.
- [80:37]
Sean Ryan
How did you get over the death.
- [80:40]
Dave Mustaine
All three of them? Well, Mike's was really hard to deal with because he was the drummer in the band that I was in. Tom hadn't passed away yet and Joe I barely knew. So Mike was hard for me to lose. And he was a good guy, left handed drummer too, which is very rare. And he, yeah, that was hard to get over. Starting the process of looking for a drummer again seemed very artificial because deep down inside I didn't want another drummer. I wanted Mike to be alive.
- [81:21]
Sean Ryan
And so for Panic you move into Metallica? Correct. How did that come about?
- [81:29]
Dave Mustaine
I was done with Panic and I said, I'm going to find something else to do. So I got a newspaper called the Recyclers and it's just a rag from Los Angeles, Orange County. It's like a county classified ad magazine. And I'm looking in a classified ad magazine. Go figure. The biggest band in the world would advertise in this newspaper. So I look at it and it says wanted lead guitar player and mentioned a couple bands. So I called up, I got Lars on the phone and I said, yeah, well I like Motorhead, I like Budgie. And he goes, you like fucking Budgie, man? And I went, yeah, I do. And that was the icebreaker because Budgie is a Welsh band, it's a three piece, it's very obscure and by me listening to them showed that I had credibility in the new wave of British heavy metal world because of the bands I was listening to, they were not a band like a White metal band or a progressive metal band. They were a three piece from Wales that kicked ass. They didn't have to have all those silly names in front of it.
- [82:46]
Sean Ryan
And how did that develop?
- [82:49]
Dave Mustaine
What parts of joining Batalka. Joining Batalka? Yeah. So we were on the phone and he made that comment that I know them. And I said, yeah. So we talked about meeting face to face. I drove down from Huntington beach to Newport beach where he lived in a place called, I think it was called Park Newport. And the funny thing was my mom was a maid and she had actually worked event for catering in his complex he was in. And I'm thinking, go figure. My mom was a maid here and your mom has a place here. What a story that is. The two sides of a different coin, you know, or two different sides of the same coin. And so I went into his his place and started talking to him and he played this song called Hit the Lights that was written by a guy named Lloyd Grant. So Metallica didn't write that song, Lloyd Grant wrote it. And then he was friends with Lars and then Lars introduced him to James. And then they started playing Hit the Lights. That's the song that I heard from them first. And I said, wow, this song needs way more lead solos in it. This is me being cocky, being me. Needs more lead solos in it. And he was trying to figure out if I was for real. And so we went to rehearsal, he said, we're going to try you out out. So okay. So I mean, I knew how good I played. I've been gifted and I know it's not by my own doing, so I don't try to take any credit for it. So I don't care how good I am or not or what people say or anything like that. So I just knew what I knew what I knew. And I went to Ron McGovney's parents Fourplex. They had this, the place that James was living with Ron. And I went up there with Lars and I set up my amps, I plugged my guitar in and I just started warming up as it.
- [85:05]
Sean Ryan
They were impressed.
- [85:06]
Dave Mustaine
They wouldn't come in.
- [85:08]
Sean Ryan
What do you mean they wouldn't come in?
- [85:10]
Dave Mustaine
They wouldn't come into the rehearsal room. So I put my guitar down and I thought, this is really strange. And I walked out and I said, guys, are we gonna do the audition? They said, you got the gig.
- [85:24]
Sean Ryan
No shit?
- [85:25]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [85:27]
Sean Ryan
How did that feel?
- [85:28]
Dave Mustaine
Good. Good. I knew I was gonna get it.
- [85:31]
Sean Ryan
You knew it?
- [85:33]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. Cause I could play that stuff. I mean, there Weren't very many guitar players like me around at the time, you know? Who were they? Randy Rhodes. There were people like that guy from Rat. Warren demartini was really great, you know, but real shredders. There wasn't a lot of us around at the time.
- [85:55]
Sean Ryan
Damn. Damn. What was the. What was the experience like joining that band and. And becoming the spokesman and the lead guitarist and. I mean, was that surreal for you at all, or.
- [86:13]
Dave Mustaine
Well, again, it's kind of. Like I said, it seemed like this was what my destiny was. And when it came time for us to do our first concert, we played at a high school, or maybe it was a junior high school Lars might have gone to. I know we went to it, but I can't remember if. If it was elementary or junior or high school, whatever. And from that point on, it was just clear that whenever there was any kind of altercation that was going down, I would be the one that would take care of it. You know, James was very peaceful, and Lars, you know, he was a little bit of a devil. You know, he liked to have fun. But, yeah, if there was ever any stuff going down, I had to take care of it. When we went up to San Francisco and did our first couple shows up there at a place called the Stone, I was the one who had to go and collect the money. And, you know, there's a million ways to embezzle or to be corrupt when it comes down to running a club or bar. When it involves a band getting paid, they can say all kinds of stuff. And if you don't know, you don't know know. And most kids my age at that time don't know. And they try and get money and they'll say, well, you sold 200 tickets and you have a bar tab here, and so we're going to give you 150 bucks, you know. And you know that they made a killing on their booze, you know, that they made money on the food and snacks that they have there and the ticket prices, you know, plus they take a giant whack of your merchandise. And that was my gig. I would go do that. When we decided we were going to move out to New York, that was because Lars had found somebody he wanted to manage us, this guy Johnny Zazula, who had megaforce Records, and he heard our demo tape, the no Life Till Leather demo tape, and he lost his mind just like everybody else in the world. And they wanted to get the band to come out and. And record a record. And while we were on the way out There we got in a car crash. We were driving through the snow. None of us had to drive through snow except for Lars, because he's from Denmark and I'm driving this rider truck. It's a 24 foot truck and it had a tow bar and it had James Pickleball in the back. So when we were driving, we hit black ice and the whole thing spun around while I was driving. And I managed to keep it upright in the middle of the freeway. But the truck stopped and oncoming traffic was coming towards us. And the events that happened at that location. The guy that had produced, I think he produced the first record, his name's Mark Whitaker. He was the guy that was doing our sound and stuff. He almost got died. I had to push him out. And a truck goes to the right or right where he was standing. So if I wouldn't have seen that truck come in and saved his life, he'd be dead right now. And when we went to the U Haul place to get our truck replaced and move all of our gear into the new truck, James and Lars had made a decision to replace me because they tried to pin that driving thing on me as the last straw. We all drank. That's why they called it Alcoholica. I mean, they didn't call it Dave Alcoholica. We all drank. And they continued to drink like that even after I was gone. But that was the, I think the beginning of the end. And when we got out to New York, I had a reel of tape, this quarter inch tape. It had probably two days worth of guitar riffs on it. Just me playing and playing and playing. And we took that tape player and the reel of tape with us out to New York. And when we did two shows out there, and after those two shows, they woke me up one morning and said, look, you're out of the band. And I said, what are you talking about? You're out of the band. I said, no warning, no second chance. You're not going to give me a warning, you're just going to kick me out. And I thought that was. That was unfair. And it showed a grotesque amount of. Of a grotesque lack of character. And so that it pissed me off and was a huge part of the fuel. But you know, at the time I. I was really mad and I didn't. I didn't want to forgive them for what they did. And I told them when I left, do not use my music. And of course they used it. They ride the lightning. I wrote Call of Cthulhu. I wrote let's see what Else, there's Phantom Lord, Metal Militia, Jumping the Fire, the Four Horsemen.
- [91:20]
Sean Ryan
Jeez.
- [91:21]
Dave Mustaine
And I wrote a bunch of Leper Messiah, too. They didn't give me credit on that. You listen to the riffs. You know, they're my riffs. It's like, boing. You think I'm gonna all of a sudden hear my riff and say, that's not me. So, damn. Yeah. I wrote a lot of their music that made them. And all the solos on that first record were mine. The best. Kirk could try and copy them.
- [91:40]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [91:41]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [91:42]
Sean Ryan
And so, I mean, why do you. If everybody was drinking that much, were there drugs involved, too?
- [91:51]
Dave Mustaine
I like to smoke pot, but there were no drugs.
- [91:55]
Sean Ryan
Why do you think they singled you out of the bunch?
- [91:58]
Dave Mustaine
Because when I got drunk, I got violent. James and I had gone out to a club one time, and it was the old Mabuhay. It was across the street from the Stone, and we were out front, and some guy came out of the alleyway, and he said, there's a guy beating some girl up in the alleyway. And of course, I, being the champion for justice, did not want to hear that and not do anything. So I went down the alleyway with James, and of course, James, not being a fighter, started yelling out, kill him, kill him, kill him. And the guy comes out from behind a van, and he was much bigger than James, and he said, who's going to kill me? And James goes, points to me. So I immediately grabbed a guy and. And put him down in a submission and started rabbit punching him until he stopped moving. And then we ran out of the alleyway and we stood out front until the paramedics came and that was it. So I imagine he saw that and he figured, you know, I don't want to be part of this. Dave's already beat me up back down in Los Angeles, and he's just too violent.
- [93:12]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [93:14]
Dave Mustaine
Because James did get. He did get a punch in the mouth from me. He kicked my puppy.
- [93:20]
Sean Ryan
He kicked your puppy?
- [93:21]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. I was selling pot for a living, as you know. So one time I did a concert and people knew I was on stage, so they just jimmied the window. There's nobody there. They took all my pot. And I was pissed. So I, I, I got two dogs. My. My nephew took one, and I took the other one. And I had taken her up with me to rehearsal, and she was playing, and she's looking up at me. I'm standing over here. Ron McGovney's got this really nice GTO, and she leans up against the car and puts her paws on the front quarter panel. And he goes bang. And kicked the dog. And I went, what did you just do? What did you just do? And it went from the front yard into the house, and there's still stuff being said. And I said, you better shut up or I'm gonna punch you in the mouth. And then Ron McGovney says, if you hit him, you're gonna have to hit me first. And I said, you stay out of it. And then James said the same thing. If you hit him, you're gonna have to hit me first. And I said, okay, you win. And. And bang, I hit James in the mouth. And then I hip tossed Ron into his Intellivision setup. And that was it. Two strikes and it was over. And Lars was pulling his hair, going, I don't want it to end this way. And I thought, you know what? I've already told you, it's either me or James. And we did that a bunch of times because James was doing stupid stuff. And I. I told James the same thing. I said, man, it's either me or Lars, because Lars sucks.
- [95:06]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [95:09]
Dave Mustaine
And I got the axe in the end, so it's good. It's fine.
- [95:14]
Sean Ryan
What did you do after you got axed?
- [95:17]
Dave Mustaine
I went home and I contacted a friend of mine and I said, I quit. And she said, no, you didn't. You got fired. And I said, yeah, I got fired. So I. So I'm quit. I got fired, whatever, you know, I'm back home. Wrong word. Not changing the outcome, you know? And I made sure not to ever say that I quit because I wanted people to know that I was unfairly dismissed and that I didn't give a shit. Because we may not be as big as they are. Hell, their biggest song, Enter Sandman. Go look up the band Excel right now. Look up their song. I think it's something into the Unknown. Pretty similar.
- [96:05]
Sean Ryan
How long was it before you got back in the saddle?
- [96:10]
Dave Mustaine
It wasn't very long. I moved up to Hollywood. I knew I needed to go up into la. And I was really disappointed that I'd moved to Hollywood because everything about Hollywood was what I despised, what we despised in Metallica. You know, we didn't like the short hair, we didn't like the eyeliner, we didn't like the glammy clothes, we didn't like the ballads. And those are all the things that we stood against. And I don't know where I'm just going with that, that.
- [96:47]
Sean Ryan
But you moved up to Hollywood.
- [96:48]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, I'm trying to Figure out what I was going to say about that. Because when I first came up there, I had been friends with a bunch of people that were in pen pal kind of a position. This guy named Brian Liu was a guy who had a metal magazine called Metal Militia. Or. No, what was it called? Was it Metal Militia? I think that might have been the name of his magazine. But anyways, Brian Liu is still a friend of mine to this day. And I told him that I was planning on getting together, and I had met this guy and this other guy, and I was thinking about the name Fallen Angels, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Okay. Okay, Bye. Next thing I know, it's a story that I have a band with three people, and it's called Fallen Angels. And there never was that band. There never was. But the guitar player that I met, that Robbie McKinney, was the guy I first played with when I came to Los Angeles. And he actually introduced me to the people I ended up playing with. Because when we. We started trying to get people, one of the first drummers we had was this. This kid named Lee Rausch. And we'd done a couple shows up in Palo Alto where. With Kerry King sitting in on guitar for us, that was really neat. But it ended in a very weird way because we had. We'd been playing together. I'll backtrack to David Ellison being in the band, but we were playing together with this guy named Lee Rausch. And this first show up in Palo Alto, it was New Year's Eve, and we were at the rehearsal place we were at, and something happened. So we were all running out of the building as fast as we can. The power went off or something weird. So we're running down the stairs, he falls, breaks his leg, and we've got a show in a couple days. And I said, lee, you're an idiot. What did you do? And he goes, man, I'll just break the cast off. And he gets a pair of pliers, gets the cast wet, rips the cast off, and does the concert. His foot is black and green. Looks like he's got gangrene on it. And it should have been cut off, but he played on the way way back to Los Angeles. He goes, man, I'm going to go take some acid and find myself. And I never saw him again.
- [99:08]
Sean Ryan
No.
- [99:08]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. Then the next drummer we got after that was somebody who was introduced to us by a manager named Jay Jones, But I've skipped the part about David Ellison, so. Do you want me to talk about that?
- [99:22]
Sean Ryan
Yes.
- [99:23]
Dave Mustaine
When. When we first got the drummer we were going through before that happened. When I moved to the apartment I was living in in Hollywood, right underneath me, there was two kids from Minnesota. They were living in Jackson, Minnesota, which is a podunk town out in the middle of nowhere. And their parents both saved up and sent them out to California to make it big. They would go to Guitar Institute of Technology, and then they'd be discovered and everybody live happily ever after. Well, I was there in my apartment. They were there in their apartment underneath me playing Running with the Devil, right? Real difficult bass riff. Gene Simmons actually played that. Did you know that? No. Yeah. And so I'm hearing this and I'm mildly hungover. Nah, I was really hungover. So I opened up the window and I said, shut the fuck up. Slammed the window. It seems to have worked. I go lay back down, bom, bom, bom. And I opened up the window and I grabbed this potted plant that was on the windowsill and I went and I threw it down. And it burst on his air conditioner. And I'm waiting. I open up the door.
- [100:53]
Sean Ryan
What?
- [100:54]
Dave Mustaine
They're both stunned. You know, they've got these long, ridiculous looking leather jackets on that have a belt around. It's like a smoking jacket. And they had canvas high tops and bell bottoms on. Like they were really styling. And I look at him and I look at him and they go, do you know where to get some cigarettes? And I thought, oh, my God. And I said, at the corner, wham. And I shut the door, what can you buy beer? And I went, now we're talking. So we became friends. I found out Dave was the bass player. Greg Handevid was the guitar player of this twosome that came out. They were both in the band for a little while. Greg married a bong and we fired him. And it was just me and Junior for a little while. And then I found this drummer that was brought to us by a manager we had named Jay Jones. Jay Jones is dead. His brother knifed him with a butter knife over a bologna sandwich. So it shows you the kind of people we had managing us, too.
- [102:05]
Sean Ryan
Holy shit.
- [102:06]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [102:07]
Sean Ryan
Killed him over a baloney sandwich, right?
- [102:09]
Dave Mustaine
His dad was in the war and he got hit with some shrapnel. So he'd sit out in the front yard each night and stare at the moon like a dog, right? And his brother got in a fight with him. They both lived at home still, and they were both way old adults. And the guy stabbed him.
- [102:27]
Sean Ryan
Jeez.
- [102:28]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. So Ellefson came into the Band Hand of It exited. We got a meeting with this guy named Gar Samuelson. Me and Allison are working at the studio at the time. And Jay brings this guy Gar. His name's Gary. So Gar sits down and he's smoking a cigarette. And he nods because he's a heroin addict. And he had just gotten well before he came to see us because Jay was his dealer, who became our dealer. So Gar's sitting there on the couch of the cigarette and it goes right through his fingers. And I thought, fuck, this guy's a masochist, man. This is gonna be great. So we go in there and we go to audition him. And he was amazing, Just amazing. So we created Megadeth. Was this a metal jazz band that had classical and punk influences? And we were a three piece for a little while and then we met Chris Paul. And.
- [103:26]
Sean Ryan
How did you come up with the name Megadeth?
- [103:28]
Dave Mustaine
It was on a handbill from Senator Alan Cranston on the way back from New York to California. There was a hando on the bottom of the floorboard of the Greyhound I was writing in. And I picked it up because I needed something to write on. You know, I figured I was gonna start writing lyrics. The first lyric I wrote was on the back of a Hostess snow cones. You know, those cups with the pink chopped up mutant stuff, Whatever it is.
- [103:52]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [103:52]
Dave Mustaine
So I'd written on the back of that and I needed more paper. And there was this thing on the floor at the seat in front of me. So I kind of reached my foot and grabbed it and I flipped it over and I read it and it said, the arsenal of Megadeth can't be read. This is Senator Alan Cranston saying this. And there was much more stuff there about why he should be retained as the senator. And I thought, megadeth, that's a great song title. So I wrote it down as a song title and wasn't thinking of a band name yet. But we got to la, we got a band together, we played, we were driving around in the van. And by now we had hired Jay. I mean, Carr, David Ellison, myself. Greg Handevid was still with us. And there was a singer we tried hiring named Lawrence, but he went by Lord. And he was the one that was talking to us. And he goes, you know, maybe that's a great band name. Because I was thinking something like a foreign word like fire, you know, something bomb or something in a foreign language. But then, you know, you can't really say it when you go into the Foreign language speaking territories on stage bomb. Everybody runs to the doors, right? So yeah, we gave a lot of thought to Megadeth. And funny thing is, as soon as I chose that name, this little douche from the Circle Jerks, it was a drummer name was Keith. Somebody went out and registered the name Megadeth. So I had to pay him off to get it. He knew because he was friends with Jay Jones, our manager at the time. Jay told him we're called Megadeth and he ran right out. Cost me $10,000.
- [105:38]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [105:38]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, damn. So this is the stuff I see that I don't like.
- [105:42]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, yeah. And how, how fast was it, how fast did the Megadeth develop into, into what it is?
- [105:50]
Dave Mustaine
Well, we had, I had been writing songs and I had several songs that I had in Metallica, several songs that I had before Metallica. And I was just, just writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing. And, and I think the first time we went into the studio was in 83 and we started doing a demo. It was a three song demo. I might be wrong on the date, but it was somewhere around there. And that started to circulate and people. I remember Scott Ian from Anthrax had been doing a show at the Reseda Country Club in Reseda, California. And I went to go see them, cause we were friends and I said, I want you to hear this song. And I played him Love to Death and he lost his mind. He'd never heard anything like that before. And that was beginning of our friendship and it's lasted a long time. And when it came time for the album, we had gone down to record company, it was called, what was it called, Prodigy or something like that. It was like a new wave alternative kind of. Enigma was the name. As much as I say Enigma, that's the name of the record company. So we went to Enigma and we talked to them and they were not interested because we weren't the kind of music that they know what to do with. So I thought that was respectable because they didn't say, oh yeah, we want to sign you, but we don't know what to do with each other. You, you know. So then we went to Combat. Combat was owned by Important Records and, and I, I went and talked to this guy named Cliff Coltrari. And Cliff was the vice president at the California side of, of Important Records. And we went in and we played the record for him and, and he goes, okay, let me make a call. And so he, he calls up his, his boss out in New York and meanwhile we left we were walking to the car, and we heard this coming down the road, and this fat guy's running after us. And all of a sudden we recognize it's the guy we just met. And he goes, wait, wait, wait. Come back in. Come back in. We want to talk to you. So we signed our first record deal, the Combat. And that was my introduction into the. The music industry.
- [108:21]
Sean Ryan
I mean, what. What is the life of a rock star like? I mean, now you're in it, you've got a record deal, you're doing concerts, tons of people are showing up. What does a day in the life look like?
- [108:35]
Dave Mustaine
Back then or now? Back then, well, it was just a constant party. I had a significant other at the time, so I wasn't really catting around, but there were. There were loads of people partying all the time. And you know how that ends. You know, constant, constant partying. Money going out the window, you know, people getting arrested or getting in accidents or stuff like that. Never ends well.
- [109:09]
Sean Ryan
Was it a good time?
- [109:11]
Dave Mustaine
For me, it was not really a good time. I got off on it, but it wasn't a good time. It was a bad time, but I enjoyed a bad time because I was dangerous. And people knew it. The headlines used to say we were the most dangerous band. And I saw that headline once before from Motley Crue, and I thought, what a fucking mistake you made there. Those guys aren't dangerous. And because, you know, you talk about the real deal. Did they practice what they preach? Are they willing to go live in a van to go get their music out to the masses? We traveled around the nation for years, from station wagon to a van to a camper, and we got a motorhome, and we thought, shit, we've arrived, you know. And then when we got our first bus, that was a big deal. That was a big deal. It's kind of like the bus from Almost Famous. Yeah, it probably was a bus from Almost Famous, but, you know, now we travel. We travel well. We don't do a lot of the crazy stuff we used to do. We don't outlaw that. You know, if people want to be around us and drink and celebrate and, you know, the only thing I'm not really cool about is, is, you know, illicit stuff like, you know, powders and stuff like that. That, to me, people that are in that circle, they're dangerous people to be around. Because if ever there was a momentary flip in their mentality, they could become very dangerous.
- [110:47]
Sean Ryan
How old are you? In 1983, when Megadeth was 22, 22.
- [110:53]
Dave Mustaine
Years old when Megadeth started. Yeah.
- [110:56]
Sean Ryan
Were you ever into the.
- [111:00]
Dave Mustaine
We.
- [111:00]
Sean Ryan
We'll save that for later. I want to get into some addiction stuff, but we'll save that for later. But I mean, what is the first. When's the first concert when you show up and there's just thousands and thousands and thousands of people out there?
- [111:15]
Dave Mustaine
That was a long time coming because, you know, the scene was so small in the beginning. We were doing it when a big concert was a sold out stone or sold out Mabuhay Gardens or stuff like that. That's what the scene was like. You could always have fair weather fans. When Symphony came out and Countdown to Extinction album came out, that was a record that got huge commercial success because the time was right and there was a lot of fair weather fans that bought the album. Just because Megadeth is the cool band right now. Right. I don't know if that answered your question or not.
- [111:57]
Sean Ryan
Well, kind of what I'm getting at is the adrenaline that I'm. I've never done anything like that.
- [112:04]
Dave Mustaine
But don't.
- [112:07]
Sean Ryan
I think. I think I'd pass my time even if that was on the cards for me. But. But I mean, you know, but I'm no, I'm no stranger to adrenaline. I mean, going out on operations and hitting targets and stuff like that, there's a major adrenaline rush and you get addicted to it. And so I'm kind of, in a weird way maybe trying to relate to you a little bit with the rush that maybe you felt.
- [112:42]
Dave Mustaine
Well, I got a rush when we were back down at Dana Point.
- [112:45]
Sean Ryan
Really?
- [112:46]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, sure. People listening to something, you know, you've been an outcast. You've been a child that your family has made to feel less than at everything he does. And now all of a sudden, you do one thing right. Maybe this is meant for me. And that was kind of my way out. You know, I didn't see. I don't think I would have ever done anything harmful to myself, but I just did not see any kind of an existence. With the way I was going before I started playing music. It just. God, what would I have been? A cash register repair person like my dad?
- [113:29]
Sean Ryan
Was it like a light switch? Did it go from hundred couple hundred people to the tens of thousands?
- [113:37]
Dave Mustaine
Well, I'll tell you what you're asking and I'll save you the incremental questions. The one concert that really blew me away was in 1988 at Castle Donington when we played with Iron Maiden and Kiss and David Lee Roth and Guns n Roses. Guns N Roses played before us at that time. Two people died there. But excluding the unfortunate deaths, that concert was 140,000 people.
- [114:06]
Sean Ryan
Holy shit.
- [114:08]
Dave Mustaine
And the Guinness Book of World Records has the sound system used for that concert as the biggest, most powerful public address system ever assembled for a concert.
- [114:19]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [114:20]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [114:21]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [114:21]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. And of course, we did Rock and Rio, which had, you know, it was another concert, over 100,000. And then we started doing the Sonispheres. You know, one of those got up. I think it was around 200,000. But for me, those really, really, really big concerts, they. They don't feel. They don't feel like I'm making a connection with people in the back. You know, the people have fun. I can see them. I can see them cheering, I can see their signs, their shirts. You know, who they're with, how they're acting, they're moshing. If they're just throwing their hands up in the air, if they're singing, you know, those are some of the greatest shots we've ever gotten, is the fans, when they're just loving the music. Because you look at the cross section of our audience, there are a lot of different types of people, not just all middle aged white males or young white males. It's people of color. It's people that are young. There are people that are old. They tend to stay in the back. And there's old. Lot of. A lot of girls there. And. And you just don't see that with metal. You know, very few metal bands.
- [115:31]
Sean Ryan
Why were you called the most dangerous band?
- [115:34]
Dave Mustaine
Because we were.
- [115:35]
Sean Ryan
What does that mean?
- [115:36]
Dave Mustaine
Well, we went to our release party for peace sales, but who's buying? We took two limousines there, and we were inside the bar getting drunk, and they called it the Firefly Bar because they would pour alcohol down the bar and light it on fire every set amount of minutes. I guess maybe it was hourly or something. And I was getting entertained in there. And of course, it came time to go get more drugs. And we went outside and one of the limousines were gone. And I was pissed, and I said, where's the limo? And Chris tells me that his girlfriend and the rest of the girls got in the car and took off. When we got into the limousine and Chris started saying stuff to me, so I started beating him up in the limo. And then I can't remember if Gar was sitting next to me. And then Chris came toward me and I kicked him in the face. Yeah, that's what happened. So, I mean, you know, people know that kind of Stuff and, and it gets around. People were talking. We were the. You know, there was a set of acts that each label had that were their dangerous people. You know, Capital had Megadeth, they had Poison, who was a different walk of life than we were. But to some people, they were dangerous just as well, you know. But for us, I think it had to do with how we were living and how we were, you know, flopping at people's houses. We squatted on a couple people. I remember we went to one kid's house named Billy Cordero, who was a really great guy, and he let us spend a night there for, I think it was six months. Supposed to just spend one night and. Yeah. Thank you, Billy.
- [117:38]
Sean Ryan
What, I mean, what was the first album that went platinum?
- [117:46]
Dave Mustaine
Countdown. Countdown went double platinum. And then Peace and then Euthanasia was certified platinum when it came out because it had sold a million records before we even saw the record company, that campaign. And yeah, Countdown was, I think, the first one. I think so, yeah.
- [118:11]
Sean Ryan
I mean, sorry I keep asking age, but how old are you? Mid twenties. When first one goes platinum.
- [118:22]
Dave Mustaine
Yes.
- [118:22]
Sean Ryan
I mean, how are you intaking at that young age, all the fame and all the notoriety and, and albums going platinum and I mean, was that, was that. How do you navigate that?
- [118:36]
Dave Mustaine
I didn't understand the question. I'm sorry.
- [118:38]
Sean Ryan
How do you navigate the rise to fame and all the exposure that you're getting and the fans and all of that? I mean, that's a lot to take in for somebody that age.
- [118:52]
Dave Mustaine
I wasn't doing very good with it. The. I was 30 when Countdown came out.
- [118:57]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [118:58]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. And you. Fortunately for me, I'd already. I'd already met Pam and we, we'd gotten married and. And justice was born. So wait, let me, let me get my dates right. Countdown came out in. In, I think, 92. And we got married in 91. 3-3-91. Justice was born 2-11-92. Trying to think. I can't remember the date, but it was pretty. Euthanasia got certified way faster than Countdown did. And retroactively, a lot of the albums prior to Countdown has been certified gold and or platinum.
- [119:49]
Sean Ryan
How did you meet Pam?
- [119:52]
Dave Mustaine
That was funny. This guy that was a personal assistant for Steven Adler from Guns N Roses. His name was Ronnie, Ronnie Schneider. And Ronnie was helping Steven and ended up getting addicted to heroin while in that circle. And he went to treatment and he got out and he called me and he said, I have to go do a show tonight. Please come with me and help me stay sober. And I Said, okay, you got. I'm your man. I got your back.
- [120:26]
Sean Ryan
You were sober at the time?
- [120:28]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. Yeah. So I. I went with him. And I'm in this club and I'm there with Nick and this friend of Nick named Juan. And one's really dark, complected, and it's got these gigantic white teeth. And Ronnie. So Ronnie goes and does his thing and I'm sitting in here bored. There's not a lot of fun things to do in a bar if you're not drinking. I don't know if you've ever sat in a bar and you're not drinking.
- [120:57]
Sean Ryan
Oh, yeah, I have.
- [120:58]
Dave Mustaine
It's a shitty place to be in. So I'm looking around and I see this woman. She was very young at the time, and. And I just thought, wow, she's really pretty. And I'm looking and I'm thinking, I'm looking. And I finally say, hey, Juan, go over and tell that girl I want to meet her. Because that's how I roll, right? And rolled. And so he goes over there and it's kind of dark, and I see his face and then all of a sudden these giant white teeth are flashing. I'm thinking, what's so funny? So he comes back and I said, what's so funny? She said, do you want to meet her? You need to go over there yourself. And I went, spice. I like that. So I walked over to her and I said, hi, I'm Dave. She goes, I know who you are. I thought, this is going to be great. So I said, listen, I just here helping my friends stay sober. And I'm sober myself and want to get out of here. I'd like to see you again. Can I take you out to lunch? And she didn't know what was going on. So I got her number and I left. And that was it. And then a couple days later, maybe, I don't even think it was that long, I called her back and we went out for a little while. And I was falling for her. And I knew that I was falling for her. So I. I broke up with her. I needed to make sure. So I broke up with her. It was really painful. I went to Hawaii with my bodyguard and he. He was talking to me while I was out there. Philosophical kind of stuff. Not Aristotle or anything but that, but just. Just life, you know. And I said, you know, Tony, I. I think I love this chick. I think I want to marry her. So. So we had a concert in Hawaii and I had invited her to come out and her mom and her stepfather who I didn't like, and her grandma who I loved, and her brother and I think he brought his girlfriend and my three sisters and my sponsor and the guy who was going to be the best man at my wedding, a bank robber who had murdered two people. People. I thought that was a pretty street cred kind of guy to be your best man. Just kidding. So Pam's in the hotel and I knock on the door because we just got to Hawaii and she was there ahead of me and I said, hey, what are you doing on Tuesday? And she got mad because she didn't know what I was doing. I said, do you want to get married? And she flipped out. So we now are on the hunt for a wedding dress dress for my skinny rail thin wife in Hawaii and we're trying to find a nice suit for me. So Pam got lucky and found like some 8 year old wedding dress from some playhouse or something. And I had a suit that looks like it was made out of Wrigley chewing gum wrappers. And it was actually, I look like the Tin man from wizard of Oz, but had had a little bit of some fashion to it. It's this bright shiny aluminum looking suit. And it's all I could get. It's all I could find. And I remember we were standing at the base of Punchbowl, you know, in Waikiki. Diamond Head, the volcano. And that's where we got married. Right, right under the volcano.
- [124:33]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [124:34]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, it was really neat.
- [124:35]
Sean Ryan
Wow. How long have you been married?
- [124:40]
Dave Mustaine
34 years almost.
- [124:42]
Sean Ryan
What's the secret to a successful marriage?
- [124:47]
Dave Mustaine
You have to say this, honey. I've been thinking and you're probably right and I'm gonna try harder next time and mean it, you know, if you really mean it. Because if you tell him, you know, I've been thinking that first off, that confuses them because they don't think we know how to think. And then when you say you're probably right inside they have pinatas being burst and, and all kinds of sky streamers and stuff. And then when you say you're going to try harder, they go, it's good, game over. So I'm just playing, but you know, you need to have to look at things as two different, completely different organisms that are trying to coexist in the same body. And you have to make sacrifices and you have to make, I don't want to say consolation because that's not the right word I want to say, but you know, you do have to make some. And sacrifice is the wrong Word. Because it's too much. But you do have to make some adjustments, you know, And I think the better that opposite spouses of being aware of the other spouse's needs and wants, the better the relationship's gonna be. Because sometimes you just gotta walk away. When Pam fights with me, I just walk away. You know, she'll throw shit, she'll scream, she'll call me names. But you know what? At least my side stopped. And sometimes cooler heads prevail. Sometimes I walk away and then she'll say something and I gotta do a U turn and go back and jump right in the fight. But most oftentimes, you know, we try and be really respectful of one another. And I really try and help Pam with support from the kids, too, because they're adults now and they don't want to be looked at like kids. They want to be looked at as adults.
- [126:40]
Sean Ryan
How long after you guys got married was justice born?
- [126:53]
Dave Mustaine
He was born in wedlock. We'd been married 11 months. I think we got pregnant about second or third month, I think.
- [127:06]
Sean Ryan
Wow, you guys aren't messing around.
- [127:08]
Dave Mustaine
No, no, I think. I think. I think it was just meant to be, you know, because we weren't really getting a lot of time to spend together. I was touring a lot, so it was meant to be. I love my son.
- [127:23]
Sean Ryan
How do you. How did you manage being a husband, being a father to your two kids, touring, all the exposure? I'm sure women are throwing themselves at you left and right. I mean, how do you. How do you manage all that?
- [127:38]
Dave Mustaine
No, they walked. The women walked. They didn't throw themselves. It was a joke.
- [127:45]
Sean Ryan
I know.
- [127:47]
Dave Mustaine
How was it? Well, you know, it's. I guess it's like anything if you know what your priorities are. You know, some people can walk into a candy store and want one of everything, you know, and then you end up sick at the end. You know, I got to a point in my life where I knew I was ready to find the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And, you know, I came really close. I was engaged to somebody for six years one time, and she was a muse for a lot of the early songs because our relationship was so toxic. But if I would have stayed engaged to her just a few more months, it would have been a common law marriage in California because that's seven years you're married. So I don't know if I took that into consideration or just happened that way, but it happened that way.
- [128:46]
Sean Ryan
And you got sober before you guys.
- [128:48]
Dave Mustaine
Met me and Pam? Yeah. Yeah.
- [128:53]
Sean Ryan
How bad did your addictions get?
- [128:56]
Dave Mustaine
Well, I mean, it never got bad. I had money. You mean, how. How down did it. How. How much did I do? Yeah, I. I used a lot, but I had a high tolerance and, you know, as far as doing my job, when it was time to go out on the road and it was time to get on stage, we got on stage. And then when everybody got off stage, that was when the party started up again. You know, it was just a way of life at the time in Los Angeles. I mean.
- [129:32]
Sean Ryan
I'm three years. Three years off booze. A little over three years. And, I mean, I can totally relate with addictions. I mean, I was addicted to pain pills, benzos, Valium, Xanax, hydrocodeine, Tramadol, Oxy, Ambien, and putting down damn near two fifths a day of vodka.
- [130:00]
Dave Mustaine
That's the only thing I haven't done that. You said.
- [130:02]
Sean Ryan
Which one?
- [130:02]
Dave Mustaine
The two fifths of vodka.
- [130:07]
Sean Ryan
You've done all those?
- [130:08]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [130:09]
Sean Ryan
Was it a regular?
- [130:10]
Dave Mustaine
No, it was whatever anybody had that was Partyables. And, you know, you go to a party and, hey, I got some Ambien. You want some? Sure. What does it do? What's gonna make you fall asleep in your food? Well, that sounds like a really fun drug. You know, Consequently, I don't really like Ambien. The other stuff you said. Valium. Valium. I need to go get X rays, CAT scans. I can't do it when I have larynscopology. Now that I've had ear, nose, throat cancer, head and neck cancer, they have to look down my nose with that camera. I can't do that. I have to take a volume for that. But am I addicted to it? No.
- [130:50]
Sean Ryan
What is it that got you sober? I mean, why did you.
- [130:53]
Dave Mustaine
I was in Texas, and I'd hurt my arm really bad and talking to this pastor, and he goes, man, you need the Lord, Dave. And I went, no, I don't. I've had enough, God. So he goes, why don't you go up onto the hill? Up on the hill was a fire ring, and there was two sections of building that went together like this, and it had a cross hanging down in the middle of it. Of course, I was brought up a Jehovah's Witness. The cross was a torture device. And Jesus wasn't hung on a cross. He was hung on a tree. Blah, blah, blah. All this stuff that they believed that I don't. So I'm looking at the cross, and I'm just thinking to myself, man, what have I got to lose. And those six simple words set me on my road to new lifestyle and new existence. Because I went down the hill and I told the little pastor, I said, yeah, man, I think I want to try this. I just was up there, and I said, what have I got to lose? And he goes, okay, well, let's do the sinner's prayer. And he goes, get down on your knees. And I said, said, nope, we need to get on your knees to do the sinner's prayer. Nope, not doing it. Not praying on my knees. I'll say the prayer, but I'm not getting on my knees. And I did the prayer. I didn't get down on my knees, and I just couldn't bring myself to that place yet. I was not at that place yet. I mean, I prayed. I prayed all the time because I thought that was what you're supposed to do. But a sinner's prayer, what is that? I don't know if I like the sound of that. So we did it, and I told my wife, and she started laughing and said her friends knew that was going to happen. And, you know, from that point on, it was, you know, just a series of learning stuff, learning how to coexist with other people that may or may not be enlightened. And, you know, so many sayings that I learned growing up, like, walking a mile in another man's shoes. You know, you think, what the hell does that mean? And then something like that happens where you. Your life changes. Something that's been a part of your existence every day. Every day. I was telling somebody the other day that when we lived in Silver Lake, California, David Ellison would come into my bedroom every morning. Well, not every morning. He would come into my bedroom and he would have a mirror, and he would give it to me, and we were off to the races. So it's kind of how we lived. It was just. I didn't know any better.
- [133:47]
Sean Ryan
What brought you to the pastor, specifically?
- [133:50]
Dave Mustaine
My arm injury.
- [133:50]
Sean Ryan
Your arm injury?
- [133:51]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. Yeah.
- [133:53]
Sean Ryan
Is this about the same time that you stopped doing. I mean, I've read that you stopped doing witchcraft around 30. Sounds like it went on for about 15 years.
- [134:04]
Dave Mustaine
That ended way before that.
- [134:06]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [134:06]
Dave Mustaine
I'm pretty sure. You know, I think about it all the time. Whenever something pisses me off, I think, man, I'll just. No, I won't. I've actually. When my sister was alive, I called her up a few times and talked to her, and she talked me out of it a few times because I was at the end of My rope. And I knew it worked, so. But didn't do it.
- [134:29]
Sean Ryan
Sounds like you were in some. I think you described it as a satanic depression.
- [134:36]
Dave Mustaine
No, oppression. It was like a possession, not depression. Like having a spirit on me.
- [134:46]
Sean Ryan
You what if. How so?
- [134:49]
Dave Mustaine
Well, when you open up the doors to the. To the dark, they're not going to wait to be invited in. They're coming. Right. And if I believe in God, then I have to believe in the devil, right? And I believe in God. I believe in Christ, I believe in the devil. I believe they're demons. I believe they're angels. Still don't know what the real estate looks like up in the heavens, but. And you know, I've got a pretty good understanding of a lot of that stuff. And I don't know, the stuff that happens when you get really drugged out. A lot of times you start to do really unnatural things, you know, because you're on drugs. Well, why wouldn't you? You're not yourself. You either have liquor in you, which is called spirits for a reason, or you're on stuff that's like an opiate, which makes you think everybody's your friend and, you know, or you smoke pot and you're paranoid of everybody, or you take sedatives, which for some people, they need them. They need them to be able to not wear the people out around them. And other people need stimulants, like children who have been diagnosed with ADD or adhd, you know, but when somebody starts grinding pharmaceutical speed because they like it, you know, it's kind of what meth is.
- [136:20]
Sean Ryan
So. Do you think you were possessed?
- [136:21]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, I know it was because we. We tried to get. Get my life in order and stuff just kept happening. And we would go see people who were spiritual in nature and. And they would say that they. They see something. The priest that was in, we went to go see a. I forgot. I told Darren all this stuff too. We had been talking about what had happened, Pam and I, and I said that I wanted to get rid of this. So we went to this person. Her name was. I think it was Caroline somebody. And her husband was a Green Bay Packer football player. So I thought it was legit it. And she was a doctor, so she would do these kind of clearing things. And she had this India. Indian guy that was a Raja come over. He was like a preacher that did laying on hands, cupping, acupuncture. And so he came over and he said when he was doing the acupuncture on me, he was meditating behind me and he fell over, and he said that there was a man with a silver turban that came out and said, said, I release him. And that's when he fell over. When we went to San Francisco to go see the Filipino priest, he said that he laid hands on me and the bull, the head of a bull came out of my chest, out of my stomach. He said, that's holy shit. Yeah. And I didn't see it. I didn't feel it. I don't know what the fuck happened. But, you know, in the spirit world, you know, I don't know if I would see it because I don't know if I have that gifting to see the demons. But, you know, he had said the same thing. So there were several people that had nothing in common that knew that there was something going on with me, and finally it broke. And, you know, I remember getting baptized at some place in Northridge, California, and somebody. And this is Ricky. This is Ricky. Somebody had said that there was a lot of weird stuff going on, on in that room at the time, like chairs were moving around because there was a bunch of people in there that were getting baptized, and there was a lot of tongues being spoken and stuff. I didn't see any of that stuff. So I, I, I, you know, I got to see it myself to believe it. But, you know, I, I, that's what I heard was going on in there. And I was thinking, man, that's pretty cool. Because if this whole God thing's real and I live my life like there is a God, and I'm not going to regret it. It.
- [138:50]
Sean Ryan
Have you ever seen anything supernatural, like a demon, anything?
- [138:58]
Dave Mustaine
Not in the physical. Visions, yeah, but not in the physical. But, you know, you do, too. You see, I have dreams.
- [139:07]
Sean Ryan
Well, I've had several occurrences where, where I've experienced things not necessarily seen, but heard or feel.
- [139:16]
Dave Mustaine
Walk into a room that's really cold all of a sudden.
- [139:19]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, Yeah.
- [139:23]
Dave Mustaine
A lot of stuff like that. We have a song we wrote about some young girl named Mary Jane Twilliger, who was a witch. And her dad found out and he buried her alive. And this was in the city right north of where Ellerson lived. And we went out there to go visit that place. And it was creepy. It was really creepy, but that was it. It was just creepy. You know, I didn't hear any owls. Wind didn't blow. You know, I did hear this could be another bit of folklore, but somebody pushed her headstone over, and they. When they went back to their car, they found their Car keys on the hood.
- [140:10]
Sean Ryan
It's wild, man.
- [140:11]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. That's crazy.
- [140:12]
Sean Ryan
It's wild. We had. I've had a bunch of these experiences. One of them, I was interviewing this a friend of mine, priest, seems Father Dan Rehill, he's an exorcist. And I remember when he came in here, he was like, look, he's like, weird happens when I start talking about this stuff. He's like, the cameras might go out. Who knows what? And he was talking about exorcisms, and then he brought up Christ, and the AC unit right there just went on full blast, like, immediately just started whooshing. I mean, I've had a bunch of these experiences, but that's awesome. It's made me realize how real the spiritual realm is.
- [140:56]
Dave Mustaine
It's real.
- [140:57]
Sean Ryan
And, you know, just to move on a little further, I mean, after. At some point after you found Christ again, you quit singing, you quit performing certain songs. What songs were those?
- [141:14]
Dave Mustaine
It was only because I didn't. Didn't really know what. I mean, I knew what I was singing about, but from a spiritual point of view, I didn't really know if I wanted to sing it anymore because one of the songs had almost all of the hex in it that I used, and I didn't want to sing that anymore because what happens if somebody figures out the rest of the stuff that's missing, you know? And I haven't seen anything, but I know stuff happens to me. I know people have put curses on me. I know that. That they've cursed our dogs. We had a dog who died, and I prayed over her, and she came back to life long enough for us to get her to the veterinarian where she said goodbye to us all. And she passed away there. But she was. She was dead, Dead, dead, dead. Pam was hysterical, and I said, let me pray over her.
- [142:15]
Sean Ryan
Who put curses on you?
- [142:17]
Dave Mustaine
People that don't like what I sing about. People that don't like Megadeth that may like other bands. There was a guy in. In the past, there was a band called Dio Seed, and we were playing in Israel, and I was really excited about playing in Israel, and I wanted to see what Megadeth looked like in Israeli font, right? So look at the website for the festival, and it says the name of the thing and it says our name. And then it says this Bandai Seed. And I. I went, what is that? So I looked it up, and the guy said that he's a Satanist and that I was his mortal enemy.
- [143:05]
Sean Ryan
Are you serious?
- [143:07]
Dave Mustaine
Yes. And he'd already killed two people. And so. So I figured, man, I walk in the light and I'm covered in the blood, and you're gonna try anything with me, you're gonna know. And so I went there. I went to go do the concert. I wasn't backing down. And my manager had got there before me, and he said. He walked next to the kid and he bumped into him. And the guy goes, oh, sorry, sir. Sorry, sir. And I said, well, where is he? And he goes, he left. Wait, the guy that wants to kick my ass. We're in the same spot for the first time, and who knows how long or ever will be? And he leaves. So much for wanting to have a confrontation with me. And he's dead now.
- [143:55]
Sean Ryan
He's dead now.
- [143:56]
Dave Mustaine
Commits suicide. Wow. So what I think happened is the guy, he was probably a good musician. He probably had some kind of abuse happen in his life where he turned away from, you know, love and kindness and what's good in the world and started drawing towards other people who had the same kind of hardships that he did. Because misery loves company, right? You get a guy that has the same things happening to him, or he says he understands, and then they start drawing you in, and pretty soon, you know what you're saying, I hate my parents. Pretty soon you're stealing stuff from them, you know, and then you're asked to leave like I was.
- [144:43]
Sean Ryan
After you got sober. I mean, are you still clean today?
- [144:48]
Dave Mustaine
I'll drink wine, and I take my cancer medication. That's it?
- [144:51]
Sean Ryan
That's it. Did it. Was it hard for you to get sober?
- [144:57]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, of course. It was harder to quit cigarettes than it was to quit anything else.
- [145:04]
Sean Ryan
No shit. So you just quit everything cold turkey?
- [145:07]
Dave Mustaine
No. I had to go to a clinic to stop smoking cigarettes, and they gave me a shot in my neck, and I had to wear these little transcopolamine patches for a couple days. And then I had to go wash all my clothes and. And cleaned my whole house out. All ashtrays and smoking paraphernalia.
- [145:26]
Sean Ryan
Man, it took psychedelics for me.
- [145:31]
Dave Mustaine
I went microdosing.
- [145:34]
Sean Ryan
No, I went down to a facility in Mexico called Ambio Life Sciences. And now the guy that runs, this good friend of mine, his name's Trevor. But I actually went down there when this show started really getting big, because I could not be in the moment with my kid. And then my son was just born, and so I was trying to manage it all, be a good husband, try to figure out how to be a good new father. And I Just I couldn't be in the moment. And I was still addicted to pills and I was still addicted to, to still an alcoholic. And although I toned it down quite a bit. But really what I went down there for was anxiety of the rise of the show and being in the moment. And I went down there and I did this stuff called. Have you ever heard of ibogaine? Ibogaine. Ibogaine comes from a root in Africa. I think the only place you can find it is Gabon. And I'd had former colleague after former colleague come on the show and talk to me about psychedelic therapy for ptsd, traumatic brain injury, curing addiction, especially opiates, because that's just something that the veteran community really struggles with. You go, so you go to the va, you get a doctor, they put you on pills or any doctor, and then rather than weaning you off the pills, they just feed you more and more and more. And then if they do cut you off, a lot of guys wind up on the streets looking for heroin. That's how we were talking about my best friend earlier. That's how he died. And I went down there, like I said, just to be in the moment with my, with my, with my new family. And I came out of that experience like a 12 hour experience. Take a capsule. And it had, it was like everything that was poison that was, that I was putting into my body, I had like this intuitive sense and it, it took away all my cravings to get back on pills or to keep drinking. And I kicked it that day. That was Valentine's Day, whatever, 2022. And so I've done a bunch of interviews on psychedelics and what I found was the science behind it is it replenishes all the receptors in your brain that had been beat to, from, from opiates, from Adderall, from cocaine, from. Yeah, all of them stuff booze. And when, when it replenishes the receptors, it takes the cravings away. And so it's, it's literally like a light switch. It was just like, I had no cravings. I had, I didn't want it. I said, haven't had a drop, quit smoking weed for, for a long time. And then that kind of came back.
- [148:55]
Dave Mustaine
But I'll smoke pot every once in a while too. Yeah, it's just rarely.
- [149:00]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. And, but all that went away. Even sugar and, and caffeine went away for a long time. I still haven't drank coffee and it's.
- [149:08]
Dave Mustaine
I got off coffee too. I'm drinking tea now. So.
- [149:10]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, same here.
- [149:12]
Dave Mustaine
So like a bunch of grannies.
- [149:14]
Sean Ryan
I know, right?
- [149:15]
Dave Mustaine
Megadeth and Shawn Ryan's.
- [149:20]
Sean Ryan
But it really, like, it helped me and it's helped. I have no idea how many people it's helped, but it's just about everybody that I served with, with the exception of a few, have cause it's like the same story, man. Everybody's story's different, but it all is very similar going down the addictions. And on top of that, man, it's just like it cures the mind. And so another thing that it does is like with post traumatic stress and tbi. Post traumatic stress, it puts a blocker. The neurons in your brain.
- [150:11]
Dave Mustaine
Move through.
- [150:11]
Sean Ryan
A thing called the default mode network. And that's basically from the front of your brain to the back or. Yeah. And that's how they do. But when we were born and you're younger, the neurons communicate through these neural pathways in your brain. And as we get older and you start seeing people get set in their ways and addictions and all that kind of shit, it's because the neurons get lazy and they use the default mode network, which is like a highway. And so what these psychedelics will do is they'll basically put a damn roadblock into the default mode network. And it forces the neurons to reopen all these neural pathways that have not been used in decades. And you're able to look at a lot of things that have happened in your life from a different, different perspective. Kind of like an unemotional perspective. And it makes certain events. How do I say this? It makes. It makes certain traumatic experiences in your life. It spins it from another perspective and kind of makes. It puts you at peace with whatever happened to you. And then after, it was like a week long thing where they like get you ready for it and teach you breathing techniques and all these other things. And then you do it on a Wednesday. You do the ibogaine on a Wednesday. It's like a 12 hour experience. Then you have what they call gray day, which is like the worst fucking hangover you could ever imagine. And then on the Friday you smoke.
- [151:55]
Dave Mustaine
Smoke?
- [151:56]
Sean Ryan
Have you heard of 5 Meo DMT? No. Oh, man.
- [151:59]
Dave Mustaine
Man, you got some good.
- [152:02]
Sean Ryan
It's. It's a. It's a toad venom. It comes from a toad.
- [152:06]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, it's a poisonous toad.
- [152:07]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. And you smoke it and you have a. You have a full on death experience.
- [152:12]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, that sounds fun.
- [152:14]
Sean Ryan
Well, it's not, but the death experience lasts maybe 30 seconds. 30, 45 seconds.
- [152:20]
Dave Mustaine
Is it construction constriction in your chest? Because they did something like that when I had a heart test.
- [152:25]
Sean Ryan
No, it's in your mind. So you smoke it and then you do a count backwards from 10. And it's like the most anxiety, most fear I've ever felt of all my time in combat, everything that I did.
- [152:48]
Dave Mustaine
Holy cow.
- [152:48]
Sean Ryan
This was like in your brain. So, but, so what happens is, apparently, and I might be a little off on this, but when you die, your penal gland in your brain empties and whatever's in there, I can't remember the chemical, maybe it's serotonin or I don't know what it is, but it dumps and it gives you like this euphoric experience. But before that you're in, in your mind. And that's what happens with 5 Meo is you get a pineal gland dump. But before, before you kind of cross over in your mind, you are 100% certain that you are going to die. And all the, like, you start, you start, start separating from everything that you're attached to. And it kind of starts with like all the maybe like, I don't know, possessions or money or whatever it is. And like things just start offloading. Like you're like, okay, I can let go of that, I can let go of that. But it's a very, it's a very, like I said, it's the most fear, most, most anxiety I've ever felt. And the last thing for me that I could not let go of, that I was hanging on to, is my wife and my son. And I remember thinking, I cannot depart this fucked up world and leave my wife and my son behind. I have to be here for him. And then I let them go. And once I let them go, it felt like there was this tar. Like, it was like I didn't see anything. It was like a, it was like an intuitive experience. And I felt like all this tar was like wrapped around my heart, like covering my heart. And I could, I could, couldn't see it, but I could. It was like it was coming off my heart and then my heart was pure again. And then, and then once you die and you let everything go, you cross over into this other realm. And then in the other realm that you cross over into is like pure bliss, very euphoric. And I swear I think it's like a spiritual realm that we don't have access to, or maybe we had access to at least like way early on, before language and electronics and all that, these kind of distractions and shit. But I think you tap into the spiritual Realm. And like, I'd always heard about energy and shit like that.
- [155:40]
Dave Mustaine
Tesla stuff.
- [155:41]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, well, not that kind of stuff. Like, you know, like hippies talk about it. Good energy, bad energy. Yeah. And. And I never bought into that. And I always despised hippies being a SEAL and a CIA contractor. But after that, like, I opened my eyes and we were at this little beach house down in Mexico. And I could see. I swear, man, I could see energy flowing from the islands into the water, up the beach, into the trees. And it was like the first time I had realized that the hippies say this shit too. Everything is one, everything's connected. And I was like. I could just intuitively, like, see it. And if they're.
- [156:24]
Dave Mustaine
Don't you see energy fields around people?
- [156:28]
Sean Ryan
I wouldn't say I've seen that, but can you.
- [156:32]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [156:34]
Sean Ryan
Who do you see energy fields around?
- [156:36]
Dave Mustaine
I see it on you right now.
- [156:38]
Sean Ryan
What does it look like?
- [156:39]
Dave Mustaine
It's just a. Just like a black shadow. Shadow. It's mostly on this side.
- [156:48]
Sean Ryan
Do you see that on a lot of people?
- [156:51]
Dave Mustaine
No. It's there. No, I don't.
- [156:56]
Sean Ryan
Is it freaking you out?
- [156:58]
Dave Mustaine
No, I was just looking at it. Just looking at. Making sure it wasn't the building. But it's not shadows in here. Yeah, it's like an energy field on you.
- [157:08]
Sean Ryan
Interesting. Well, when I crossed over, I could. I could feel the presence of people that I love. Gabe. Gabe was there. I didn't talk to him. I didn't see him. I could just.
- [157:25]
Dave Mustaine
Gabe?
- [157:26]
Sean Ryan
Yep. I could just feel him. And. And man, it was. It was amazing. And that lasts for about 15 minutes and then you come out of it. And that's actually, I guess what maybe sparked my journey back to Christ, because I. I never really thought about it. When I left home and joined the SEAL teams. It just. I wouldn't say it doesn't have a place in the SEAL teams, but it's just not really discussed, at least in my experience. And it's all mission oriented and women and bar fights and booze and drugs and all of that shit. At least when I was in. And it all went away, man, it. It made me realize, okay, there's definitely something bigger than us in this. In this universe. And that. That sent me down like. I don't know, man. I started looking into energy and I started looking at. I would. I probably. I still watch them, but more documentaries than I can count on.
- [158:39]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah.
- [158:39]
Sean Ryan
On the universe and like that. And then. And then I had an experience in Sedona that brought me to Christ, where I We were kind of talking about this earlier, like, weird coincidences and like, that. That happens.
- [158:52]
Dave Mustaine
And the Vortexa.
- [158:54]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, well, that's. That's why I went to Sedona, because I was like, oh, man, I want to feel this energy fields because there's all these supposed energy fields out there. I went up there. I didn't feel. And. And. And at the time, like there was a lot of things going on at the world, in the world that I just thought were really fucked up, up. And I felt like I was the only voice out there that was. That was fighting this stuff. Like, you know, just all kinds of stuff, man. China stuff going on in China, which I'm really spun up on China.
- [159:33]
Dave Mustaine
And.
- [159:34]
Sean Ryan
And. And I started diving into the pedophilia networks and. And exposing that. And my best friend here in Franklin died. Died the day before we went there. And the trans stuff with kids, like.
- [159:47]
Dave Mustaine
Is that connected with your best friend?
- [159:50]
Sean Ryan
With.
- [159:50]
Dave Mustaine
With your best friend dying? Was that connected to what you guys were talking about?
- [159:55]
Sean Ryan
No, no. My best friend died from. From heroin.
- [159:58]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, right, right, right. You said that.
- [160:02]
Sean Ryan
So basically, I'm like, talking to myself and I'm like, man, in my head, I told my wife because I. I had opened Instagram and saw something that, like, triggered me again. And I was like. So I smoked a joint and I was like, we gotta head up to this vortex. And I was looking at crystals and all kinds of. Yeah, wazoo, and went up there. Didn't feel a damn thing. I was like, this energy stuff's. And walked down and walk through this security gate. We're staying at this resort called Enchantment. They got security, whatever.
- [160:44]
Dave Mustaine
And.
- [160:44]
Sean Ryan
But because of my background and because of the show, like, people in the security business, law enforcement, military, it's just really big in those circles. So all those guys knew who I was, and I would stop and say hi and talk with them. And I'd been there for a week. This was the last night I walked through. And this old man walks out of the guard shack who I'd never seen the whole week I'd been there. We'd been in and out all week. And he fucking read my mind from front to back. And he starts talking to me as I'm walking through, and I'm in a horrible place. I felt like I had just surrendered my soul to the devil because I was like, well, you know, why do you care about all this shit, Sean? Like, really, it doesn't even affect you. You'd probably be able to shelter your kids from it. And I was like, just like, quit. Just surrender. Maybe I'm the fucked up one. Maybe we should be doing all these things. I don't know. Nobody else seems to give a shit. And so I'd had this experience where I felt like I had no shit. This is a conversation I'm having in my head where I'm just like, I shouldn't care about this. I should just surrender and give it up. And felt like I had surrendered my soul to the devil. Walk through this gate. This old man comes out. He's trying to talk to me. I'm not in the mood. I'm like, hey. Like, I'm not being rude. But I look and give him body language. Like, I'm looking to him, talking to him over my shoulder. Like, I don't want to be bothered right now. So he engages my wife. Of course, my wife is like a social butterfly. Turns around, starts talking to him, Him. And I'm like. So I turn around and I look at him, and he looks at me, and he just started reading my mind from front to back. And I hadn't. I hadn't even told my wife this. And he goes. He goes, all the stuff that's going on with these kids, he's like, that's not your battle. And all the stuff that's going on in China right now, between us and China relations, that's not your fight either. And I was just, like, looking at this guy.
- [162:53]
Dave Mustaine
How do you know?
- [162:54]
Sean Ryan
He said a bunch more stuff, but my mind went blank because he scared the shit out of me. I was like, how is this guy in my head right now? I haven't vocalized any of this. It's impossible for him to know. And, you know, as weird as it sounds, I think that, like I said, I'd never seen him there before. We'd been there for a week. I pay attention to security because my background. And I was like, holy shit. I told Katie at the end of it, when we were walking back to our bungalow, I was like, hey, I think that was God talking to me.
- [163:26]
Dave Mustaine
That was an angel. Yeah.
- [163:28]
Sean Ryan
And she goes, yeah, Sean. She goes, God's always talking to you. You just don't make any room for him. You're not paying attention.
- [163:34]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, touche.
- [163:36]
Sean Ryan
And then we had gotten up to the bungalow, and my friend Gabe, that when we first got there, there was this guy that looked identical to Gabe. And Gabe was always known as a protector. He was. He was a pro hockey player. He was an enforcer on the hockey team. Then he became. He went pro, like, Semi pro, wasn't going to make it to the game. He was on the Tampa Bay farm team. And then he became a seal. He was always the guy that took care of everybody else. Everybody knew they were fine if Gabe was around, then moved into the agency contracting for them. And that's where we met. And he was known for the same thing there. And then we had gotten out and like I told you, he died of a heroin overdose. And I saw this guy everywhere we were at if we were on a hike, this guy that was identical to Gabe was coming back. If we were out in town eating dinner, that guy was out there. If we were at the pool, he was at the pool. And it was just like Katie, the whole trip, she's like, gabe's watching over you. Cause she knew as I was in a vulnerable spot. We walk from the guard shack to the bungalow and there's Gabe, the guy that had been everywhere we were at the whole fucking week. Winds up these were like duplexes. He's staying in the across. He's on the other side of the bungalow. And I saw that this is like maybe a five minute walk. And I'm like, holy shit. Like, did you see that Gabe, this dude that looks identical to Gabe has been here the whole fucking time. And then. So then I have a breakdown. We go in and I told you my best friend and Franklin, who was also a seal, just died on a hunt trip with his son. He had a heart attack. And his daughter, I'd never, who I'd never met, text me. So she must have went through her dad's phone. This is all within 10 minutes. And I'm breaking down. And I'm talking to my wife and I'm like, I can't believe this is happening. And she's like, don't say you can't believe. She's like, it's here. And he's slapping you in the face right now. We have this discussion and my phone, I got a text, I got the ding. But I didn't look at it. After the conversation, when I kind of cleaned myself up, I look at the phone and it's his daughter. And she says, hey, I just want you to know I walked into my dad's gun room for the first time since he'd passed. He had this amazing gun room. And she goes, he spoke to me. And I can't remember her exact words, but she said that I had recently become his best friend and that he just wants you to know that he loves you for who you are and that I should contact you because you had a relationship with him that nobody else had.
- [166:37]
Dave Mustaine
And I was like, whoa, that's very touching.
- [166:40]
Sean Ryan
Three things in 10 minutes. And that's what brought me to.
- [166:45]
Dave Mustaine
But.
- [166:46]
Sean Ryan
But it was anyways circling way back.
- [166:49]
Dave Mustaine
No, that's good story.
- [166:50]
Sean Ryan
It was the psychedelics that kind of put me on the journey to figure out what this is all about. And that's where I landed. And I've really leaned into it since. But anyways, I don't. I can't remember how we got off.
- [167:08]
Dave Mustaine
On that tangent, but talking about Sedona, you have to match mushrooms and everything.
- [167:13]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you ever done any psychedelics?
- [167:16]
Dave Mustaine
The motorcycle concert we did for the bikers up in the hills, they paid us off with magic mushrooms. You know, back in the early 80s, late 70s, people were. They were taking magic mushrooms a lot and also taking lsd, which was very popular at the time. I did that a couple times. They didn't like it. It. Because I couldn't turn it off.
- [167:41]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [167:42]
Dave Mustaine
I found out recently that if you just take an opiate pill when you're frying that you could come down from it immediately. And I thought, I'm sure glad I didn't know that, you know?
- [167:53]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, just.
- [167:54]
Dave Mustaine
I just don't want to know anymore.
- [167:55]
Sean Ryan
You've never done them in like a therapeutic setting with a specific intention?
- [168:00]
Dave Mustaine
Not yet, but your story sure made me think. And by the way, that's not black. It's like dark purple.
- [168:10]
Sean Ryan
The aura, it's still there.
- [168:14]
Dave Mustaine
Still there.
- [168:15]
Sean Ryan
What do you think that is?
- [168:17]
Dave Mustaine
Energy. I'd have to probably know you a little better, but. Yeah, it's only on that side. Kind of shows up a little bit on that side, but it's. It's right by this area. Do you have anything going on in your mouth over here? You sure?
- [168:41]
Sean Ryan
Not that I know of. I just got a cancer screening.
- [168:44]
Dave Mustaine
Did they check your lymph nodes over here?
- [168:46]
Sean Ryan
They checked the whole body.
- [168:47]
Dave Mustaine
Okay, now you're worried. Well, I'd love to say just kidding, but I'm not. I wouldn't have brought it up.
- [168:57]
Sean Ryan
Let's take a break. Foreign. I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on Vigilance Elite Patreon. Our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show, and their support allows us to keep doing what we do. Depending on the tier you choose, you'll get access to benefits, like behind the scenes footage before each interview, early access to episodes, end of the month, live zoom calls with me. Exclusive merch and more. Join us and become a patron starting at just $5 a month by visiting patreon.com vigilance elite. That's patreon.com vigilance elite. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to itunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Dave, we're back from the break. That was a good conversation we just had.
- [170:08]
Dave Mustaine
Thanks. Glad you liked it.
- [170:11]
Sean Ryan
You know, I've heard a lot about satanic stuff going on in Hollywood in music. And a lot of kids are aspiring to be a rock star. And actually we have a mutual friend whose daughter's really into it. And I know he is very concerned about the satanic stuff, the frequencies and all that kind of stuff. Can you talk a little bit about what that is?
- [170:48]
Dave Mustaine
I don't know exactly what you're talking about with the frequency stuff and the Satan stuff you're talking about. Can you be a little bit more.
- [171:00]
Sean Ryan
I think what I'm getting at is more like satanic cults and kind of like the band that you were just talking about in Israel that you had in and well, we're going to have an encounter with and some of the stuff that you used to be into is that running rampant in those circles?
- [171:20]
Dave Mustaine
See, that's the whole thing that I have to go back to. I don't think anybody that is practicing witchcraft that that would have been their natural first choice unless they had some kind of fractured paradigm for a functional, healthy family. You know, I'm not saying that it has to be a two parent family. Mine wasn't and I turned out pretty good. My kids are great. Pam and I have always taken the approach that both of us have a very significant role and that is to do what we do 100% and be able to do what the other one does. 100%. 100% in times of necessity. So.
- [172:10]
Sean Ryan
Is any of that stuff pushed.
- [172:11]
Dave Mustaine
On you Satanic music? No, I think the Geraldos of the world are in dire need of a severe censoring. You know, they've got a microphone and they're just blathering holes, for lack of a better word. They say stuff that they think will get listeners, viewers, readers. And you know, I did something with, I think it was one of the network stations they were trying to do an expose on, on satanic music and all that stuff. Same thing. Basically what you're asking, but a different environment. And I was just saying, you know, I believe that if somebody is trying something and it doesn't work, they're going to try something else. No matter what it is. Even if it's, you know, making toothpicks out of logs. If it doesn't work, they'll find another way. They have to. That's the way we are. By human nature, if we don't like something, we're going to say screw it and try and find something new. And I think that if you've got a young person, it's very impressionable. It's like beautiful, clean, fresh clay. And we're supposed to be responsible for helping form that person, you know, not control them, but help keep them in the middle of the roof. And there's not a lot of people that really care about that anymore because of society and the environment and the economy. Because most families need to have a two income family anymore. And what happens when there's a two income family family? Well, there has to be child care and that's usually at the hands of somebody in the school in an after school project or program or having somebody that comes to your home. And either one of those, any of those choices are very expensive and it produces diminishing returns because you've got to unprogram the nanny or teacher or substitute or whatever. I remember when I was younger, justice was just a baby and I'd hired a nanny for him while we were on tour. We were in France and I got off stage and he was crying because he was just a little kid and the nanny had not changed him and I went fucking ballistic. You know, my kid, don't ever, ever think that you're going to work for us again. And that was it, she was gone. And you know, I changed the diapers and, and I don't know. Going back to the thing about the satanic stuff though, I think that usually occurs when people are desperate and they have nowhere else to go.
- [174:51]
Sean Ryan
Do you think there's anything that kids that want to get into this type of industry need to watch out for.
- [174:58]
Dave Mustaine
In the music industry? Yeah, you have to be very careful from the pedophilia, you have to be very careful from the, the rape, for lack of a better word. Because if you're not a child and that same thing happens to you, what is it called? You know, there's a lot of stuff that's in TV right now with Sean, Puff Daddy Combs with Jeffrey Epstein, with all these people that are coming out now getting busted for These crazy orgies and sex parties and everything. That breaks my heart to think that somebody that was an adult with a funct functioning mind, no matter how depraved it is, but that they would assault an innocent child and rape them. That, to me, is. It's reprehensible. And I don't know why there isn't stricter punishment for that. I think a lot of it is because people just don't know what's happening.
- [175:55]
Sean Ryan
Is that that common in these circles?
- [175:57]
Dave Mustaine
Well, there are a lot of people that are very famous musicians. The rumor has that they were. Were executed because they were getting ready to expose pedophilia.
- [176:08]
Sean Ryan
Executed as in killed?
- [176:10]
Dave Mustaine
Well, the rumors going around about Chester from Lincoln park and about Chris from Soundgarden was that they were making a movie on child abuse and child trafficking. I think it was. And they're both gone. And it's very suspicious.
- [176:28]
Sean Ryan
Geez.
- [176:28]
Dave Mustaine
Mm. Because they don't want this stuff to come out.
- [176:32]
Sean Ryan
Well, it's out.
- [176:35]
Dave Mustaine
It is. But, yeah, it's pretty. Pretty sad stuff to talk about.
- [176:43]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Yeah.
- [176:45]
Dave Mustaine
You got any happy questions?
- [176:49]
Sean Ryan
Why did you.
- [176:50]
Dave Mustaine
Why'd you move to.
- [176:51]
Sean Ryan
Frank, why'd you move to Middle Tennessee?
- [176:54]
Dave Mustaine
Well, I love my daughter. And we moved out here because we couldn't find. The first place we went looking was Austin, Texas. And I'm glad we didn't move there. Not because of the people of Austin, but because of the interlopers that have started to invade Austin that have done the exodus from California. We were. We were looking for homes out there and had gone every Easter out there to look for three years. And I finally was out here playing, and a friend of mine. I didn't. I didn't know who he was. I had met him, and we'd gone our separate ways, and I saw him again. I went, oh, yeah, I remember you. So we started talking, and I told him, well, my daughter wants to be a singer. And he goes, why are you looking in Austin? You should move to Nashville. And I said, really? And he goes, yeah, man, it's so much better here. And I was in a really good place because we just played the show with Iron Maiden there and all of our friends and neighbors and all of our associates that we had here in town finally get to see me do my job and get to know a little bit about me and a professional special capacity instead of me just standing in front of them and yapping. So we moved out here, and she started pursuing her country career, and then she decided she didn't want to do country And I thought, well, that's great. And she started trying to sing pop again, and she didn't like that either. And we had started our wine business when I played with the San Diego Symphony in San Diego, I had this opportunity to play with them and I wanted to make something unique for them to drink. I didn't think that the symphony would have, you know, a lot of beer on tap or a lot of hardcore alcohol, that they would probably just have champagne or wine or something. So I said, I think I want to make a wine. So we made a wine. And that took off really well and then moved forward, fast forward a few more years. Elektra is now Somalia. It's one of the youngest sommeliers that was a female. And she.
- [179:08]
Sean Ryan
She's a what?
- [179:09]
Dave Mustaine
Sommelier.
- [179:10]
Sean Ryan
What is that?
- [179:11]
Dave Mustaine
That's a wine taster. They can take a little spoon and take a sip of wine and tell you where it's from.
- [179:17]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [179:18]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, they're very, very, very sought after people because they can taste the soil, they can taste the. The grouping of the grape. Like a red grape will have numerous red fruit tastes to it. That's the idiosyncrasyncrasy of the grape. It could taste like a cherry, could taste like a raspberry, it could taste like a currant, it could taste like a strawberry, for example, you know, plum. Those are all the red colors. And so when you're tasting the wines, to have an educated palate like that is very desirable for a restaurant and certainly desirable for a wine company. We want somebody who knows their stuff. Now, Electra and Pam are running House of Mustaine. And if you're getting your wine graded, when you make it into the 90 percentile, you are very, very desirable.
- [180:22]
Sean Ryan
Nice. Is your daughter still here?
- [180:25]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, she's still living here. She has her own place that I bought, and she's doing the wine and justice and I are doing the beer. And we just were an entrepreneurial family. I thank God that my kids turned out the way that they did. But it wasn't for lack of trying. They certainly had a rambunction, anxious spirit. And we had to, you know, we had. Electra was like a little, little horse. And she did not want to be ridden. She did not want to be on a harness. She didn't want to be on a halter. She didn't want nothing. She was going to just live life her way. And justice was kind of like that, too. He actually wanted to move out when he was young, so we let him move. He moved into a House. We had an Oceanside and I went down there one time and he had just had a little get together. And I was looking in the house and I opened up one of the closets and I saw a smoking device that was about as big as your ore over there, made out of glass that, I don't know, I guess the guy puffs on it for a little while and another guy comes along when it fills up. It's the biggest bong I've ever seen in my life. And yeah, that's the way the things were going back then in Cali because everybody was getting their medical cards. And, you know, as soon as that happened, Everybody was smoking pot. 24 7.
- [181:50]
Sean Ryan
Do you like it here?
- [181:52]
Dave Mustaine
I love it here. I think one of the things that happened when we first got here was the culture shock. My blood pressure went down. I started to really enjoy driving in traffic. And I realized that people stick their finger up in the air as much here. They don't honk. I can tell when people are here that aren't from Tennessee, when they drive out into the middle of the intersection when they're going to turn. And I used to make that mistake all the time. I don't now, but I could tell sometimes when I'm just beyond the point of any coming back to earth, I'll honk. Of course, I've said eight cuss words while I'm honking. But yeah, it's been really good for me. The cost of living. The people are wonderful. I, I, I love the fact that there's hardly any graffiti anywhere. And our particular neighborhood where we're at has a very, very thorough police presence and sheriff presence. So we feel safe.
- [182:53]
Sean Ryan
Good.
- [182:54]
Dave Mustaine
You know, there were some people on the property behind us. It looked like there were about 12 people walking with backpacks. And, and I thought, well, that doesn't look right to me. If they were working over there, they'd probably have something resembling a tool, something. But they're just a group of people walking one direction with backpacks on. So I called the sheriff and I asked, I said, are you guys aware of any migrant traffic up here? Because there's some people in my backyard and they came out and they said, no, it was the guy behind you. He was doing something and he neglected to tell anybody. And you know what? I did nothing. If I was back in California, I would have made a way to let him know that I didn't appreciate him having people tromping through my backyard and make him very aware that I'm upset, you know, like what you were talking about with the tripping, you know, stuff. It's just like taking off a. A tight pair of shoes. You just go, you know, life just kind of settles back. And I remember one of the times when I was staying down at my mom's house. David Ellison and I had just gotten sober, and we were down in Elsinore trying to get away from Los Angeles. And I remember there was one day I woke up and I heard the birds chirping. And I thought, but I haven't heard the birds for so long. I just don't listen for them anymore. And now. Now every morning, I hear the birds. I listen to nature. I listen. I can tell when there's aircraft in the area. I can tell when the wind's blowing. I can tell when the horses are out. You know, I drove past our one pasture yesterday, the day before, and I got a mare for my wife. We have a couple. We have three horses, actually. So I got her a mare because her gelding just passed away. And she put her head up and just went. Just huge whinny. And I thought, man, talk about the life. These guys have it made here in Tennessee. The weather's beautiful. The grass is probably so delicious to them. And our neighbor is growing alfalfa in his grass for his livestock. So we have that, too. And our field in our forest is full of lavender.
- [185:21]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [185:21]
Dave Mustaine
How could you complain about stuff like that? You can't.
- [185:25]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's new? What's coming new with you guys with the winery, with the beer, with the music?
- [185:33]
Dave Mustaine
There's a lot of stuff. We have a book coming out. In my darkest hours, A book about my cancer diagnosis. I went to go see a dentist. I was out on the road for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. My mouth hurt. And I thought that the guy that had just done my work had maybe had a little debris in my mouth, some glue, maybe a instrument broke off, and it was hurting. So I went there, and he goes, I can't see anything. You need to go see an oral surgeon. I go and see the oral surgeon. The guy looks at my mouth. Mouth. He leaves for 45 minutes. And I'm thinking, you right? I'm just thinking, man, what kind of a doctor are you? This is horrible bedside manner. And I should have been prepared from what he did. I walked into the reception area, and I said, where's the doctor? And the girl goes, he'll be right in. So I go in, and he walks, and he stands in front of me. He goes, you got the big C And I looked at him and I went. And I asked him, what did you say? Because I went into shock immediately. You got the big C. And I don't remember anything after that, leaving his office. I just know I got up and I walked out and I got in my car and then I called my wife and I said, honey, I have cancer. And I didn't notice it, but I'd been sitting in my car for a little while and I had tears coming down my eyes because I was in shock. I didn't know. I just thought for the absolute worst. And that is the beginning of the book and how we made our. Our best album to date. The Sick, the Dying and the Dead. While I was going through cancer treatment, I think it was something like eight chemo treatments and 30 radiation, something. Some ridiculous amount of treatments. Maybe it was 51, I don't know.
- [187:36]
Sean Ryan
Jeez.
- [187:37]
Dave Mustaine
But it was a lot. And they said they wanted to be really, really, really aggressive with it because I was a singer and I love my doctors. They did. They did great work keeping me alive and keeping my voice. So, yeah, that's one thing we're doing. We also are resurrecting our. Our big festival tour, Gigantor. We have a couple one offs. We're playing Bonnaroo soon and we've got two big festivals over in Europe that we're going to be doing. We've got the record that's going to be coming out this year because we've been in studio recording. I'm actually supposed to be there right now. And there's. There's somebody we've been talking to about documenting the whole thing. So we've recorded the making of the record. We've done this several times with several records we've made. But it never really gets out the door because as soon as we're done making the record, it's too much stuff to do. And of course it's there. You know, we have the making of Dystopia, we have the making of the Sick Dust Lying in the Dead. We have the making of this record already. And at some point I'm sure they'll be worthy to put out. But, you know, we're just. We're staying busy, busy, busy. I know that Pam and Electra are doing really great with the wine. They just released a new wine. I think it's called A Vernaccio. I don't know which one that is. Yeah. But all this, all the wines we have have song, song titles to kind of give them a little bit of Some connection to me for the House of Mustaine stuff. Let's see, what else is there? We've been working on our vineyard over in Italy. We've got a piece of property over there. We've been planting and building a house over there. And that's been really exciting because we figured out with the wines from California, a lot of them have sulfites in them.
- [189:37]
Sean Ryan
It.
- [189:37]
Dave Mustaine
And that gives you a headache. The wines from Italy do not. And they don't give you a headache. So that's been really neat. And we've been really successful with that. The kids have been moving around a lot. Justice just got a new house, so we helped him move and. And just getting ready for tour.
- [189:55]
Sean Ryan
You got. What kind of cancer was it?
- [189:58]
Dave Mustaine
Throat cancer.
- [190:00]
Sean Ryan
Throat cancer. What stage?
- [190:04]
Dave Mustaine
Oh, I don't know what stage it was. We just, we discovered it and we went to work on it right away. I know how big it was. I know it was a couple millimeters. It was a non basal, squeamish, squamish, whatever. I think, you know, I tried to not dig into it too much because I didn't want to give it power over me. So that's why I don't really know the amount of chemo or radiation numbers I have, because I frankly don't want those numbers to be the definition of me. It doesn't define me.
- [190:42]
Sean Ryan
How did your family react when you told them?
- [190:45]
Dave Mustaine
I think Pam was scared. I know the kids were scared. I think justice knew that I was a fighter and that I was going to fight the. I'm not sure that elector knew that. And Pam knows that God's in control, so that whatever happens is his way anyway. Right, so.
- [191:05]
Sean Ryan
And you recorded an album while going through that?
- [191:08]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah, Our best one yet.
- [191:11]
Sean Ryan
Holy.
- [191:12]
Dave Mustaine
It was hard. It was hard. And I fell asleep a few days in. In recording and, you know, for people that don't understand that, they think you're just getting drugged out and you're enjoying it. I wasn't enjoying it. I was getting drugged out. Yeah, but that was because they were trying to kill me, to kill the cancer in my body.
- [191:31]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [191:33]
Dave Mustaine
Hard to sing. It was hard to sing. My voice changed.
- [191:38]
Sean Ryan
I could imagine.
- [191:39]
Dave Mustaine
Plus, I had my neck broken by a chiropractor back in 2012, and I had to have my neck fused together. So I've got a plate in my neck. And that's changed my voice, too.
- [191:48]
Sean Ryan
Holy shit, man.
- [191:49]
Dave Mustaine
Yeah. Yeah. It's been a lot of stuff, so I, I, you know, looking out the window, appreciating the ride for me right now. Yeah, I do that. I do that because there's a lot of stuff that tried to take me out.
- [192:07]
Sean Ryan
Well, Dave, what an interview, man.
- [192:10]
Dave Mustaine
Thanks, Sean.
- [192:11]
Sean Ryan
Thank you for coming.
- [192:12]
Dave Mustaine
Been a pleasure.
- [192:13]
Sean Ryan
It was an honor to have you.
- [192:14]
Dave Mustaine
You. It's good to meet you, too, sir. Yeah. Thank you.
- [192:18]
Sean Ryan
Thank you.
- [192:32]
Dave Mustaine
Former MLB allstar Sean Casey, AKA the Mayor, keeps hitting it out of the park.
- [192:37]
Sean Ryan
Take my 30 years of experience.
- [192:39]
Dave Mustaine
Take the 30.
- [192:40]
Sean Ryan
The wisdom and knowledge I've learned from, the failures when I got sent down my rookie year, all the injuries I had to overcome. Your mind is the most important tool.
- [192:46]
Dave Mustaine
You have in life.
- [192:47]
Sean Ryan
Be relentless.
- [192:48]
Dave Mustaine
Keep charging.
- [192:48]
Sean Ryan
It matters how you talk to yourself, how you look at the world.
- [192:51]
Dave Mustaine
That matters. We talk about that.
- [192:52]
Sean Ryan
I don't know.
- [192:53]
Dave Mustaine
I'm fired up.
- [192:53]
Sean Ryan
Baseball's back and it's going to be incredible.
- [192:55]
Dave Mustaine
I love it. The Mayor's office with Sean Casey from Believe, Follow and listen on your favorite platform.