MEGADETH
One of the most groundbreaking, electrifying, and provocative bodies of work in
the history of heavy rock is about to be re-unleashed upon the public in all its
blazing glory. Seven albums by pioneering metal band MEGADETH, along with
a new, never-before-heard version of a Megadeth-related side project, arrive on
July 27th. Founder, singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter Dave
Mustaine spent months remixing, remastering, restoring--and in some cases
reconstructing--the band's catalog to bring it as close to his original vision
as possible. With each album packed with unreleased tracks, demos and
alternate mixes, along with painfully honest liner notes from the iconoclastic
Mustaine, these are the definitive editions of Megadeth's musical legacy.
"I have finally gotten to go back and make everything that I was hearing in
my head available to the fans, so that they can experience the songs the way
that I feel they truly are in my soul," says Mustaine about his massive
project on Capitol Records. "Some of the songs just didn't turn out
the way that I wanted them to when they were first made, due to money
restrictions, technology limitations and so on. I believe now that there is
nothing standing in the way of what I felt when I wrote these songs and how you
will be able to hear them."
Megadeth was formed in 1983, shortly after California native Mustaine parted
ways with Metallica. "When I first started the group, I wanted to
form a band because I was very bitter about being fired (from Metallica) and my
fuel was revenge," says the bracingly candid musician. "I went
from playing music for fun as a kid to playing music for payback. I didn't
really care who was in the group; I just had something I wanted to accomplish.
I was not going to be looked upon as someone who wasn't good enough."
With something to prove, Mustaine initially set out to create the heaviest metal
band ever. Beginning with the band's 1985 debut album, "Killing Is My
Business. And Business Is Good!", and evolving through a shifting series of
lineups, Megadeth crafted a dynamic, intelligent style that combined the
aggressiveness of thrash metal, the improvisational nature of jazz, and cynical,
articulate, politically-charged lyrics into an innovative mix that built a rabid
worldwide following.
Several early albums--including 1986's classic "Peace Sells. But Who's Buying?" and
the masterful 1990 release, "Rust In Peace" -- solidified the band's underground
metal fanbase. In 1992, Megadeth busted out into the mainstream with their
fifth album, "Countdown To Extinction", which debuted on the Billboard Top 200
album chart at Number Two and went on to sell over two million copies in the
U.S. alone. 1994's "Youthanasia" followed with a Number Four debut, while
'97's "Cryptic Writings" yielded four Top 20 hits at rock radio, including
"Trust" and "Almost Honest" (all of the Megadeth albums were
certified gold, while "So Far...", "Rust In Peace" and
"Youthanasia" were also
platinum-selling)
By the time of 1999's "Risk", however, which featured a pop slant unheard on
previous Megadeth recordings, Mustaine himself began to grow disillusioned with
the band's direction and the music industry. 2001 saw a return to the
band's heavier roots on "The World Needs A Hero", but a year later, a freak
injury- Mustaine fell asleep on his arm, causing nerve damage--forced the singer
and guitarist to put his career and Megadeth on hiatus, while reassessing both.
Part of that reassessment involved the band's Capitol Records back catalog,
which began with their second album, "Peace Sells. But Who's Buying? " "A
while ago, I had heard that the Beatles, when they renewed their deal with
Capitol, they had an opportunity to fix all the mistakes that they had ever had,
even down to little typos in the liner notes," explains Mustaine.
"I don't know how much of that is true, but I always had the desire to make
"So Far, So Good. So What!" (1988) sound good ever since it came out, because I
wasn't really happy with it. I just wanted all of them to sound
good."
Mustaine's first foray into the restoration business was that debut Megadeth
effort, "Killing Is My Business", a job he now says "wasn't as hard as these
other ones were." For the rest, what Mustaine thought would be a
fairly straightforward task of some remixing and sonic polishing turned into a
major salvage operation. "We had to get all the tapes from Capitol.
They basically took the master tapes and put them on a hard drive, from which I
did everything with Pro Tools in a recording studio in the Tempe area called
Phase Four. When I opened up "Peace Sells. But Who's Buying?", the amount of
work that needed to be done to get everything up to speed was reasonable.
Certain dynamics on tracks needed to be fixed and so forth, but it was in pretty
good shape.
"Then we got to "So Far, So Good. So What!", which was recorded on AGFA
tape," Mustaine continues. "AGFA had a bad run of tape at one
point, and naturally, I got a bad run of tape from those guys. So when
they tried to transfer the music from the tapes in storage in New Jersey onto
the drive for us, nothing showed up. The guy who was in charge of the
transfer called me up and said the top of the tape had this white powder all
over it, and I asked, 'Well, was it coke?' And he said no, the tape had
disintegrated. So we went into the studio, and I had to literally take
every single note from every single instrument throughout the record and fix
everything with ProTools."
"So Far..". might have required the biggest overhaul, but every album needed a fair
amount of work and, in some cases, even some re-recording. "You know,
it wasn't really hard when I first opened up the very first drive to roll up my
sleeves and think, 'This is gonna be great,'" Mustaine says now.
"But as the project rolled on and the difficulties started to accumulate, I
began to get a little nervous. When I got to stuff like 'Take No
Prisoners' (from "Rust In Peace"), and it was two o'clock in the morning and we
find out that the vocal track is gone, I was pretty freaked out."
The most extensive revision didn't involve a Megadeth album at all. However, in
its new form, "The Craving" comes closer to a true Megadeth effort than it did
before. If that title doesn't quite ring a bell, it's because it was
recorded in 1996 under the name MD.45, a side project formed by Mustaine and
ex-Fear vocalist Lee Ving. But when Mustaine inspected the original
multi-track recordings, he discovered that Ving's vocal tracks and harmonica
parts were missing. So he took the unprecedented step of re-singing all
the vocals himself, as well as simulating the harmonica on a guitar. The
result is a new album in many ways. "I'm the most excited about
MD.45," enthuses Mustaine. "When it first came out, a lot of
people were really disappointed in it because they loved the playing, but they
didn't like Lee. I still think Lee's amazing, but I've done something that
I believe has made "The Craving" really credible. I'm really, really looking
forward to seeing how the public responds to that."
The results across the board, on all eight albums, are impressive. Later
efforts like "Risk" benefit from Mustaine's ruthless stripping of the pop
elements, giving the album a harder, truer sound, but it's the earlier efforts
like "Peace Sells..." and "So Far..." that benefit the most. There's no question,
with the sounds refurbished and maximized, that this was an undeniably powerful
and lethal band, fully deserving their status as one of the most influential
metal acts of the last twenty years.
And Megadeth's work is not finished. His arm healed, Mustaine began
itching to play again. With drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Jimmy
Sloas, he recently completed work on the first all-new Megadeth album in three
years. A bruising sample track, "Kick The Chair," leaked online
by Mustaine, portends great things. "I think that it has come full
circle back to the aggressive, political cynical lyrics and aggressive guitar
riffing that I am famous--or infamous--for," says Mustaine. "I
feel something very similar to when I first started out when I hear this new
record. It's exciting for me and I can't wait for the public to be able to have
this record in their hands."
With a new album due in the fall (Sanctuary Records) and the catalog back on
July 27th in its ultimate form, Megadeth, in 2004, has come gloriously back to
life.
--Don Kaye, May 2004