For much of 2011 and part of 2012, Dave Mustaine was a broken man—literally. His band, Megadeth, was playing historic shows with the "Big Four"—Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax—and, on other tours, performing their classic albums Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction in their entirety, much to the delight of new and old fans alike. Yet behind the scenes, Mustaine was in agony.
Years of headbanging had left him with a condition known as "military neck," arthritis and two types of painful stenosis, one in which a bone in his neck closed over a nerve, and another where a different nerve swelled inside the bone.
"It got to the point where I had to get shots and take narcotics to control the pain," he says, fully aware of the risks involved when an ex-junkie starts taking strong painkillers. "One day, I couldn't move and I was rushed to the ER and the doctor said, 'Your neck is so bad right now you need emergency surgery.'"
Suspicious that the surgeon wanted to "make a quick buck" from what he perceived to be a "rich rock star," Mustaine bit the bullet and rode out the pain. Then, on the 2011 Mayhem Fest tour, he lost feeling in his left arm and was forced to play leads with just two fingers. At the end of the tour, Mustaine knew he couldn't avoid surgery any longer. He underwent a procedure called "neck fusion," in which they removed cartilage from his damaged neck, replaced it with synthetic material, and secured the vertebral column with a metal plate.
But even after Mustaine started to recover from his physical injury, the Megadeth main man's life has hardly been drama-free. Family problems, writer's block, production schedules, and media controversy were just a few of the obstacles Mustaine has faced, but like his sneering cowboy hero Clint Eastwood, the metal icon has always been ready for a challenge, even when the odds seem stacked against him. This time, the result of his battling is Megadeth's new, 14th album, Super Collider, the band's first release on their new label, Tradecraft, and one their darkest and most diverse records yet.
One of the biggest obstacles facing Megadeth when approaching the new album was the small window of time in which they had to write and record Super Collider between the end of their Countdown to Extinction 20th anniversary tour and the record's scheduled June 4 release. When the band finally entered the studio in December with producer Johnny K (who also worked on 2011's TH1RT3EN), they only had snippets of songs written. That's when Mustaine got motivated. Troubled by his mother-in-law's worsening Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative mental condition that often renders sufferers unable to recognize their own family members, Mustaine penned the morose "The Blackest Crow," a country-inflected number that starts with banjo, fiddle, and shuffling drums before evolving into a dark, mid-tempo metal epic.
"The song is somber to the point where I was insinuating the main character had died and I felt like that was too depressing so I toned it down a little," he says. "But it was still hard for me to get my head around, so I put it aside and started writing 'Forget to Remember.'"
That song is also about Mustaine's mother-in-law, but instead of sounding maudlin, the song is propelled by chugging guitars, fiery blues licks, and a spirited melody that belies the heavy lyrics. "This time, I didn't want it to seem like the girl was dead," Mustaine says. "Instead, I wanted her to be there, but she didn't remember who you were, which leaves open the question. Does she have Alzheimer's or is she using selective amnesia and just doesn't want to remember you? That seemed like a less difficult way to approach the subject."
On a creative roll, Mustaine quickly wrote the title track, a snarling cut reminiscent of tunes from the band's 1994 album, Youthanasia. Next came "Burn," a song about an arsonist. But just these few songs in, Johnny K had to take January off to work with other bands to which he had already committed.
"Don't go there," Mustaine grumbles, only half joking. "We did two months with Johnny and that's the whole of it. It's none of my business what he did in January. I was making my record and Johnny was helping and he's a busy producer. He had a lot of projects he was doing, so we worked between his schedule."
Frustrations with K aside, the extra time worked in Megadeth's favor. The band spent all of January collaborating on many of the remaining songs. Drummer Shawn Drover wrote the proggy thrasher "Built for War" with some help from guitarist Chris Broderick. Johnny K returned to help finish the lyrics for "A House Divided," which includes horns by Bob Findlay, and bassist David Ellefson and Mustaine wrote "Kingmaker," the verse of which sounds like a faster take on Black Sabbath's "Children of the Grave." The track features the lines, "Epidemic of addiction, worshipping the pill/Drown them all with alcohol, anything for thrills."
"There's an epidemic going on right now in this country with all the pill mills," Mustaine says. "People are getting these strong prescriptions from their doctors and getting addicted to painkillers. And there's huge money in it for the drug companies. Fortunately, I have been set free from that whole problem of addiction by my spirituality. I know some people roll their eyes at that because they have a huge problem nowadays with God, particularly Christians. For me, religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people, like me, who have been there."
In addition to working with his own bandmates and producer, Mustaine collaborated with Disturbed and Device frontman David Draiman, who contributed to the final version of "Forget to Remember" and helped write "Dance in the Rain" and sang the end section. "We first met on Mayhem in 2011," Mustaine says. "We later became friends, so he came to San Diego and we hung out for a couple days writing, just seeing what happened. He gave me a bunch of ideas. I used about half of the stuff because half was right for Megadeth and half was more suited for Disturbed. But it was definitely productive and fun."
While Mustaine is a true metal pioneer and one currently experiencing a creative renaissance as evidenced by his band's last few albums, his music has often been overshadowed in recent years by his penchant for controversial public statements. Some of his more inflammatory suggestions include the idea that impoverished women in Africa should stop having children and "put a plug in it," and that President Barack Obama staged the mass shootings last year in Colorado and Wisconsin in order to further his gun-control agenda.
Mustaine wouldn't talk to Revolver about specific incidents, but insists he's not a right-winger. "I'm a very conservative Democrat," he declares. "But I've been told that if you go back far enough in history, the Democrats were created out of the KKK party, so that makes me a little bit cautious."
A long, uncomfortable pause follows, as if Mustaine's waiting for Revolver to ask the next question, while we're waiting for elaboration. Finally, he breaks the standstill. "Look, if something bothers me, I'm gonna say something about it," he continues. "That's our God-given right: freedom of speech. I try not to go overboard, but I say what I think. And you know what? Right now I think we're going through some of the smoothest sailing we've had in a long time. People like us. We like people. The songs we're writing are controversial, but they're provocative and they make you think. As [Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver] said, 'You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.'"
If Megadeth's solution is to stay active, they're well on their way to solving any lingering problems. The band is getting ready to announce the lineup for this summer's Gigantour, which will also feature Black Label Society, Device, Hellyeah, and Newsted. "Gigantour 2013 brings four of my favorite bands, each centered around a superstar," Mustaine said as he announced the tour's lineup in May. "With Zakk [Wylde, Black Label Society], David [Draiman, Device], Vinnie [Paul, Hellyeah], and Jason [Newsted], there are going to be fans from Ozzy to Disturbed to Pantera to Metallica and everything that's metal in-between!"
"To me, it almost feels like the end of the '80s or the early '90s, where it was cool to be part of the music industry," Mustaine adds when we talk to him. "For a while, there was a period when all these these bands detuned and had no guitar solos. I was like, Oh my God. It's like we've all died and gone to hell. I think songs should have a singer and solo. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I just think that's what makes songs cool. And it seems like a lot of people out there are agreeing with me."
