Kerry King has plenty of history with Megadeth. Not only is his own band, Slayer, fellow members of the "Big 4" of thrash alongside Dave Mustaine's pioneering group, but King actually played guitar in Megadeth for a brief time during the spring of 1984.
"[Kerry] played the first five shows with us as our second guitar player," Megadeth bassist David Ellefson told us in our oral history of the Big 4. "I think Slayer was a little bit on the fence with what they were doing, what their direction was. Kerry always claimed that he saw Dave play with Metallica at the Whisky [a Go Go venue in Los Angeles] and how it changed his life. Playing with us, Kerry was such a natural fit with Dave's guitar-playing style. He just fundamentally understood how to play those riffs."
King, of course, ultimately decided to stick with Slayer, but he still has plenty of respect for Mustaine and his band. Indeed, when we asked him to pick his favorite Megadeth song, he couldn't pick just one.
"Obviously, I love 'Rattlehead,' 'cause I played it," King says. "But that first record [1985's Killing Is My Business…and Business Is Good, featuring 'Rattlehead'] is full of gems. I remember playing some of the riffs with those guys. We were playing songs from that and from their next record, Peace Sells…but Who's Buying? when I played with them. 'The Skull Beneath the Skin' [off Killing] is awesome, 'The Conjuring' [off Peace Sells] is awesome. All kinds of great shit."
