A recent appearance on Lipps Service With Scott Lipps found Slayer guitarist Kerry King share his thoughts on seeing thrash metal juggernauts Metallica live in their early days and his relationship with the group now. King recalled first catching the band in the early 80s back when Dave Mustaine helmed the guitars and bassist Ron McGovney was still in the in the fold. Speaking of that experience, King heaped praise on Mustaine talent, offering:
“When I first saw ’em with Mustaine, I was sitting kind of between James [Hetfield, Metallica vocalist/guitarist] and McGovney in where the audience is, and I was just blown away watching Mustaine just ripping on guitar and not even looking at his fingers. I’m, like, ‘I can’t do that.’ And to this day, he’s a badass guitar player.
But that’s what I walked away from Metallica [thinking]. And [Mustaine] wrote tons of the riffs in the early days. So, when he branched off into Megadeth, a lot of the riffs went with him.”
Of course, Mustaine‘s tenure in Metallica was short-lived, with the group infamously firing him mid-tour back in 1983, citing issues with his substance abuse issues at the time. A decades-long on-again, off-again feud between Mustaine and Metallica has ensued, with the two parties having notably falling out once again 2016 over a royalty dispute over material written during Mustaine‘s time in the band.
Commenting on his own current relationship with Mustaine now, King stated, “Mustaine‘s cool, but Mustaine‘s one of those guys that he can’t help but stick his foot in his mouth. So, I’ll take my 20 minutes and I’ll bolt just before anything gets uncomfortable.” King is also no stranger to Mustaine, at one point having been approached about joining Megadeth decades ago, going so far as to play a few live shows with them in 1984, as well as cameoing decades later.
As for his opinions on Metallica‘s other members, King stated:
“It’s funny, James is one of those guys, even though we’ve got basically the same career, different circles, we did the ‘Big Four’, he made a point to come say ‘hey’ to us, but it’s funny that it hasn’t occurred in the 40 years we’ve both been doing this that I’ve rarely seen James. Kirk‘s [Hammett, Metallica guitarist] cool, Rob‘s [Trujillo, Metallica bassist] cool, Lars [Ulrich, Metallica drummer] is cool. We hang out when they feel like hanging out. Yeah, that’s all of ’em.”
[via Blabbermouth.net]
