Megadeth vocalist/guitarist Dave Mustaine has spoken a bit about his current relationship with his former bandmates in Metallica. Mustaine and Metallica primaries, James Hetfield (vocals/guitarist) and Lars Ulrich (drums), have had an infamously rocky relationship in the decades since Mustaine was ousted from Metallica back in the early 80s over concerns regarding his substance abuse problems and his attitude.
While the trio have at times reconciled their past differences and enjoyed some moments of harmony in the years since, their relationship once again went sideways back in 2016. Mustaine‘s royalty dispute over Metallica‘s planned “No Life ‘Til Leather” demo box set reissue forced Metallica to scrap the project. In 2018, Mustaine would tell RockHard of the matter:
“I’m not gonna give him [Lars] my credit, so I’m not gonna be part of it. I wrote all of ‘Mechanix‘, I wrote all of ‘Jump In The Fire‘, so me giving any percentage of that to Lars Ulrich, he can pound sand. And as far as the song ‘Phantom Lord‘, I wrote every note of that music, James [Hetfield] wrote all the lyrics. That’s 50/50. If James wants to give his percentage up to Lars because he’s afraid of him, that’s up to him.
I’m not afraid of Lars Ulrich, and I’m not giving him my percentage. And the same thing with ‘Metal Militia‘; I wrote every single note of that music, James wrote every note of that lyric — that’s 50/50. If James wants to give Lars his percentage, that’s fine if he’s afraid of him. I’m not afraid of him. I’m not giving nothing to Lars Ulrich.
Now, they took it in the past — everybody knows that — and the past is the past. But I could not willingly enter into a new agreement with these guys predicated on Lars getting credit for something that not only he did not do but he was incapable of doing — he was incapable of writing songs that good back then.”
With Megadeth‘s retirement now on the horizon and the band’s final studio album due out this Friday, January 23rd, it would appear that Mustaine‘s stance against his former Metallica bandmates has at least softened somewhat. Speaking once again of deciding to include a cover of Metallica‘s “Ride The Lightning” — a song he co-wrote while in Metallica — on Megadeth‘s forthcoming swan song opus, Mustaine recently told Spin:
“It was to complete the circle and pay respect to my partners, James and Lars, and make clear that, to anybody that has any doubts, I believe that James is an exceptional guitar player, and that Lars is an exceptional songwriter. I’ve always thought that.
It wasn’t doing a cover song, because I wrote it with James and it was our creation. One thing I’ve always believed is when you do a song from someone else—even if it’s your band from an earlier time period—do it as good or better. We were thinking of songs we were going to do, and our management said, “Why don’t you do ‘Ride the Lightning’?”
At first, I thought, people will think that’s kind of strange for me to do that. We talked about it a little bit, and it just became clearer that it was a good idea. We sped it up just a teeny bit, and we made sure that we beefed up a couple of the parts.”
When asked about his current relationship with Hetfield and Ulrich, Mustaine added:
“James and I were talking about something, and I said, ‘Well, there’s your version, there’s my version, and then there’s the truth. I believe that the truth is the only one that’s accurate, because I don’t really remember everything.’ And he had said, ‘We don’t remember stuff and we’d like to go over it.’
We’re constantly working on improving our relationship, me and James and Lars. I really do love those guys. That’s why we fought so much—it was that I missed them. And the idea of leaving the band, it was just hard to fathom.
You try and put things into perspective as you get a little bit older. I think about where I am at in my journey: I’m on the backside of the mountain, and I want to make sure that every day counts and that the people that I encounter, that I’m not obnoxious to them if they don’t deserve it. If they deserve it, man, you got it coming, and here it comes.”
