Megadeth vocalist/guitarist Dave Mustaine has reflected on the conversation that once again derailed his on-again, off-again relationship with Metallica‘s frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. Mustaine was an early member of that legendary thrash metal band until being ousted back in 1983 for his aggressive behavior and problems with substance abuse.
In the decades since, the two parties have endured a contentious relationship that has seen them make peace for brief periods of time. As Mustaine has previously revealed, the latest blow to once again derail their rocky relationship was a royalty dispute regarding Metallica‘s plans to reissue their “No Life ‘Til Leather” demo around 2015-2016.
Mustaine argues that Hetfield & Ulrich wanted to diminish his writing credits on the songs he was involved with in order to give Ulrich a share. However, Mustaine contends that Ulrich did not properly earn that split.
Speaking with Classic Rock, Mustaine stated that he hasn’t spoken to Hetfield since that call over the disputed writing credits took place. Mustaine said of the matter:
“I wrote all the music on ‘Phantom Lord‘, all the music on ‘Metal Militia‘, all the music on ‘Jump In The Fire‘ and ‘The Mechanix‘. And I wrote the lyrics for ‘Jump In The Fire‘ and ‘The Mechanix‘. So do the math: if I wrote the music and James [Hetfield] wrote the lyrics, then the credit is 50 per cent me, and 50 per cent James. Well, that’s not what went down when I left. James and Lars figured out that they were going to give Lars some percentage of the songs he didn’t write anything on, and that happened on all four songs.
This was a bone of contention for me going forward with Metallica on anything because, you know, it just wasn’t fair. You guys got more money than God, why do you have to take my money?
So James called me up, ‘Hey, man, we want to release this ‘No Life ‘Til Leather‘ thing, and we want to get all this publishing stuff straight, and, you know, we really don’t remember what went down. And I said, Well, that’s good, because I do. I remember what went down, and I can help with that.
And then the conversation took a turn. James goes, ‘Well, that’s not the way that we remember it’. And I went, Well, James, honestly, there’s three ways to look at this: there’s your way, my way, and the truth, which is some combination of the two. And that was the end of the conversation. He took offence to that, and we hung up, and I don’t remember speaking to him since then.”
The disagreement between the trio forced Metallica to scrap their plans for the deluxe reissue of the demo. While their collective relationship appears to have remained on ice since, Mustaine has expressed his hopes to once again reconcile, recently floating the idea of Megadeth touring with Metallica.
With Megadeth at the beginning of the 3 to 5 year farewell tour, Mustaine also recently indulged in what he described as a show of respect to the above-mentioned duo, including a cover of Metallica‘s “Ride The Lightning“ on Megadeth‘s newly released final studio album. While Mustaine was out of Metallica by the time that song originally came out in 1984, he does have writing credits on it.
