Interviews

 

MEGADETH

 

Words: ROD YATES…

 

When Dave Mustaine makes a joke at your expense, it’s difficult to know whether it’s a case of his infamously biting tongue lashing out indiscriminately, or simply just a cutting form of endearment. Given that he’s cracking funnies literally a few seconds after the first “Hello”, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

 

“Is this Yod Rates?” comes the first question before he’s even identified himself. (Not that he’d need to – the trademark, nasally Mustaine sneer betrays the owner of the voice immediately.) “Yod Rates?” he asks again. “It says I’m supposed to call you cos you’re doing an interview for I’m A Tosser magazine.”

 

Er, no, that must be a typo, Dave.
But the jokes don’t stop there. A humble enquiry as to how he is today, and how the US leg of the Gigantour is going, brings the following response:

 

“I’m in a place called A Shithole. I don’t know the name of the building but I would say that if this was the Dumb Reclamation Centre, it would probably be accurate.”

 

What exactly is the problem?

 

“It’s just one of those shows where you go, ‘All right, every once in a while someone needs to pull all the catering out of the dressing room and leave a little dirt in there so you can remember where you came from.’”

 

How do you handle this?

 

“I think it’s okay. I don’t think the person that leaves the dirt in there will like it after I beat the shit out of them…”

 

The disconcerting thing is that at no point in this brief but pointed discussion has Mustaine let even the slightest chuckle slip from his lips. And so while you’re pretty sure he’s not in an especially bad mood – indeed you expect a degree of cutting sarcasm and attitude – the absence of mirth never really puts you at ease. Not that you have the opportunity to think about it for too long – a few seconds later Mustaine is launching into a speech about the band’s excitement at returning to Australia and the fact that they’re bringing the Gigantour festival with them.

 

“I can’t wait to come back down to Australia and play, I can’t wait to show the fans Gigantour, the new face of Megadeth, I can’t wait for them to see how I feel, how I sing, how I’m playing, how I’m moving around, what I look like, what the band looks like, the new songs. I’m turned on and excited.”

 

It’s important to note that when Mustaine says all this, he does so with such open-hearted sincerity that he risks the threat of it sounding fake or forced. But on this point, you’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, if only because everything he says these days seems to be dripping in earnestness. Plus, there’s an additional, more personal reason for his excitement at coming down here.

 

“My family is getting to come to Australia, Rod, I’m so excited,” he buzzes. “I know I’ve said before I wanted to bring my family there, and thank God, thank the fans for making it possible for me to finally afford to bring them down there so they can see how beautiful your country is.”

 

Surely money’s not that much of a problem for you, though…

 

“Come on, it’s so expensive to get someone down to Australia. Especially if you’re travelling with children and they don’t want to sleep upright, they want to sleep normal, so you gotta get the next coach level up. It’s like, fucking $40,000 by the time you buy four tickets to Australia. That’s a lot of money. I’m a poor kid, man, I still love eating McDonald’s. I’ll sit down any day with you and any of our friends in Australia and have a shawerma and a fucking beer. I’m not one of those high brow guys. The most expensive thing you’re gonna see me do is take my family in a water taxi to [seafood restaurant] Doyle’s so they can have Bugs.”

 

When not playing tour guide to his family, Mustaine will, of course, be directing his energies into Megadeth’s live show and ensuring that this inaugural Australian leg of the Gigantour festival runs smoothly. Launched in America last year with a bill featuring Megadeth, Dream Theater, Anthrax and Dry Kill Logic amongst others, Mustaine claims the plan has always been to turn Gigantour not only into an annual event, but one that crosses the globe.

 

“We hope to make the Big Day Out look like the Very Small Day Out,” he comments. “We’ve got high hopes. We want to be able to bring bands out there that the Aussies say, ‘This is the shit, man, this is what we want! We don’t want to see Kylie Minogue six million times, we want to see bands that rock! And we don’t want to pay six gazillion dollars to go to a concert.”

 

Joining Megadeth on the Gigantour bill are Soulfly, Caliban and Arch Enemy, the latter having taken part in this year’s trek in the States. An on-line posting by Arch Enemy guitarist Christopher Ammot was full of praise for the tour and the way its bands are treated, something Mustaine takes pride in.

 

“I’ve been on tours with people like Aerosmith, who treated me really bad,” he starts. “I’ve been on tours with AC/DC, and it’s not that I was treated bad, but things were really limited. I went on tour with Metallica and was treated really poorly. I was on tour with Iron Maiden and didn’t really get a lot of stuff. I thought, You know what? I’ll never let that happen to any bands opening up for me.”

While Megadeth will be playing one or two new songs from the band’s upcoming United Abominations album live, Mustaine refuses to talk too much about the new opus, saying he’d prefer to play it for people when he gets here this month. He is, however, happy to reveal the concept behind the title.

 

“United Abominations was written about the UN. People are saying, ‘What have you got against the UN?’ I’m thinking, Well, didn’t they write 17 resolutions against Saddam Hussein, isn’t the United States paying 20 per cent of the bill? Aren’t only about 50 countries paying 80 per cent of the bill, and out of the 50 countries, one country is paying 22 per cent of that bill, which means that the other 49 are paying 58 per cent. That’s terrible, it’s absolutely disgusting. We are paying for everything and we’re getting the bad end of the stick. And the most important way to understand the UN is to rent Team America. You know what? Dave Mustaine endorses Team America.”

 

 

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