Guitarworlds Interview with Dave Mustaine

[SEEGERMANY]

Al Pitrelli FTW!

I agree. I think Al was the perfect addition to Megadeth. Glad he's doing other things tho, including TSO.

[toejam]

Are you high on coffee again Joe? :ROTF: :ROTF:

No, considering I don't drink coffee... well, maybe once or twice a year.

Al was great. Hell, I think everyone in Megadeth was great at the time they were there. If they're good enough for Dave Mustaine, they're good enough for me. I loved Marty, but he's gone, so time to move on and forget about the past. Glen's got some big shoes to fill, but he seems to be doing a great job.

[toejam]

I agree. I think Al was the perfect addition to Megadeth. Glad he's doing other things tho, including TSO.

I'm glad he's doing the other things as well. Dave says Al was a little flaky and didn't want to play Marty's or Jeff's or Chris' parts exactly, but we all know Al can play them, he just chose to give them his own twist and not do a perfect note-for-note rendition, just to keep it fresh. Al is very underrated.
I still think The World Needs A Hero is better than The System Has Failed and United Abominations.

[levantin]

I'm glad he's doing the other things as well. Dave says Al was a little flaky and didn't want to play Marty's or Jeff's or Chris' parts exactly, but we all know Al can play them, he just chose to give them his own twist and not do a perfect note-for-note rendition, just to keep it fresh. Al is very underrated.
I still think The World Needs A Hero is better than The System Has Failed and United Abominations.

Yeah I know what you mean, but I didn't really like any Megadeth albums after Cryptic Writings. It's disappointing you know, when you wait for the new album for years and then you get it and it's not what you wanted to hear. What can you do apart from bitch about it online?

[marcus]

Al was great. Hell, I think everyone in Megadeth was great at the time they were there. If they're good enough for Dave Mustaine, they're good enough for me.

+1

I've got to agree with this. Dave Mustaine obviously has a huge ego, and he always trashes ex-bandmates, but I've got to hand it to him: he always gets kick-ass musicians to play with.

[SouthPlatteDemon]

The last two albums are prettty damn good. Seems a little like he's following a template for the songs, but it's more like the Megadeth we grew up listening too.

Dave purposely went for the mainstream with Youthanasia right? I didn't enjoy that album much. The riff for Train is sweet as fuck though.

[NextInLine]

Friedman was very good, always interesting. He always felt 'rented' to me in Megadeth. You knew Dave had gone out and 'bought' him basically to keep some shred cred in megadeth, and keep him ahead of Metallica for resident guitar hero sweepstakes. But Marty had no thrash in his veins whatsover. Not a drop. He was not a metal guy, and it was obvious 24/7.

You probably haven't seen Marty live on stage, I have a couple of Megadeth videos with Marty playing early stuff, Wake Up Dead, Conjuring etc. and guess who headbangs most!!

Moreover you should listen to Cacophony & Dragon's Kiss, if you already have done, you should pay a bit more attention imo

Megadeth only ever seemed like a real band to me for the first two albums. After that it has been Dave and the Rent-o-matics.

The first 4 albums are all written by Dave himself, with some minor help from Ellefson, in the first two albums Dave has lots of lead stuff. So it should be clear that it was more DAVE in the early days..

Most of the songs in Countdown, Youthanasia & Cryptic were written as a band. Youthanasia was written semi-improvised. Like Led Zeppelin albums Especially in Youthanasia you can clearly see Marty's effect.

Drover maybe fits in more as an actual metal player. Not as unique or flashy as Friedman or Poland (he ruled). He is more like the bland faceless metronome addicts that GIT spews out all day long. They are all interchangeable.

Completely agreed, he's a great player with a shitty feel and no understanding of solo-writing IMO

[Inazone]

The songs on RIP were more consistent from one to the next, in that they were all well-written with excellent musicianship throughout. I liked CTE a lot too and didn't mind some of the gimmicky stuff, but I could do without some of the vocal effects used on TWNAH and later. I like Mustaine's vocal style in general, but sometimes the delivery or the lyrics make me wince a little.

As far as Glen's solos are concerned, they don't impress me, but considering that Mustaine OKs what ends up on the finished product, he clearly thought it was worthy of making it onto a Megadeth album. I'm glad he found a capable group of musicians and still has some good songwriting left in him, which is evident on some of the great songs on the past three albums. Unfortunately, for every gem, there are two bits of filler.

[Bengal]

I've never been with the mainstream Megadeth fans because I always liked Jeff Young. Course "So Far, So Good, So What" is my favorite Megadeth album. But after that, I gotta go with Poland. No one else sounds like he does. And I'm more of a fan of the first 3 albums anyway...

[markb]

You probably haven't seen Marty live on stage, I have a couple of Megadeth videos with Marty playing early stuff, Wake Up Dead, Conjuring etc. and guess who headbangs most!!

Moreover you should listen to Cacophony & Dragon's Kiss, if you already have done, you should pay a bit more attention imo

I saw Megadeth live with Jeff Young, Marty, Al Pitrelli, and Glenn Drover (2x).

The current line up, tribute band or not, actually was the best I have seen them play overall as band, both times. I would agree with Dave that the current lineup is the strongest as a whole for playing, even if a bit of personality is lacking.

Actually when I saw them with Marty it was in a club, in close quarters. He was good. No surprise.But I would agree with Dave... he was a Shrapnel guy stuffed into a thrash band, and did not quite fit to me. Or maybe he did eventually fit somewhat, because the band changed. I'll take Black Friday, Wake Up Dead, Chosen Ones etc over anything they ever did with Marty. If it wasn't for Countdown, I wouldn't listen to that era of Megadeth really at all. No big deal though, just a preference. I have only had a passing interest in anything they have done since Peace Sells, I have never really been much of a fan since. They changed direction too much after Peace Sells for me. Got a lot more standard in their approach.

I know Cacophony ( I like Becker more than Friedman) and Dragons Kiss I have a few songs, I'd have to listen to them again, but I recall they are pretty much in the usual Shrapnel 'instro-metal' camp, and a far cry from thrash. Even farther from death, my much preferred kind o' metal, which of course colors my opinion on Megadeth, admittedly.

More power to ya if you are a Marty fanboy though. Its not like he can't play.

[wakeUPdead]

Marty rocks. Megadeth rocks. The song Wake Up Dead rocks.

[Jacksons Shred]

Dave Mustaine is so fucking full of himself, it's quite pathetic. Cacophony has some pretty weird and funky (more challenging than Megadeth) rhythm and he acts like he's a better player than him. I'm really doubting that Dave Mustaine actually had to teach Marty Friedman any rhythm what so ever, considering Marty use to teach at Musicians Institute in L.A., he currently does a lot of orientation/demo's in Musicians Institute in Japan...Then there's Rock Fujiyama, but that's a whole different story.. Well, as you can see I'm a really big Friedman fan, a huge Megadeth fan as well, but when it comes down to it, Friedman and Poland were the best guitarist in the band, and Drover doesn't even come close to Friedman.

[NextInLine]

I saw Megadeth live with Jeff Young, Marty, Al Pitrelli, and Glenn Drover (2x).

The current line up, tribute band or not, actually was the best I have seen them play overall as band, both times. I would agree with Dave that the current lineup is the strongest as a whole for playing, even if a bit of personality is lacking.

Actually when I saw them with Marty it was in a club, in close quarters. He was good. No surprise.But I would agree with Dave... he was a Shrapnel guy stuffed into a thrash band, and did not quite fit to me. Or maybe he did eventually fit somewhat, because the band changed. I'll take Black Friday, Wake Up Dead, Chosen Ones etc over anything they ever did with Marty. If it wasn't for Countdown, I wouldn't listen to that era of Megadeth really at all. No big deal though, just a preference. I have only had a passing interest in anything they have done since Peace Sells, I have never really been much of a fan since. They changed direction too much after Peace Sells for me. Got a lot more standard in their approach.

I know Cacophony ( I like Becker more than Friedman) and Dragons Kiss I have a few songs, I'd have to listen to them again, but I recall they are pretty much in the usual Shrapnel 'instro-metal' camp, and a far cry from thrash. Even farther from death, my much preferred kind o' metal, which of course colors my opinion on Megadeth, admittedly.

More power to ya if you are a Marty fanboy though. Its not like he can't play.

What you say in this post is irrelevant to your point in your previous post & my reply to it

The latest line up might have the best live performance, Glen Drover might be playing better than Marty on stage, that does not show that Marty didn't have any metal blood in his veins. Moreover that does not mean that they were not a real band in the RIP-RISK era

You're just stating your opinion about latest Megadeth line-up's live performance, which I agree to be the best also. Still Marty was headbanging a lot more than Glen.

And I also wonder if you're a Glen fanboy?

[markb]

What you say in this post is irrelevant to your point in your previous post & my reply to it


And I also wonder if you're a Glen fanboy?

My post was more musings and ramblings on Megadeth. It was related though. Your reply??I think you were trying to say that Cacophany and Dragons Kiss proved Marty was a metal guy or something. He might be in some vague general way. But a thrash guy? Nope. Either way, flatline on the giveashit-o-meter for me.

He might be metal enough for you though. I would easily agree with that.

He's back doing what he really is: instro-shred-rock. Its what he was before dave rented him, its back to what he is doing now, now that he is out of Megadeth. The second he was out of Megadeth, he was doing funk-disco-shred before you could blink.


If I had to be a fanboy, I'd have to pick Poland. He was the guy.

[NextInLine]

Nice to come to an agreement!