MEGADETH New Album

MEGADETH Begin Mixing New Album; "I'm So Pumped" Says Mustaine




MEGADETH continue work on album number 14 at Vic's Garage studio in San
Marcos, California. Leader Dave Mustaine updates: "Played guitar, sang,
and did minor adjustments yesterday to songs one-four. Mixing has begun
and you’ll have something soon to hear! I’m so pumped!!"





About the new material, bassist David Ellefson commented: "Fast,
rippin' and fully bringing the REAL old-school Megadeth sound!!!


Megadeth recently confirmed that they've found a new label after
parting with Roadrunner, Mustaine adding to Vintage Rock's Junkman at
NAMM: "The excitement level for us right now is just insane."

The new, as yet untitled album, which is being produced by Johnny K (aka
John Karkazis; MACHINE HEAD, DISTURBED) is expected later this year.

MEGADETH Ink Worldwide Deal With Universal For New Album Super Collider




MEGADETH have announced their new album and new label deal. Currently
working in their studio in San Diego on their 14th studio album titled
Super Collider, Mustaine, along with bassist Dave Ellefson, drummer
Shawn Drover and guitarist Chris Broderick, are looking forward to its
release in June 2013.


Super Collider is the first release through leader Dave Mustaine’s
new label, Tradecraft, after signing an exclusive worldwide deal with
Universal Music Enterprises(UMe).


“It was a real thrill for us to learn there was an opportunity to
join Universal,” said Mustaine during a break in the sessions. “It seems
like every time you see a great band or music video, it comes from the
Universal label. Being with Universal is by far the most exciting and
prestigious home for Megadeth ever! We are electrified with what the
future holds and the possibilities such a powerhouse like Universal will
bring for us all. We have worked with some great people over the years,
and it is amazing to see so many of them on the Universal team for our
new record, Super Collider. If Megadeth being here isn’t satiating
enough, having Tradecraft as my own label is going to be really amazing
for metal bands around the world.”





With a new found energy with the band, Mustaine is raring to go,
preparing for his latest tour, marking the 20th anniversary of their
best-selling Countdown to Extinctionalbum. Mustaine added, “Shawn, Chris
and David have all been feverishly contributing some great music and I
believe we are doing our best work ever together in the studio right
now!”


“Megadeth is not just one of the most successful metal bands, but
one of the most influential rock bands of the past 30 years,” said UMe
President/CEO Bruce Resnikoff in making the announcement. “They continue
to be a huge draw on the road with their longtime fans as well as
continually adding new fans. I look forward to working together with
them.”


With the recent acquisition of EMI, UMe now brings together
Megadeth’s classic, 14-year, seven-album Capitol catalog, which includes
one multi-platinum release (‘92’s Countdown to Extinction), four
platinum records (‘86’s Peace Sells... But Who’s Buying?; ‘88’s So Far,
So Good... So What?; ‘90’s Rust in Peace; ‘94’sYouthanasia), and one
gold (‘97’s Cryptic Writings). In all, the band has scored five U.S. Top
10 albums (including 2007’s United Abominations and 2009’s Endgame) and
two Top 5 releases, with 2011’s TH1RT3EN debuting at No.1 on the
Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart.


Megadeth have also announced that they will be touring the UK in
June of this year. They will play headline shows in Newcastle, Glasgow,
Manchester and London. Megadeth tickets go onsaleat 9 a.m. on Friday,
February 15. Megadeth fan club tickets presale begins Wednesday,
February 13 @ 9 a.m. local at this location.

Voici l'artwork du prochain album du groupe "Super Collider" qui sortira le 4 juin prochain.

MEGADETH - "It's A Sad Day At Vic's Garage..."







MEGADETH frontman Dave Mustaine has checked in with the following update:


"It's a sad day at Vic's Garage. Mustaine Music Studios has moved,
Super Collider was the last project there. The jam room jammeth no more!



What great memories here. So many fun 'successes' thanks to you!"


Megadeth are streaming a preview of the new song, 'Don't Turn Your Back', at this location.
While you're listening, you get to play the Megadeth Game and you can
view the cover of the brand new album Super Collider if you can figure
it out! Or you can see it below!

Super Collider features the following tracks:


'Kingmaker'

'Super Collider'

'Burn!'

'Built For War'

'Off The Edge'

'Dance In The Rain'

'Beginning Of Sorrow'

'The Blackest Crow'

'Forget To Remember'

'Don't Turn Your Back…'

'Cold Sweat'

MEGADETH – “Excuse Me, I’m One Of The Four Horsemen”


By Martin Popoff

Very much like IRON MAIDEN and RUSH and even CLUTCH, Dave Mustaine and MEGADETH have quietly, by degrees, clawed their way to classic status through sheer determination unto longevity. What helps in all these cases is a stable lineup and an enthusiastic attitude toward both creativity and touring. So the shows get bigger and the records come out the other end and get critically praised ‘cos they’re written well and infused with sweat equity.

So yeah, Megadeth are one of those, firing on all cylinders, healthy, built (for war) around the heritage nucleus of Dave and Dave Jr., and then supercharged by two metal supermenchies in nine-years-onboard drummer Shawn Drover and ex-JAG PANZER wizard Chris Broderick.



At the tour end, Dave’s been smart enough to brand Megadeth live, and that brand is called Gigantour, heating up as you read this for a sweltering summer of Megadeth’s alloy of thrash, speed metal and old school American branded power metal, along with the likes of BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, HELLYEAH, DEVICE, NEWSTED, and walloping baby band DEATH DIVISION.

Of course, firmly on Megadeth’s collective mindspheres as they roll through your town will be their new album Super Collider, which, rendered live, hopefully won’t reduce the earth to a blacker-than-black, compressed, basketball-sized chunk of hyper-mass (seriously, that was one of the predictions on the running of the Large Hadron Collider).

“When you look at the records as they progress over time,” begins Mustaine, immediately heading off some of the chatter about the record’s recurring non-thrash elements, “you can either copy and do the same record over and over again, and then your fans, some of them get what they want, but after a while they’ll grow tired of it, because they’re listening to the same record. Or you can make some experimentation and try some different stuff like we did with Risk, which went a little bit too far. Or, you can stay kind of within the goalposts of being melodic and being really heavy. The thing is, we’ve got basically two kinds of groups of people that—and it’s not that these groups are polarized—but there are people that want ‘Black Friday’, and there are people that want ‘Symphony Of Destruction’. And with us going back to Universal right now, it’s been really a breath of fresh air, Martin, because, as you know I wasn’t happy when we left Capitol, and I wasn’t happy at Sanctuary and I wasn’t happy at Roadrunner. And over here it’s been just like a second childhood—it’s just amazing.”

With typical provocative snarl, the first taste anybody got from the album was the stadium-shaking title track, which turned out to be one of the precisely three biggest departures on the album. But as Dave’s proven time and time again, write a great rock song, and fans won’t be able to get it unstuck from their humming playlist. Bottom line: ‘Super Collider’ is the sturdiest, most dependable, summertime shed tour anthem on the record, and maybe of the summer’s metal offerings in total.

“Well, it was a real simple song,” figures Mustaine. “I think that a lot of people... and you know, Martin, you know I’m a very polarizing figure. People will find fault in anything I do, no matter what it is. It’s the nature of the business and who I am. Was I apprehensive about that song? Sure I was. Was I apprehensive to put out ‘Built For War’ too, and that’s one of the most aggressive songs on the record? Sure. But I think that’s probably just that little tiny seed of self-doubt that we all have. I mean, the whole reason I got into playing guitar was because I wanted to fit in. I was picked on in school, and I was a skinny little kid, and as soon as I started playing guitar, I mattered. And deep down inside, I still want to do songs that matter. I don’t get the same kind of… It doesn’t reward me in the same way, because that hole’s been filled a long time ago, but you still want it to matter, and you still want people to like them. And there’s a lot of guys that make records to get out of record deals that are just rubbish. I can never do that.”



“As much as we were unhappy with our last couple of labels,” continues Mustaine, “all those records, they were legitimate, serious attempts at making records that fit the music industry at that time. People don’t look back and say, well, shit, when The World Needs A Hero came out, there was something called nu-metal and nobody was playing solos, and the climate of music back then was so both bizarre. Or when Endgame came out, or United Abominations came out, it was a whole true metal thing—if you didn’t have six billion mile-an-hour solos, then you weren’t true metal. Excuse me, I’m one of the Four Horsemen (laughs).”

True metal. Interesting. I doubt Dave even meant this, but Megadeth has been, maybe with the exception of two records, more true metal than he even suspects. And that’s ‘cos the almost Benelux definition of that term is akin to the original and almost forgotten meaning of power metal, as derived from mostly US bands from the mid-‘80s, essentially METAL CHURCH meets Metallica meets the Metal Blade roster from ’82 through ’87. That’s where Megadeth has hacked out a unique place in metal history—they aren’t so much thrash as... well, true metal. Not kids’ wall of hyper-prog-death true metal, but music in the flesh and blood that might look exactly like Chris Broderick.

“Chris, he is, to me, a very gifted guitar player,” begins Dave, asked what Broderick brings to the band. “Best one I’ve played with. And that’s not taking anything away from the other guys, because they were all really talented. But he’s just like the complete package. Because, you know, with Poland, he was a great jazz player, but we had our problems. With Jeff Young, he was a great player, but we had our problems. With Marty, you know, Marty melted down. I don’t know what happened; he just melted down. And after that, it was kind of like, it was really just being lost in the wilderness for a while. And with Pitrelli coming in, nice guy, but he wasn’t right—he knew it; we knew it. And Glen, he fit a place for a while, and really helped us, and it was Glen who recommended Chris. But Chris was the only one who, believe it or not, of all that talent—and I’ve got to say, probably the second in line would be Drover—Chris was the only one who really studied the previous guitar players’ solos, and did them right. I remember, after Randy Rhoads died, Brad Gillis had gone out and played and Brad is such a great player, but he didn’t do the solos the way the we know them. And it’s kind of like, where’s the solo?”




“And I remember how that affected me, and I swore after that point, if there was ever a song played by a guitar player in Megadeth, that if it wasn’t their solo, then it would be as close to the original solo as possible.”

“This year, we’re having an MC,” continues Dave, asked about any evolutionary aspects we’ll see at this year’s Gigantour. “Jim Florentine, the guy from That Metal Show, is going to be out with us, and he’s going to be hosting and interviewing fans, and interviewing bands, and we’re going to have a lot of activity at our site. In Oklahoma City we’re doing a charity baseball game for the tornado victims there. We’re going to be having a lot of opportunities for the fans to come meet the different bands, with VIP packages and stuff like that. And opportunities for people to hang with bands after the show. A lot of our venues that we’re playing are going to be outdoors, so it’s going to be good summertime music stuff, and you’re not trapped inside of a building. You can actually get some sun while you’re at it. To me, those are the fun kind of shows when you get outside. I like playing indoors too, especially when it’s raining or snowing (laughs).”

Another cool feature of this year’s jaunt is the return of Jason Newsted (and if you notice, there’s a theme—every band, right down to Death Division, has got in their personnel somewhere, a guy or two who’s been a metal star on some level, from somewhere else).

“We talked, but not quite as extensively as I would’ve liked to,” says Dave, asked about Jason’s putting aside of the paints. “But we have talked, and you know, the cool thing about Newsted, was that we were friends long before he was in Metallica, from back in the FLOTSAM & JETSAM days. I’ve known him longer than those guys have. And he’s a guy I’ve gotten close with. And I knew him when he was really, really young, and we... I think we’ve got a really unique relationship, and I look forward to seeing him and playing. And he had said something about us jamming a Metallica song or something like that, and of course, it’s up to David Ellefson. He’s the bassist in Megadeth—if he wants somebody else to come out there and playing on stage with him, that’s up to him. But I know Dave, and I think you know Dave pretty well, and he’s always been the nice guy in Megadeth (laughs).”



“I do now,” says Dave, on knowing ZAKK WYLDE as more than a passing acquaintance. “I didn’t when LoMenzo was in the band. But I do now. But when we had seen each other in passing back when James was in the band, I think there was some tension between the two of them, and I never really got a chance to get to hang with Zakk, and I’ve always loved his guitar playing. Remember when he first came on the scene, chicks loved him, guys feared him, but I thought he was just totally bad ass. And it’s kind of a bummer that it’s taken this long for us to go to do something together. But don’t forget, there’s always been those Ozzfests that we played. But this has been the first proper tour where we’re going to get to roll and hang out. Crazy guy, man, energy for days. I talked to him on the way back from the last show in Paris. I was riding in a car for about three hours, and the next thing you know, I’m doing an interview with him for his sports show.”

“We have such a different relationship up in Canada than we have in a lot of other countries, so we’ve always played rare stuff, every once in while,” offers Mustaine in closing, asked about track selection on the tour. “We’ve done things where we only played in one particular area. So there’s no real telling what we’re going to do. Although we did a lot of the Countdown record, we pulled a lot of that out, and because now a lot of it is based on... we’ve got our program that we have. There’s a lot of songs, but there are so many other songs from the past we’d like to bring up, because this year’s Gigantour is very aggressive. I don’t know if you’ve seen all the different bands that are playing. I don’t know if you’ve heard the opening band yet, but just about everybody I’ve talked to is really, really impressed with this lineup. And then there are a couple people that are not fans of one or another band, but that’s cool—that’s why you have more than one band (laughs).”

MEGADETH – “Excuse Me, I’m One Of The Four Horsemen”


By Martin Popoff

Very much like IRON MAIDEN and RUSH and even CLUTCH, Dave Mustaine and MEGADETH have quietly, by degrees, clawed their way to classic status through sheer determination unto longevity. What helps in all these cases is a stable lineup and an enthusiastic attitude toward both creativity and touring. So the shows get bigger and the records come out the other end and get critically praised ‘cos they’re written well and infused with sweat equity.

So yeah, Megadeth are one of those, firing on all cylinders, healthy, built (for war) around the heritage nucleus of Dave and Dave Jr., and then supercharged by two metal supermenchies in nine-years-onboard drummer Shawn Drover and ex-JAG PANZER wizard Chris Broderick.



At the tour end, Dave’s been smart enough to brand Megadeth live, and that brand is called Gigantour, heating up as you read this for a sweltering summer of Megadeth’s alloy of thrash, speed metal and old school American branded power metal, along with the likes of BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, HELLYEAH, DEVICE, NEWSTED, and walloping baby band DEATH DIVISION.

Of course, firmly on Megadeth’s collective mindspheres as they roll through your town will be their new album Super Collider, which, rendered live, hopefully won’t reduce the earth to a blacker-than-black, compressed, basketball-sized chunk of hyper-mass (seriously, that was one of the predictions on the running of the Large Hadron Collider).

“When you look at the records as they progress over time,” begins Mustaine, immediately heading off some of the chatter about the record’s recurring non-thrash elements, “you can either copy and do the same record over and over again, and then your fans, some of them get what they want, but after a while they’ll grow tired of it, because they’re listening to the same record. Or you can make some experimentation and try some different stuff like we did with Risk, which went a little bit too far. Or, you can stay kind of within the goalposts of being melodic and being really heavy. The thing is, we’ve got basically two kinds of groups of people that—and it’s not that these groups are polarized—but there are people that want ‘Black Friday’, and there are people that want ‘Symphony Of Destruction’. And with us going back to Universal right now, it’s been really a breath of fresh air, Martin, because, as you know I wasn’t happy when we left Capitol, and I wasn’t happy at Sanctuary and I wasn’t happy at Roadrunner. And over here it’s been just like a second childhood—it’s just amazing.”

With typical provocative snarl, the first taste anybody got from the album was the stadium-shaking title track, which turned out to be one of the precisely three biggest departures on the album. But as Dave’s proven time and time again, write a great rock song, and fans won’t be able to get it unstuck from their humming playlist. Bottom line: ‘Super Collider’ is the sturdiest, most dependable, summertime shed tour anthem on the record, and maybe of the summer’s metal offerings in total.

“Well, it was a real simple song,” figures Mustaine. “I think that a lot of people... and you know, Martin, you know I’m a very polarizing figure. People will find fault in anything I do, no matter what it is. It’s the nature of the business and who I am. Was I apprehensive about that song? Sure I was. Was I apprehensive to put out ‘Built For War’ too, and that’s one of the most aggressive songs on the record? Sure. But I think that’s probably just that little tiny seed of self-doubt that we all have. I mean, the whole reason I got into playing guitar was because I wanted to fit in. I was picked on in school, and I was a skinny little kid, and as soon as I started playing guitar, I mattered. And deep down inside, I still want to do songs that matter. I don’t get the same kind of… It doesn’t reward me in the same way, because that hole’s been filled a long time ago, but you still want it to matter, and you still want people to like them. And there’s a lot of guys that make records to get out of record deals that are just rubbish. I can never do that.”



“As much as we were unhappy with our last couple of labels,” continues Mustaine, “all those records, they were legitimate, serious attempts at making records that fit the music industry at that time. People don’t look back and say, well, shit, when The World Needs A Hero came out, there was something called nu-metal and nobody was playing solos, and the climate of music back then was so both bizarre. Or when Endgame came out, or United Abominations came out, it was a whole true metal thing—if you didn’t have six billion mile-an-hour solos, then you weren’t true metal. Excuse me, I’m one of the Four Horsemen (laughs).”

True metal. Interesting. I doubt Dave even meant this, but Megadeth has been, maybe with the exception of two records, more true metal than he even suspects. And that’s ‘cos the almost Benelux definition of that term is akin to the original and almost forgotten meaning of power metal, as derived from mostly US bands from the mid-‘80s, essentially METAL CHURCH meets Metallica meets the Metal Blade roster from ’82 through ’87. That’s where Megadeth has hacked out a unique place in metal history—they aren’t so much thrash as... well, true metal. Not kids’ wall of hyper-prog-death true metal, but music in the flesh and blood that might look exactly like Chris Broderick.

“Chris, he is, to me, a very gifted guitar player,” begins Dave, asked what Broderick brings to the band. “Best one I’ve played with. And that’s not taking anything away from the other guys, because they were all really talented. But he’s just like the complete package. Because, you know, with Poland, he was a great jazz player, but we had our problems. With Jeff Young, he was a great player, but we had our problems. With Marty, you know, Marty melted down. I don’t know what happened; he just melted down. And after that, it was kind of like, it was really just being lost in the wilderness for a while. And with Pitrelli coming in, nice guy, but he wasn’t right—he knew it; we knew it. And Glen, he fit a place for a while, and really helped us, and it was Glen who recommended Chris. But Chris was the only one who, believe it or not, of all that talent—and I’ve got to say, probably the second in line would be Drover—Chris was the only one who really studied the previous guitar players’ solos, and did them right. I remember, after Randy Rhoads died, Brad Gillis had gone out and played and Brad is such a great player, but he didn’t do the solos the way the we know them. And it’s kind of like, where’s the solo?”




“And I remember how that affected me, and I swore after that point, if there was ever a song played by a guitar player in Megadeth, that if it wasn’t their solo, then it would be as close to the original solo as possible.”

“This year, we’re having an MC,” continues Dave, asked about any evolutionary aspects we’ll see at this year’s Gigantour. “Jim Florentine, the guy from That Metal Show, is going to be out with us, and he’s going to be hosting and interviewing fans, and interviewing bands, and we’re going to have a lot of activity at our site. In Oklahoma City we’re doing a charity baseball game for the tornado victims there. We’re going to be having a lot of opportunities for the fans to come meet the different bands, with VIP packages and stuff like that. And opportunities for people to hang with bands after the show. A lot of our venues that we’re playing are going to be outdoors, so it’s going to be good summertime music stuff, and you’re not trapped inside of a building. You can actually get some sun while you’re at it. To me, those are the fun kind of shows when you get outside. I like playing indoors too, especially when it’s raining or snowing (laughs).”

Another cool feature of this year’s jaunt is the return of Jason Newsted (and if you notice, there’s a theme—every band, right down to Death Division, has got in their personnel somewhere, a guy or two who’s been a metal star on some level, from somewhere else).

“We talked, but not quite as extensively as I would’ve liked to,” says Dave, asked about Jason’s putting aside of the paints. “But we have talked, and you know, the cool thing about Newsted, was that we were friends long before he was in Metallica, from back in the FLOTSAM & JETSAM days. I’ve known him longer than those guys have. And he’s a guy I’ve gotten close with. And I knew him when he was really, really young, and we... I think we’ve got a really unique relationship, and I look forward to seeing him and playing. And he had said something about us jamming a Metallica song or something like that, and of course, it’s up to David Ellefson. He’s the bassist in Megadeth—if he wants somebody else to come out there and playing on stage with him, that’s up to him. But I know Dave, and I think you know Dave pretty well, and he’s always been the nice guy in Megadeth (laughs).”



“I do now,” says Dave, on knowing ZAKK WYLDE as more than a passing acquaintance. “I didn’t when LoMenzo was in the band. But I do now. But when we had seen each other in passing back when James was in the band, I think there was some tension between the two of them, and I never really got a chance to get to hang with Zakk, and I’ve always loved his guitar playing. Remember when he first came on the scene, chicks loved him, guys feared him, but I thought he was just totally bad ass. And it’s kind of a bummer that it’s taken this long for us to go to do something together. But don’t forget, there’s always been those Ozzfests that we played. But this has been the first proper tour where we’re going to get to roll and hang out. Crazy guy, man, energy for days. I talked to him on the way back from the last show in Paris. I was riding in a car for about three hours, and the next thing you know, I’m doing an interview with him for his sports show.”

“We have such a different relationship up in Canada than we have in a lot of other countries, so we’ve always played rare stuff, every once in while,” offers Mustaine in closing, asked about track selection on the tour. “We’ve done things where we only played in one particular area. So there’s no real telling what we’re going to do. Although we did a lot of the Countdown record, we pulled a lot of that out, and because now a lot of it is based on... we’ve got our program that we have. There’s a lot of songs, but there are so many other songs from the past we’d like to bring up, because this year’s Gigantour is very aggressive. I don’t know if you’ve seen all the different bands that are playing. I don’t know if you’ve heard the opening band yet, but just about everybody I’ve talked to is really, really impressed with this lineup. And then there are a couple people that are not fans of one or another band, but that’s cool—that’s why you have more than one band (laughs).”

MEGADETH – “Im An Advocate For The Heavy Stuff”


By Martin Popoff

They’ve made a raft of considerably heavy and quite under-rated records very quickly as of late, and Canuck drummer Shawn Drover has been there for most of them, specifically the last four. The band is MEGADETH and the new record is Super Collider, an album that finds Mega-Dave brave to stretch out again, although cognizant of at least some parameters. The result is a richly varied album, embodied in the relentlessly catchy title track, of course.

“You know what? I know,” chuckles Drover, probably not believing me when I tell him it’s may favourite track on the album, due mostly to Dave’s singing and hooky vocal melody on it, one that marries LED ZEPPELIN’s ‘In The Light’ to the Sesame Street theme. “You’re a hardcore metal fan just like I am. Some people aren’t going to get it, and they’re not going to like it. I knew it as soon as we wrote the song. This is one of those songs that Dave had written already, that he had constructed, towards the end of the Thirteen tour. It was one of those songs that was a 90% written thing. And it’s obviously a simple song, somewhat like ‘Symphony Of Destruction’, very to the point, verse, chorus, bridge, solo and what have you. So it’s a simple song, and it’s not as heavy as ‘The Conjuring’. I mean, that’s a fact. And that’s going to piss some people off. And to me, I don’t care, that doesn’t bug me, you know what I mean? I grew up listening to VAN HALEN, SUPERTRAMP, FLEETWOOD MAC, BLACK SABBATH, DEEP PURPLE. To me, good music is good music. If it’s good, I like it. I think it’s a really good hard rock tune, end of story.”



Let’s not get carried away. It’s not like it’s like a Risk song or anything. And of course, most of the rest of the record is much more brutally appointed anyway.

“It’s heavier than ‘A Tout Le Monde’, and that’s a live staple. That was a hit for the band back when they wrote that song. But I’m sure, back then, some hardcore fans probably bitched about that song too. But it’s one of the songs that goes best over in our set, you know what I mean? I get it. I get when certain... probably some younger fans and stuff... they want everything to sound as heavy as Killing Is My Business. It’s just never been like that. No record has been as heavy as Killing Is My Business. That’s the most violent record we have. And I get it, I’m an advocate for the heavy stuff. I’m that guy—the heavier the better as far as I’m concerned. But Dave likes to stretch out sometimes and do different things. And he’s got the balls to do it. I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong, but I think it’s really cool that he isn’t scared to try something a little bit different sometimes.”

Shawn’s definitely a rocker, as evidenced by his contribution of ‘Head Crusher’ to Endgame, as well as ‘Built For War’ to Super Collider.

“That’s just a matter of Dave saying, ‘Hey, you got any ideas?’ ‘Yeah, I got some ideas.’ ‘Well let’s hear ‘em; what have you got?’ So I’d record my ideas and stuff, and he liked a couple of things that I submitted. And he said, let’s focus on this one riff, and it just so happened that Chris... Chris and David, of course had some ideas as well, and one of the riffs that Chris had was the opening part of ‘Built For War’, before it jumps into the verse. And it fit really well with what I was doing, and then Dave—this is pretty much close to the end of the day—he said, ‘Look, if you have any more ideas, I wanna do this kind of breakdown in the middle of the song. See if you can come up with something.’ And I had an acoustic guitar, and I came up with this thing that night, and that was submitted into the song the next day. And Dave actually contributed one musical part to the song; he had a part that was kind of missing from the song, which he wrote. So that was a three-way collaboration. That was the first time that happened in the band, so that was exciting. And it came together literally within 24 hours of Dave hearing the idea. Constructing the song to me going in to record the drums was a process of about 24 hours.”

Asked to contrast Super Collider with the other three albums Drover’s help pound into shape from the drum riser, he figures, “Well, if you want to go by heavy, I would think, in my opinion, Endgame is the heaviest of the four. In my opinion. United Abominations has some heavy stuff too, but it has more sensible stuff as well. To me, if you’re going to have a heavy contest, I would say that Endgame would be the heaviest of the four. It doesn’t mean I like it more than the other ones; that’s just to answer that question. Again, they’re all different. Thirteen kind has elements of both of those records. It has some heavy stuff and it has some stuff that’s not quite so heavy. So that’s more of a balanced record, whereas this one kind of veers off into... a couple songs definitely go into different directions, ‘The Blackest Crow’ certainly being one of those. That was a new thing for me. I’d never done something where you’re using brushes on the snare; I’ve never done that. It’s really a departure for me, stylistically. So that’s the most diverse record of the four that I’ve done. I don’t think you can disagree with that.”



And then there’s the band’s surprise cover of THIN LIZZY’s ‘Cold Sweat’, a nice idea that has folks talking on the net—always a good thing.

“I think I had about two days left to cut drums, and this conversation came up, and you know, what do you think about doing a cover tune? And that to me is a fun thing. And we started talking about bands. And I think Dave and I both mentioned, hey, what about Thin Lizzy? It would be great to do a Thin Lizzy tune. We all respect them greatly, and they’re a fantastic band. And again, for me, doing something, I love all the guitar players in Thin Lizzy—I’m a huge GARY MOORE fan and Scott Gorham fan--but doing something that Sykes was on to me was a real thrill to me—‘Cold Sweat’ was a song he actually wrote. And I went in there, and I think I did three swipes at the drum track and it was done; probably in about 20 minutes, 25 minutes, I’d nailed down the drum track. I mean, I knew that some backward anyway. That was a lot of fun. There was no thought involved. When you’re creating music, obviously you have to be really focused to try to nail each thing, remember each part that’s going on. But doing that, I’ve known that song since 1983, so it was just a matter of going in there and trying to nail it, and make is as good a track as possible, but keeping true, very close to the original, not deviating too much from the original track.”

“Obviously there’s a huge difference between them,” begins Drover, asked what ex-JAG PANZER maestro Chris Broderick brings to the table, contrasted with the contribution of the nearest and dearest sneer to our heart, Mustaine. “I think they really complement each other. Chris can pretty much do anything you ask him to. He’s a great player—that’s obvious—he could do all the crazy wacky Marty stuff, the CHRIS POLAND stuff, and he can emulate pretty much anybody you ask him to. If you listen to ‘Cold Sweat’, he pretty much nails the JOHN SYKES solo, the half that he did, note for note. Which I really appreciate him doing that, because Sykes is one of my all-time favourite guitar players. But Dave is obviously a complete originator; he completely has own guitar sound. Soon as you hear it, you know it’s Dave. You can tell it’s a Megadeth song just from Dave’s guitar playing—that’s a cool thing in itself. So I really think that those two styles really complement each other. Because now we’ve got everything we need. If you want a wacky blistering solo with all these weird exotic scales, there you go Chris, you can have at it; if you want something more erratic and something completely in-your-face, wacky playing, Dave’s your guy. They both provide cool and interesting different elements to the overall sound of Megadeth. I think it’s great.”



In closing, I asked Shawn for his favourite tour moments and memories on the Megadeth train. After all, it’s been nine years going on ten, Shawn being a comfort and stabilizing factor in a band prone to members coming and going.

“Dude, there are so many,” says Shawn, meaning memories, not guitar players. “Off the top of my head, I would have to say obviously the Big Four shows were a real high point in my career, doing this for nine years with the band. For me, playing the first show that finally, the combination of 26, 27 years of wanting these four bands to play together, and we finally pull it all together and do it, and the first show we did was in Warsaw, Poland. And depending on who you ask, there was between 100,000 and 125,000 people. And I just remember, ANTHRAX was on, and I just looked out and it was a sea of humanity that was out there. Everybody was in such great spirits and so happy that we could finally do this. We played, probably, whatever it was, 15, 16 shows over the course of the Big Four, but that one for me was the highlight, playing Warsaw, Poland to that many people. But we playing Yankee Stadium and that was a thrill. We were the first heavy metal bands to inhabit that venue. That in itself is amazing.”

It’s interesting... it has been said that Clash Of The Titans in ’90, ’91 was the pinnacle for thrash as a genre. But maybe the Big Four clanging away together, all these years later, marks a new pinnacle.

“Yes, because we did that again, when we went out on tour two or three years ago—we went out with SLAYER, Anthrax. So we really did that again, so that was cool in itself too. We played a lot of great shows with that line-up. But the only thing that they really talk about was having the Big Four. Never knowing that it would really ever happen, in our careers, and I’m really glad that it all finally came together. It was great.”

As Shawn, ever the metal historian, relates, there were circumstances beyond thrash’s control that caused a bit of a trip to the wilderness for the genre, through the ‘90s. ?
“Yes, well, if you remember at the time, when they did the Clash Of The Titans thing—what was that, '90 and '91?—you remember who the opening band was: it was ALICE IN CHAINS. Tides were about to turn in a dramatic way. If you remember, MTV playing all the metal stuff, and then all of a sudden the light switched off, and they weren't playing rock anymore, but it's PEARL JAM and SOUNDGARDEN, and obviously NIRVANA was the catalyst for that. Which is fine, but you’re right, it got to that point and it never recovered from there, in terms of popularity, because the tide basically turned a 180. You know, a lot of bands didn’t make it; they collapsed. But I guess what I’m getting at, the fact that we're still here in 2013, and all four of us are still here and thriving... that’s a testament to our fan base, and a testament to good music. At the end of the day, good music is going to stand the test of time, and these four bands are living proof of that. And you can add EXODUS and TESTAMENT into that mix as well. We're always referring to the Big Four, but all those bands are still here, and we're all still creating good music, 30 years into the game. That speaks volumes, if you ask me.”