Chris Poland praises the music writing skills of Dave Mustaine of Megadeth

Former Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland talked about the development of his relationship with band leader Dave Mustaine in a recent interview with the Heavy Metal Mayhem radio program, as per Blabbermouth.

Me and Dave lived together in a rehearsal studio [in the early days of Megadeth]. We took ‘bird baths’ with cold water in a sink for a year. And then we toured repeatedly. We were together all the time. We were a real band when Megadeth first started. And once that happens, everybody kind of becomes brothers. And I know Dave said terrible shit about me [in the later years], but I don’t hold a grudge. And I understand. I know how Dave is. I know Dave. That’s how he is. He says stuff off the top of his head, and I’m sure regrets it later.

Poland played on the band’s iconic albums “Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good!” and “Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?” while he was a member of Megadeth from 1984 to 1987. Additionally, the group’s 2004 album “The System Has Failed” has him as a featured soloist.

When [Dave] asked me to play on ‘The System Has Failed’, I was, like, ‘Yeah, I’ll play on that. Of course I will,’ and then the funny thing was, [it was] the same vibe that I got from the first two records. There’s something about when he writes riffs and I play over ’em — there’s some kind of weird magic, man.

Poland responded as follows when asked about the freedom he had in the early days of Megadeth to contribute his thoughts to the band’s music.

The way it was with Dave was if you played something and he didn’t tell you not to play it, then you could play it. So when I did the descending harmonies on ‘Peace Sells’ or I added some kind of minor note in a chord here or there, and he didn’t say, ‘Hey, don’t play that,’ then I’d play it. But as far as writing, Dave wrote everything. All I did was play with a note here and there, or a harmony. But that’s the thing about Mustaine — I mean, he’s still writing riffs today that are fucking good. [Laughs] He’s the riff master.

But how did he join the band?

It was kind of [early Megadeth drummer] Gar [Samuelson] that asked me to join Megadeth. He was, like, ‘You should join, man. This is awesome.’ And we had just come out of a fusion band with a pretty high difficulty factor. And Mustaine’s music I didn’t feel was metal. There was something about it that didn’t strike me as it — I know it was heavy, but it wasn’t just banging out three-chord metal songs. It was really articulate and really well thought-out. And the arrangements were — I mean, the first two records, that’s serious music, man. That’s not just metal. So I was totally intrigued. And then, of course, I had to go where Gar went, man, ’cause I had been playing with Gar my whole life.”

The way I looked at [Megadeth’s music] was, ‘This is fast Led Zeppelin.’ And that’s the way I looked at it. I had a decent idea of how to get a good distorted sound, and so when the pedaling got involved, I just adapted to it. And then, of course, his spider chord thing. I learned a lot from Dave.