Dave Mustaine (Megadeth) shares more about his past health issues

Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine hosted a special Q&A session on TalkShopLive on Friday, August 14, regarding his upcoming memoir, “In My Darkest Hour,” which will be released on September 8, 2026 under Grand Central Publishing’s recently established Da Capo label, as per Blabbermouth. Mustaine and novelist Joe Layden co-wrote the book, which describes Dave’s “gnarly” therapy following his 2019 diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma in the back of his tongue. It describes Mustaine’s journey from chemotherapy and radiation treatments to extensive recording sessions in order to create Megadeth’s sixteenth album, “The Sick, The Dying…” And The Dead!, which came out in 2022. The book also details Mustaine’s internal battles with death and how he turned to his faith and family for solace.

When a fan asked the 64-year-old artist if his fight with illness had changed his “perspective on life toward a more spiritual path,” he responded as follows.

Nah. I was pretty set spiritually before this all happened, and a lot of the people that have suggested stuff online, a lot of them were really wonderful people. So, it was great to see like-minded people, people that were willing to send positive thoughts and feelings my way. But I have to remember my whole thing — God wanting me to be healed — and that that was it. He said that was gonna happen, and I got healed.

Mustaine responded as follows when asked what inspired him to write songs during his arduous cancer treatments.

Great bandmates. A really professional co-producer. We had a really great thing working. Unfortunately, we had the drama that was going on in an area of the band that has been resolved, and we don’t usually bring it up very much just because it’s an ugly chapter, and I don’t think anybody wants to talk about it. So, it was mainly focusing on the music, which was such a great thing to go in and do a musical offering to our fans, and to focus on the music instead of all this just crap with people trying to get drama out of bands that they love.

Dave also discussed how his former comrades, especially drummer Dirk Verbeuren of Megadeth, helped him fight cancer.

Yeah. Dirk was great. He was wonderful. Teemu [Mäntysaari] wasn’t in the picture yet. Kiko [Loureiro] was very helpful, but I think he was very uncomfortable, and that he was more or less a little bit afraid of what was gonna happen, because here’s this guy that he just met that he really looks up to, and we’ve become friends, and the next thing you know, I’m looking like I’m gonna die on the outside. So, yeah, Dirk was very supportive, and so was my son and my wife. My daughter was also scared a lot too, so I think everybody dealt with it their own way. And we talk about that in the book. Each one of the people that were part of the book, they were asked to share their experience with everything, and I think it turned out really great to have all those different outlooks towards it.

Regarding how dealing with a terminal disease altered his inner outlook and inspired him to compose “In My Darkest Hour,” Dave stated this.

I personally adore my fans. I did not want them to get as sad as I saw them get. And I was really happy to be able to say that I was in remission once the doctor told me that in October [of 2019]. You never really know with some of these things that happen in your life, the extent of what the treatment’s gonna entail. I had a lot of hope, and I had a lot of people praying for me, a lot of people sending me positive thoughts and stuff. I had money to get good treatment. I was living in an area where the doctors were fantastic. And not everybody’s gonna have that same opportunity. So, I wanted to make sure that I was available to tell my story and share that story of hope. ‘Cause even if you do have access to all that stuff, you’re still afraid. You don’t know what’s going on. And you’re gonna go put your head into a machine that’s meant to fucking kill you.

Dave stated that the chemotherapy treatments “must not have been any fun” when the interviewer made this observation.

A lot of it I don’t remember. That was one of the terrible things that comes along with when you do radiation and chemotherapy. It’s called chemo brain, where your brain is, as is your entire body, is being attacked, and your body’s dying. So, it was mentally a complete mindfuck to go into some place and to willingly say, ‘Okay, kill me. Kill me a little more today.’ It was very terrifying.