Dave Mustaine speaks on past misconceptions regarding his personality

Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has pushed back against the idea that he is difficult to work with, saying he does not go through life looking for a fight. Speaking on Dean Delray’s Let There Be Talk podcast, Mustaine reflected on how he was portrayed after former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman left the band.

I thought it was really cool, because when Marty left, I became the bad guy. And I’m not a bad guy. I’m not a bad guy. If you piss me off, you know what? There’s a 50/50 chance I’m gonna react bad, but generally, during the day, I don’t walk around with a chip on my shoulder. And when Marty left, everybody thought, ‘Dave wasn’t using his songs’, ‘Dave’s a bad band leader’. And it’s real easy — you get two guys to say the same thing, and then it looks like it’s true. I’m not a bad band leader. Look where Megadeth is right now after almost 45 years. We’re the biggest we’ve ever been. The band guys are the happiest they’ve ever been.

The conversation also turned to Mustaine’s brief time in Metallica and his appearance with his former bandmates at the Fillmore in San Francisco in December 2011. The performance was part of the band’s week-long celebration of its 30th anniversary and marked a rare onstage reunion with Mustaine, who was dismissed from Metallica in 1983 and later founded Megadeth.

Looking back on the invitation, Mustaine said his reaction was mixed: he recalled feeling both hesitant and pleased, while also wondering why the reunion had taken so long. He added that he felt it was sad that younger fans had never had the chance to see him perform with Metallica.

In an earlier interview reflecting on the 2011 show, Mustaine described the experience as cathartic. He said he was unsure what to expect but that the performance ultimately came together, with Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett inviting him to play the solos.

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