Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Dave Mustaine discussed his choice to include his rendition of “Ride The Lightning,” the title track of Metallica’s 1984 album for which he received a co-writing credit after leaving the band in 1983, on the band’s final album, simply titled “Megadeth,” in a recent interview with Brazil’s Ibagenscast, as per Blabbermouth.
I’ve got a really good explanation for you. That was one of the songs that I wrote with James [Hetfield], and just like the other songs that I wrote, something happened when I left. Parts were changed, credits were assigned to other people, and I thought of all the songs, ‘Ride The Lightning’ showcased my guitar talents the best: the spider chord that I invented, the grunting chords. Those were things that bands weren’t doing. And it happens in ‘Ride The Lightning’.
I’ve always thought that James was an excellent guitar player, so when we set out to do the song, we figured we needed to do it as good or better than the original. And we figured, how are we gonna do that? Metallica’s an amazing group. So we sped it up just a little bit, made it a little bit more frantic, and then we kind of spiced up the solo a little bit. And then, at the end, there’s some drum fills that the Metallica guys had played, and I told Dirk [Verbeuren], I said, ‘Have fun there. Just have fun.’ So he did a drum fill at the end in the four spots that there’s drum fills. And I think that they’re really stunning drum fills. They may be similar to the original stuff, but I’m not sure how similar. And he recorded his parts, and I love it.
Dave explained why he decided to record this specific Metallica song. Mustaine also talked on the potential for Megadeth to perform “Ride The Lightning” at some of the shows on the band’s farewell tour, which recently began its South American leg.
Now it’s just a matter of us playing it live and when in the set it would be played and how many times do we wanna play it? I mean, we may not play it down [in South America]; we may only play it once down here. I don’t know. It has to be right, because the first time we play that, people are gonna record it and it’s gonna go around the world. And I don’t want a version of a song that we did that almost everyone says is better than the original, I don’t wanna go out there and play that song and have a little lack of confidence. I wanna go out there and own it. I wanna be the fucking boss.
And going back to why we did that song — it’s kind of closing the circle, paying my respects to the band that I was a founding member in, and love me or hate me, they’ll never be able to erase me. And I think that when people can look with acceptance and fondness of the two bands and not try and keep something that I don’t wanna keep going. I don’t wanna have a feud. I’ve put that to sleep so many years ago. So, yeah, I wanted to do something that was — just show some respect, ’cause it doesn’t matter to me if he cares, if he likes it; it matters what I do and that I show respect and close the circle.
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