Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has discussed the medical condition behind his decision to embark on a farewell tour, saying the thrash metal veterans plan to continue performing for as long as they can.
In a September 2026 interview at Louder Than Life to Musora, Mustaine explained that he has Dupuytren’s contracture, a condition that can cause fingers to bend toward the palm. He said it has increasingly affected his ability to play guitar.
Look at my hand. I’ve got an injury on my hand. It’s just genetic. It’s something that just happens to people. Some people get it, some people don’t. It’s actually called Dupuytren contracture [a condition that causes one or more fingers to bend toward the palm of the hand] or Viking’s hand.
When we’re done with our retirement tour, I am going to do something about it, I just don’t know if it’s gonna be successful or not. And I wanna make sure that I’ve gotten everything that we wanna do before I go and get surgery done, in case I can’t play anymore. Because if I walk out and I can say, ‘Hey, guess what? Let’s do ‘Bad Omen’,’ I think that’d be a happy day for all of us.
We’re on top right now, and I always said I wanted us to go out on top. Everything we’re doing right now has been very well thought out and we really appreciate everything that we have right now. And I don’t want it to get going so fast that we lose sight of our gratitude to people who have helped us, the fans who have bought the albums and the books and have come and bought the tickets and the merchandise. Those people are the catalyst that sets us off. And we can’t tell you what it feels like to be up on stage. We’d be making it up, ’cause there’s nothing we can really quite say that encapsulates how great it feels. It’s like trying to explain an orgasm to a virgin. You know what I mean?
We’re gonna play as long as we can, and we’re gonna be as grateful as we possibly can with these shows and by the level that we play. We’re going out there and we’re not taking any prisoners. We’re absolutely pushing ourselves and playing songs from our whole era that were the monster songs. Every album has a couple of songs on it that’s a little bit more melodic, and then you’ve got the ones that are the real kick-in-the-crotch kind of songs.
Megadeth‘s official touring calendar currently includes performances in Australia, Japan and Europe. Selected confirmed dates include:
