Mustaine: A Life in Metal
Former Metallica guitarist and founding member of Megadeth Dave Mustaine talks for the first time about his life in rock ‘n’ roll, finally telling the inside story of two of the most influential heavy metal bands in the world.Here, for the first time ever, Dave Mustaine tells the tale of two of the biggest metal bands in history; a story yet to be told from the inside. A pioneer of the thrash metal movement, Metallica rose to international fame in the 1980s, selling over 90 million records worldwide, making them the most successful thrash metal band ever. And Megadeth - the second most successful thrash metal band ever - have sold more than 20 million albums worldwide, including six consecutive platinum albums.But despite their enormous success together, Dave and Metallica have had some bad blood. In April of 1983, partly due to alcoholism and partly due to personality clashes with founding members Hetfield and Ulrich, he was fired from the band and unceremoniously dropped off at a Greyhound station in Rochester, NY with a ticket back to LA. Now he will finally tell his side of the story.From the early, crazy days of Metallica, to his split with the band to ruling over Megadeth, Dave has seen and experienced it all. And now he's telling it all in his startlingly candid, in-your-face memoir.
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Mustaine:
A Life In Metal
Dave Mustaine
TO MOM AND DAD,I PROMISED I WOULD BE GOOD.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATEDTO ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO TOLDME I WOULD NEVER…
COME, COME, COME MY LITTLE DROOGIES. I JUST DON’T GET THIS AT ALL. THE OLD DAYS ARE DEAD AND GONE. FOR WHAT I DID IN THE FAST, I’VE BEEN PUNISHED. I’VE BEEN CURE.
ALEX, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
REGRETS, I’VE HAD A FEW…
SID VICIOUS
Table of Contents
3 LARS AND ME,OR WHAT AM I GETTING MYSELF INTO?
4 METALLICA—FAST, LOUD, OUT OF CONTROL
6 BUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST: MEGADETH
7 MISSION: TO BREAK ALL THE RULES OF GOD AND MAN
9 THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
13 I PRAY THE LORD MY SOUL TO KEEP
HUNT, TEXAS
JANUARY 2002
IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR BOTTOM, THIS SEEMS TO BE ABOUT AS GOOD A PLACE AS ANY-ALTHOUGH I’D BE THE FIRST TO ADMIT THAT THE BOTTOM HAS BEEN A MOVING TARGET IN MY DARK AND TWISTED, SPEED METAL VERSION OF A DICKENSIAN LIFE.
IMPOVERISHED, TRANSIENT CHILDHOOD? CHECK.
ABUSIVE, ALCOHOLIC PARENT? CHECK.
MIND-FUCKING RELIGIOUS WEIRDNESS ON MY CASE THE EXTREMES OF THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES AND SATANISM)? CHECK.
ALCOHOLISM, DRUG ADDICTION, HOMELESSNESS? CHECK, CHECK, CHECK.
SOUL-CRUSHING PROFESSIONAL AND ARTISTIC SETBACKS? CHECK.
REHAB? CHECK (SEVENTEEN TIMES, GIVE OR TAKE).
NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE? CHECK THAT ONE, TOO.
James Hetfield, who used to be one of my best friends, as close as a brother, once observed with some incredulity that I must have been born with a horseshoe up my ass. That’s how lucky I’ve been, how fortunate I am to be pulling breath after so many close calls. And I must acknowledge that on some level he’s right. I have been lucky. I have been blessed. But here’s the thing about having a horseshoe lodged in your rectum: it also hurts like hell. And you never forget it’s there.
So here I am, staring down the throat of another stint in rehab, at a place called La Hacienda, out in the heart of the pristine Texas Hill Country. It’s only about two hundred miles or so from Fort Worth, but it seems a world away, with only cattle ranches and summer camps for neighbors. The focus is on healing…on getting better. Physically, spiritually, emotionally. As usual, I’ve brought only modest expectations and enthusiasm to the proceedings. Ain’t my first rodeo, after all.
You see, I’ve learned more about getting loaded, more about how to get drugs, more about mixing drinks, and more about how to bed the opposite sex in Alcoholics Anonymous than in any other single place in the world. AA—and this holds true for most rehabilitative programs and treatment centers—is a fraternity, and like all fraternity brothers, we like to swap stories. It’s a ridiculous glorifying of the experience: drugalogues and drunkalogues, they’re called. One of the things that always bothered me most was the incessant one-upmanship. You’d tell a story, sometimes baring your soul, and the guy next to you would smirk and say, “Ah, man, I spilled more than you ever used.”
“Oh, really?”
“Damn right.”
“Well, I used a lot, so you must be one clumsy fuckhead.”
For some reason, this sort of interaction never did much for me, never made me feel like I was getting better or improving as a human being. Sometimes I got worse. It was at an AA meeting, ironically, that I first learned about the ease of procuring pain medication through the Internet. I didn’t have any particular need for pain meds at the time, but the woman telling the story made it sound like a great buzz. Before long the packages were coming to my house and I’d fostered one hell of an addiction. By this time I was a world-famous rock star—founder, front man, singer, songwriter, and guitarist (and de facto CEO) for Megadeth, one of the most popular bands in heavy metal. I had a beautiful wife and two wonderful kids, a nice home, cars, more money than I ever dreamed of. And I was about to throw it all away. You see, behind the façade, I was fucking miserable: tired of the road, the bickering between band members, the unreasonable demands of management and record company executives, the loneliness of the drug-addled life. And, as always, incapable of seeing that what I had was more important than what I didn’t have. The joy of writing songs and playing music, which had sustained me through so many lean years, had slowly been siphoned off.
Now I simply felt…empty.
And so I went off to Hunt, Texas, hoping this time the change would stick. Or not hoping. Not caring. Not knowing much of anything, really, except that I needed help getting off the pain meds. As for long-term behavior modification? Well, that wasn’t high on my list of priorities.
And here’s what happens. Early in my stay I wander off to get some rest. I remember slumping into a chair and tossing my left arm over the back, trying to curl up and sleep. The next thing I know, I’m waking up, dragging myself out of the fugue of a twentyminute nap, and when I try to stand up, something pulls me back, like I’m buckled into the seat or something. And then I realize what’s happened: my arm has fallen asleep and it’s still hooked over the back of the chair. I laugh, try to withdraw my arm again.
