Dave Mustaine has sat down for an interesting, if volatile, interview with the Daily Telegraph. Well, two interviews if we’re being exact here – he abruptly cut off the first when the journalist in question began asking questions about the Megadeth mainman’s faith (these days Mustaine says he is a born-again Christian).

Anyway, inevitably, the subject of his ejection from Metallica, forty-three years ago, comes up. Clearly, it’s a grudge Mustaine will take to his grave. “In hindsight, I understand what happened and why, but at the time, all I knew was I was p***ed, and I wanted to be heavier and faster than they were. And so that’s what I set out to do.”

He also brings up an incident from the early days of the band: “We were at a club, and some guy was punching on a girl, and James says, ‘Kill him!’ This guy turns around and looks at the two of us and says, ‘Who’s gonna kill me?’ And James pointed at me… I had to fight the guy on the spot.”

Then in a fascinating moment of self-reflection, he concedes all that was a long time ago: “You know, I’m a grandpa now and I’m successful. I’m not begging for food anymore. I think my younger self just needed to be loved.”

He also talks about the reasons for seemingly throwing in the towel – their current self-titled album will apparently be their last: “I was feeling kind of run down, and it was just getting to be too much. I finally said to my management, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this’ and that started the conversation.”

Mustaine also admits it’s “challenging to sing with the same quality and conviction” as he used to. And as for shredding: “It’s painful if you don’t set up right. It’s one of those things that professionals make look effortless and it really isn’t. A lot of guitar players, their fingers get deformed because of the way that they hold the pick and the way that they fret the guitar.”

Now he’s on the final lap of his career, he seems, at least, proud of his legacy: “Megadeth music will live on forever,” he insists. “I know it’s an arrogant thing to say, but every time you hear that heavy guitar down-picking on a TV show or movie soundtrack, that’s the sound of Metallica and Megadeth. I don’t know if we changed the world, but we changed the world of guitar.”

First impressions can be everything, especially when you are recruiting a new member of your band. But sometimes it pays to take a deep breath and think again, like Dave Mustaine in 1989 when he was looking for the next hot-shot lead guitar player for Megadeth.

Friedman needed a gig after Cacophony had split up, and Friedman had to be in contention. His 1988 solo album, Dragon’s Kiss, was state-of-the-art Shrapnel shred (featuring some blazing guest spots from Friedman’s old Cacophony bandmate Jason Becker). He was one of the hottest players around.

But in a recent interview with Guitar World, Mustaine admitted that he had his doubts. Dragon’s Kiss was sitting in his management’s office. Friedman was in contention and yet…

“The cover was this black picture with bright orange lettering on it, and it was pretty eye-catching,” said Mustaine. “But I just couldn’t do it because of his hair.”

Maybe Mustaine had simply had his fill of strange auditions. He was trying to fill a spot that was previously occupied by Chris Poland then Jeff Young, who had raised the bar and here he had some guy turning up and asking the band to show him the material, and another who actually claimed he wrote Megadeth classic Wake Up Dead.

Just how bad was Friedman’s hair?

“He had two different colors in his hair. His hair was black from the roots down to about his ear line, and then it was red all the way down to his armpits,” continued Mustaine. “I thought, ‘I can’t do this,’ but against my will, I said, ‘Okay, let’s do this…’”

He didn’t much like Friedman’s gear either. This would be one of the most legendary auditions in metal, captured on film, and inevitably posted to YouTube. With one million views and counting, chances are, you will already have seen the footage of Friedman in his Ramones T-shirt playing his red Carvin V220.

His choice of electric guitar was another red flag for Mustaine. A Carvin? Who played a Carvin!? Friedman didn’t even have a rig worthy of the name. This being the ‘80s, he did however bring an ADA rackmount unit. Mustaine got someone to set Friedman up with a stack and called out Wake Up Dead.

“We’ve been through guitar player after guitar player, and we get to the solo part in Wake Up Dead, and he nails it,” said Mustaine. “I just thought, ‘Oh, my God…’ and I reached behind me, turned off my wireless, went out and called my manager and said, ‘I think we’ve got him.’”

The rest is history. Friedman was there for what many fans will argue is the band’s finest hour, 1990’s Rust In Peace, with 1992’s Countdown To Extinction burnishing his reputation as Megadeth’s finest lead player.

He remained in the Megadeth lineup until 1999’s Risk, when management told Mustaine that he should cut or redo Friedman’s solo to Breadline.

Mustaine redid it, but management never told Friedman until the band listened back to the album, and that was that. Friedman left, moving to Japan and pursuing a solo career.

The Risk business was all water under the bridge by 2023, when Megadeth invited him to join them onstage at the Budokan, in Tokyo. Friedman sat in with the band for Countdown To Extinction, Tornado Of Souls and Symphony Of Destruction.

Mustaine tells Guitar World he had “a fun time” with Friedman in the band.

“Marty is an enigma, and a very unique human being,” he said. “I think you can ask any of the people who have played with him… he’s incredibly talented, but very mysterious.”

Is he the best lead guitarist in Megadeth’s history? That’s up for debate.

“The fans all have their own favourite guitar players in the band besides me,” said Mustaine, speaking to MusicRadar in 2021. “Some are very vocal, some even spiteful in the things they say… quite often their favourite will be whoever was in the band when they got into Megadeth. I wouldn’t ever deny anyone of that. If someone prefers Marty – we did several albums together – that’s totally fine.”

• 5 songs guitarists need to hear by… Megadeth

Megadeth’s farewell tour kicks off in February but Dave Mustaine has warned fans not to expect any dewy-eyed on-stage reunions with past members. He doesn’t roll like that, apparently.

In a new interview with Guitar World he has said as much: “We’ve already done that with Marty (Friedman, the former guitarist who returned for a surprise appearance in 2023)… And I mean, let’s look at the other people we’ve played with, there’s a lot of people. That would be a huge undertaking.”

“I don’t think I want to do that. I’d rather keep doing what we’re doing and let the fans (experience) Megadeth music and be happy about it. It’s not ‘puppet show Megadeth.’”

This is pretty much what he said on Eddie Trunk’s podcast last month. When Trunk raised the prospect of former members making an appearance, Mustaine put his foot down. “I just can’t - I can’t. Because, first off, it would be unfair to the other band members if I didn’t play with them as well.”

Megadeth’s This Was Our Life farewell tour kicks off in Canada at Victoria’s evocatively-named Save-On-Foods Arena on February 15. Mustaine last year suggested to Kerrang! that the global jaunt could go on “for another three to five years”, adding: “If we’re going to be doing it for that long then, shit, I’ll be looking at the birthday I don’t even want to think about!”

He has also mused to Metal Hammer that he would be interested in the band’s final gig being in space. “I think that will be a really fitting climax, he said. “And I’m not talking about on the side of a vomit comet. A gig on the Moon, a full moon landing, that would be cool. I saw they sent up a bunch of celebrities into space and I thought ‘Well, if them, why not me?’, you know?’”

That is, quite frankly, unlikely to happen.

One thing for certain is that Mustaine and his merry men have a new - reputedly, final – album out on 23 January. It’s self-titled and has already had three singles issued from it: Tipping Point, I Don’t Care and Let There Be Shred. It also features a version of Metallica’s Ride The Lightning, which of course Mustaine co-wrote when he was a member of that band back in the early 1980s.

Back in the late ‘80s, there was some scuttlebutt that Dave Mustaine had shortlisted Testament’s Alex Skolnick for the lead guitar position in Megadeth.

Mustaine had an ear for hot-shot players, and Skolnick, schooled by Joe Satriani, not long after making his bones on record as a Testament’s teenage guitar prodigy, was on his radar.

Ultimately, it didn’t come to anything. Marty Friedman got the gig. Skolnick remained in place, splitting the shred atom as Testament barrelled into their early career thrash classic Practice What You Preach.

But decades on, Skolnick nearly had a second bite of the cherry during Kiko Loureiro’s stint as Megadeth lead guitarist, circa 2016, when he was placed on standby in case some emergency paternity cover was needed for Loureiro.

The Brazilian guitarist’s wife was due to give birth and there was a possibility he might miss some shows. Skolnick learned the Megadeth set top to bottom and waited by the phone. The call never came but the experience stuck with him. He had always been close to the Megadeth camp, was a fan of the band, and yet learning the set was a real eye-opener.

“Oh yeah, I certainly got a new appreciation for the Megadeth stuff,” says Skolnick, joining MusicRadar over Zoom. “I’ve always appreciated Megadeth. I was a listener early on. I think, as I got older, I tried to avoid bands that were sort of in the same universe as Testament, just because you don’t want to absorb too much of another band, another player. And yeah, it was amazing to see how far guitar quality had come in our genre of music.”

Thrash metal has forever been an arms race, of brutality, of who could put on the most insane show, who could write the heaviest riff – and this being an ascendant subculture of metal guitar during the ‘80s, there was also an escalation of lead guitar technique.

The challenge for players like Skolnick was how to write that virtuosity into songs written at breakneck tempo. It wasn’t always an easy fit.

“When I had started, I was considered the type of player that should probably move to southern California. Some of the Sunset Strip bands had great guitar – the guys in Ratt, George Lynch and Dokken, and many bands that didn’t make it to the point of doing records and touring but [had] just insane guitar players,” says Skolnick. “Up in the Bay Area, the music didn’t really lend itself to virtuoso playing, if you will. So it was a bit of a struggle to develop my work with Testament and have it be interesting to guitar fans, and myself as a guitar fan, but also fit the music and still be heavy.”

Skolnick’s musical appetites had always extended beyond thrash. After tracking The Ritual in ’92, he left Testament, joining Savatage for 1994’s Handful Of Rain, then moving to New York in 1998 to study a degree jazz guitar. It was in New York he formed the Alex Skolnick Trio.

He has played with the Trans-Siberia Orchestra, currently plays in progressive jazz-rock collective PAKT. His is a roving brief. In 2001, Skolnick returned to Testament for a one album deal, rerecording tracks from their first two albums on First Strike Still Deadly, before rejoining the band full-time for their triumphant second act in 2005.

Skolnick had changed. His musical vocabulary had expanded. He returned a better musician. He returned to a better band, too. Testament has only gathered momentum since returning with 2008’s The Formation Of Damnation, and the arrival of the twentysomething Chris Dovas on drums for this year’s Para Bellum has given them another shot in the arm – that kid can play anything.

We’d like to think Skolnick can, too. But he admits that learning the Megadeth setlist – and Loureiro’s material in particular – was a real eye-opener. Loureiro was doing in 2016 what Skolnick had wanted to do as a teenager in the late ‘80s, and he had to work out how he was going to play them.

“Fast forward a few years, yeah, you have somebody, like, Kiko, who’s a serious musician, and just playing so musically with Megadeth,” says Skolnick. “It was really cool to study what he did, and also, he’s the type of player who, some of his stuff, I’m not just not gonna be able to pull off. [Laughs]

“He’s got a few techniques that, like an Yngwie or even Van Halen – nobody can really play like those guys. I have my own fast parts, or I have my own arpeggios. I have things I can sneak in and make it work. But yeah, it was a challenge.

“I did a cover of a Judas Priest tune a while back. I don’t know – that should have come out. I don’t know why that hasn’t come out yet, but it was with an all star lineup. And I love those guys. They’re great players. But I also felt like, ‘Okay, I can sort of take what they did, and expand it and get even more technical.’ But Kiko Loureiro, it’s like, ‘Okay, I’m not gonna build, I’m not gonna expand on the technique here!’ I definitely had to find some of these replacement licks because I’m just not gonna do what he does.”

Also, a Megadeth setlist is not just Loureiro. You’ve also got Chris Poland, Chris Broderick, Glen Drover, and the great Marty Friedman – whose note choice and phrasing is as much of a challenge as his speed is.

“True. Marty has a very unique feel. And it’s not like his playing isn’t fast. It’s fast. But I kind of feel like, if we’re just talking about speed and technique, maybe we occupy a similar space,” says Skolnick. “He has a different note choice, and he has very unique inflections. It’s a challenging gig. As it turned out, Kiko was able to make the concert, so I didn’t end up performing with them, but just being on standby for that was amazing.”

Skolnick leaves us with some advice on what we can do if we ever feel ourselves outgunned or intimidated when playing with technically superior players. Skolnick has been there before. If you find yourself out of your element don’t panic. You can’t match every player note for note, climb into their style, and would you really want to if you could? Maybe if you’re a session pro and you need those gigs.

But for the rest of us, if we’re playing with someone whose musical abilities outstrip our own, there’s no point in panicking. Like Skolnick says, you do you – play your own style. That’s what he does.

“The most recent time I’ve had this experience about two years ago, I played with the young bass virtuoso Mohini Dey at a music camp, and I had to learn one of her songs,” he says. “The guitarist was Guthrie Govan. Okay, well. [Laughs] Nobody’s gonna do what that guy does. I’m sorry. And that was another one. ‘Okay, but you know what? All right. He’s doing this Guthrie-ism right here, it’s super impressive, what do I have? I’ll fill those bars with something impressive that I do, but I’m not gonna try to do his licks.’

“And it worked out fine! I found my space in the song and it got a really good response. But yeah, that’s another example. He goes to places I’m just not even gonna try to go.”

You can read our full interview with Alex Skolnick, coming soon to MusicRadar. Testament’s new album, Para Bellum, is out now via Nuclear Blast.

Megadeth’s – allegedly – final album is being prepared for release next January, and it looks as though the confirmed tracklisting might include a version of Metallica’s Ride The Lightning, which of course was co-written by Megadeth's founder Dave Mustaine.

How do we know? Well, the band have gradually been revealing the tracklisting via social media, with letters of the various tracks gently coalescing together. As you can see, track 11 is shaping to be Ride The Lightning.

Or it could be a similarly-titled track? Look at it closely below – track 11 could be ‘Ales Are Shining’, couldn’t it?

Anyhoo, if it is Ride The Lightning, it would fit with what Mustaine mentioned earlier this year on a Norwegian radio show, Stjernepose. Talking about the final album, he said: “We have 13 new songs for the new album… One of the songs is a cover song but I actually wrote it, so it’s kind of like a cover, kind of like my song.”

Its inclusion would speak volumes about its author. Even after 42 years it seems Mustaine is still smarting about his exit from Metallica. He just can’t let it lie.

Ride The Lightning was the title track of Metallica’s second album, released in July 1984. By that time, Mustaine was long gone and Megadeth were already up and running. They’d release their debut Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! the following year.

That was the first of 17 Megadeth albums, with the final one due on January 23 next year with a simple title: Megadeth. Among the other confirmed tracks are the recent single Tipping Point, as well as I Don’t Care, Puppet Parade, Made To Kill and the brilliantly-titled Let There Be Shred.

And there will be a farewell tour to accompany the farewell album. No dates have been confirmed as yet, although we do know that the band will support Iron Maiden on a number of dates next autumn, including shows at Montreal, San Antonio and Los Angeles.

What would have happened to Metallica had Dave Mustaine stayed in the band? Would he have knuckled under as the group diversified their sound in the 1990s? Would he have cut his hair?

That’s the question author Greg Prato asked Megadeth’s Dave Ellefson when he guested on the bassist’s podcast. Prato has recently published a book on Mustaine’s post-Metallica outfit, The World’s State Of The Art Speed Metal Band: The Megadeth Story 1983 – 2002, and he was curious whether Ellefson thought Metallica did his colleague a favour by kicking him out of the band early doors.

"Not at all, and there's a reason," Ellefson replied. "Look, things go the way they go, right? As much as it sucked to start over, I saw Dave become a vastly better guitar player pretty quickly after Metallica. I met him about six weeks after he got let go."

The bassist then explained what might have been a factor in Mustaine’s sudden improvement as a guitarist: "I remember that summer we had this friend that would go to GIT, Musicians Institute, and he'd come over and he'd smoke pot with us and he'd show us shit that he learned. Like, he'd go, 'Hey, here's this harmonic minor riff, this is exactly what fuckin' Uli John Roth is using in Speedy’s Coming or Sails Of Charon.”

"And we would sit - and his name was Ed - Ed and Dave and me we would sit there and we would go over these, and I'd learn the bass parts. I'd learn the guitar parts on bass."

So in other words, Mustaine knuckled down, improved and with a simpatico bass player alongside him was able to launch Megadeth within a year of his exit from Metallica. The rest is rock history.

The World’s State Of The Art Speed Metal Band: The Megadeth Story 1983 – 2002 is available now.

Megadeth, the thrash metal institution founded and led by Dave Mustaine, have announced that 2026 will see the launch of their last ever studio album, with a worldwide farewell tour to bring down the curtain on one of metal’s biggest bands.

A big announcement had been teased. A ticking clock, a countdown. No details of the album have been shared, no titles, no release date, but it will bring down the curtain on Megadeth, and by the sounds of it Mustaine’s recording career. In his valedictory announcement, he mentions bands, plural, that he has been involved in.

“There’s so many musicians that have come to the end of their career, whether accidental or intentional,” says Mustaine. “Most of them don't get to go out on their own terms on top, and that’s where I’m at in my life right now. I have travelled the world and have made millions upon millions of fans and the hardest part of all of this is saying goodbye to them.

Mustaine’s memoir will also be published some time in 2026. Mustaine says he wants to get out while the going’s good; leave the audience wanting more.

“We can’t wait for you to hear this album and see us on tour,” says Mustaine. “If there was ever a perfect time for us to put out a new album, it’s now. If there was ever a perfect time to tour the world, it’s now. This is also a perfect time for us to tell you that it’s our last studio album.

Mustaine put Megadeth together in 1983 following his tumultuous ouster from Metallica, a hinge moment in metal guitar history that has been an obsession of Mustaine’s despite his own band’s considerable success. His relationship with Metallica ebbed and flowed between enmity and conciliation, rivalry and collaboration – they both participated in the Big Four Tour.

It never really faded into history. So it’s no surprise that Mustaine referenced bands, plural, in his announcement.

“We have done something together that’s truly wonderful and will probably never happen again,” says Mustaine. “We started a musical style, we started a revolution, we changed the guitar world and how it’s played, and we changed the world. The bands I played in have influenced the world. I love you all for it. Thank you for everything.”

Mustaine will get one more chance to etch another chapter into Megadeth’s history. The ‘state-of-the-art speed metal band’ chalked up its share of classics, with Mustaine hiring a rotating cast of top-tier lead guitar players to complement his savage style. In the early days, Slayer’s Kerry King was playing for him.

Over the years Chris Poland, Marty Friedman, Chris Broderick, Jeff Young, Jeff Loomis, Glen Drover, Al Pitrelli and Kiko Loureiro have occupied the role as lead guitarist. Megadeth’s current incumbent, Teemu Mäntysaari, will likely be their last. But this is Megadeth; you can’t rule anything out.

“We’ve made a lot of friends over the years and I hope to see all of you on our global farewell tour,” says Mustaine. “Don’t be mad, don’t be sad, be happy for us all, come celebrate with me these next few years.”

Mustaine will also be releasing a memoir in 2026. Tour dates and release dates will be shared in coming months. Sign up for updates at Megadeth.

Dave Mustaine has been picking at some old bones of contention between him and his erstwhile bandmates in Metallica.

The Megadeth frontman was interviewed on The Shawn Ryan Show podcast and suggested that Metallica's Enter Sandman riff may have something in common with one from fellow thrash band Excel, in their song Tapping Into An Emotional Void.

It’s not the first time Mustaine has done this. Comparisons have been made over the years and indeed there’s no denying that there are certain similarities. But though Excel did apparently consider suing at one point, no case has ever been brought against Metallica.

Mustaine, though, seems unwilling to let this go. Or his exit from the band back in the early 1980s, which he discussed at length during his three-hour conversation with Ryan.

“I made sure not to ever say that I quit, because I wanted people to know that I was unfairly dismissed and that I didn’t give a shit,” the Megadeth man of his time with Metallica. “Because we may not be as big as they are. Hell, their biggest song, Enter Sandman - go look up the band Excel right now. Look up their song, I think it’s something ‘Into the Unknown.’ Pretty similar.”

By ‘Into The Unknown’ Mustaine was presumably referring to Tapping Into the Emotional Void.

“At the time, I was really mad and I didn’t wanna forgive them for what they did,” Mustaine said of his ousting from Metallica. “And I told them when I left, ‘Do not use my music. And of course they used it. Ride the Lightning, I wrote. The Call of Ktulu, I wrote. Let’s see, what else? There’s Phantom Lord, Metal Militia, Jump in the Fire, The Four Horsemen. And I wrote a bunch of Leper Messiah, too. They didn’t give me credit on that. You listen to the riffs, you know they’re my riffs.

“It’s, like, you think I’m gonna all of a sudden hear my riff and say, ‘That’s not me.’ So, yeah, I wrote a lot of their music that made them, and all the solos on that first record were mine - the best Kirk [Hammett[ could [do was] try and copy them.”

Dave Mustaine left Metallica in April 1983 – over 42 years ago.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, here is Tapping Into The Emotional Void:

And here’s Enter Sandman.

Compare and contrast.

David Ellefson has been talking songwriting splits – that tricky issue that has sunk friendships in so many bands and one, as he explains, that was also problematic in Megadeth.

Talking to The Metal Voice podcast, Ellefson, said it was “always an issue in Megadeth – always. We'd have many conversations about it. Youthanasia (their 1994 album) we went into it — it was actually Nick's (Menza, drummer) idea. He goes, 'Let's just pre-decide upfront how much everybody's gonna get.'

"That way when we're showing up every day, whoever brings the best idea that day will get used and it won't have any agenda of, 'Well, he's gonna make more money than me' or 'How come he's got more songs on a record than me?'

"Just bring your best, and if it turns out they're all Dave and Marty (Friedman, ex-Megadeth) songs, then whatever — at least me and Nick will get paid too.”

“And it turned out to be, I think, a pretty fair split of stuff. Now, it only worked on one album, and Dave didn't wanna do it anymore after that. But it was a great album and is one of the more esteemed, especially internationally, one of the greatest Megadeth records that we made — 'cause it feels like a group; it feels like a team."

"The more fair you can be on all of it, the better, at least in the beginning," the bassist added. "And then, as often happens, one or two people try to grab the rest of it and take it for themselves and then bands fall apart.

"So, yeah, it's not often you see a group - Rush is one of the very few where they somehow had a friendship in there and they made it work financially, they made it work creatively.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Ellefson insisted that there is “nothing slanderous” about Dave Mustaine in the upcoming documentary about Menza’s years in Megadeth.

“I think it's very fair and I went to great lengths to make sure that Dave (Mustaine) is viewed very fairly and he's held in high esteem,” Ellefson said. “There's absolutely nothing slanderous toward Dave (Mustaine) at all in it. I made sure of that because you know Dave was my partner during that time and I think it's fair. Dave (Mustaine) and I always had a saying you know you praise in public you criticise in private.”

The Menza film, This Was My Life: Nick Menza’s Metal Memories with Megadeth and Beyond is set for release for this spring.

What will be your Black Friday soundtrack?

As millions of people all around the world search for bargains today, there are two songs perfect for the occasion.

One is by smart-arsed sophisticates Steely Dan, the other by speed-metal degenerates Megadeth. Both are titled Black Friday.

So which is best suited for your own listening pleasure?

The contenders

Megadeth

Apparently inspired by their ex-drummer Dijon Carruthers’ dalliances in the occult, Megadeth’s Black Friday nonetheless perfectly evokes the feeling of fighting off your fellow shoppers in pursuit of discount merchandise. “I’m out to destroy you and I will cut you down, cut you down,” howls Dave Mustaine, presumably having just spotted a cheap TV.

Chris Poland shreds with the stampeding force of a hundred parents chasing the last PlayStation, and Mustaine plays his guitar with the urgency of someone who knows that prices this good cannot last.

Steely Dan

At a mere 131bpm, Steely Dan’s Black Friday is sedate by comparison with Megadeth’s 354bpm double-time assault. Even their references to businessmen diving “from the fourteenth floor” look positively jolly next to Mustaine’s homicidal rampage.

Likewise, Walter Becker’s soloing is adequate but in no way conjures the feeling of trampling fellow bargain-hunters underfoot. Still, you have to admire the chutzpah of a man who records alongside a slew of top-flight session guitarists, Larry Carlton and Rick Derringer among them, and decides to take lead guitar duties himself.

The solos

The undeniable winner here is the minor pentatonic scale, proving its versatility by forming the backbone of solos in both songs. All three guitarists add flavour with occasional chromatic notes. The main riffs to both tracks have a triplet feel too, so maybe there is potential here for the world’s most unlikely mash-up.

In Steely Dan, Walter Becker augments his flowing triplets and sly bends with occasional jazzy forays, while Megadeth’s Mustaine and Poland play really—and I cannot stress this enough—really fast.

Of course, fast playing is not necessarily good playing, as people who can’t play fast are constantly reminding us, but in Chris Poland’s case it is. His solo at the five minute mark is a thrashing triumph. He uses the classic strategy of starting low and slow with wild, sustained string bends before racing his way up the neck in a tumultuous bout of alternate picking.

At these speeds it can be difficult to give the listener anything to latch on to, but Poland’s infectious repeating licks mean the solo has moments both memorable and maniacal.

If you’re going to push Larry Carlton out of the recording chair, you’d better have some chops. Walter Becker… did it anyway. He mishits string bends at 1:45 and again at 1:57, but he also has some tasty moments.

The repeated descending slides at 1:50 are pleasingly dirty, and he follows them up with a little three-note figure that he transposes upwards to create tension. He’d clearly been paying attention when Larry was recording.

The winner

So which should you listen to this Black Friday? Steely Dan is the intellectual choice, and Megadeth the visceral one. Choose the Dan if you plan on smugly sitting at home, getting the best deals from tracking software you coded yourself. Pick Megadeth if you’re ready to get down to the mall and punch someone’s grandmother in the race to the counter.

Dave Mustaine will soon be out of pocket to the tune of over £1 million after it emerged that the Megadeth leader must pay his former manager in a new legal settlement.

According to a report in Rolling Stone, Mustaine must pay Cory Brennan and his management company 5B $1.4 million (£1.2 million) after Mustaine “unexpectedly and unceremoniously terminated (their contract), stating no reason for the termination.”

Brennan and 5B complained that Mustaine had wanted his own son to manage the band and that he did not pay them for several commissions on over 40 tour dates and merchandise. “The letter also wrongly asserted that, from its date forward, (5B) would have no right to collect any commissions in connection with the products released and contracts entered into or substantially negotiated before the termination,” the complaint said.

Howard King, an attorney for 5B wasted no opportunity to stick the knife in, telling Rolling Stone: “Dave Mustaine, who has a known history of firing advisors, terminated 5B Artist Management after nine years of their having resurrected his failing career.”

“Ignoring the success 5B had helped Dave achieve, including a campaign to help him win his first Grammy, the release of two hit albums, and the elevation of his touring from small clubs back to arenas and amphitheatres, Dave simply refused to pay commissions owing and forced 5B to file a lawsuit. While displeased at having to sue an artist, 5B is gratified that Dave has now agreed to have judgment entered against him for $1.4m in commissions he will have to pay.”

The guitarist though has already taken out a countersuit against 5B which includes allegations of breach of contract, fiduciary duty and negligence. Amongst the more bizarre parts of his complaint is his allegation that when Megadeth opened for Slipknot on tour, 5B (who also manage Slipknot) declined to move Slipknot’s production so Megadeth’s drum kit wouldn’t be so close to Mustaine, who now claims that he suffers tinnitus now as a result.

According to Mustaine 5B “continued to act to (Megadeth’s) detriment, approving donations from merchandise sales to Covid relief organisations without Mustaine’s knowledge or approval,” and that 5B reportedly failed to gain Mustaine’s royalties from Metallica, whom he performed with before forming Megadeth in 1983.

As ever, the big winners in all this legal to-ing and fro-ing will be the lawyers themselves. But for the moment, the big loser – financially, at least - is Mustaine.

Dave Mustaine has warned guitarists against buying pedals before they have learned their instrument because doing so will encourage them to “cheat” and use effects to sound better than they really are.

Speaking to Guitarist magazine, the Megadeth frontman was discussing his life in gear, admitting that it was only since he hooked up with Gibson for a range of signature guitars that he started thinking about collecting instruments. Most of the time the companies sent the instruments to him, and that was that.

Asked for his best gear buying tip, Mustaine replied with a warning – a walk before you can run type of response that’s especially relevant in this, the golden age of the pedalboard, where there are myriad options for tone-sweetening, and, in Mustaine’s opinion, finding something that makes you sound better than you are. 

His advice? Don’t bother until you have put some serious hours of practice in.

“Learn how to play,” he said. “Learn how to play because if you can’t play, you’ll find a pedal and you’ll cheat. You’ll find a pedal that makes you sound really good and you won’t be really good; you’ll be living a lie.”

Mustaine did not say which kinds of effects pedals he had in mind but there are some notable suspects that can obscure our lack of abilities on guitar. 

Those of us weened on metal guitar have all been guilty at one time or another of using too much gain, which can hide a multitude of sins when it comes to picking accuracy and playing our parts cleanly and correctly.

Mustaine’s warning rings can true with reverb pedals, which can again pull the veil over sloppiness. Ditto short delays. Mustaine says keeping it dry and practising until you nail it is the path to enlightenment 

“Once you learn how to play really good, you’ll see those pedals as exactly what they are,” he says, “a simple non-moving, analogue device that is a signal processor.”

Mustaine walks the walk as far as his advice goes. He was famously a late adopter of the wah pedal, only stepping on it for the first time in 2019 when he was playing the Experience Hendrix Tour alongside Dweezil Zappa, Zakk Wylde, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson. 

Back then Mustaine told MusicRadar that he thought it “came out okay”, with Zappa and Johnson helping him with his rig, and Wylde – a heavy user of the wah pedal – putting his mind at ease over his approach.

“This is going to sound funny, but I don’t know if I’m more comfortable using my left foot or right foot!” said Mustaine. “I’ve gotten really close to Zakk Wylde, I love that guy… he’s such an imposing figure but once you get to know him, he’s such a nice guy. 

“We were joking around about using wah-wahs; some other people don’t use them properly or overuse it, so I wanted to make sure I hit the right spots and subtly.  I asked him which foot he preferred and he said [thick New Jersey accent], ‘Ah, Father Dave, it doesn’t f**kin’ matter!’ I tried to remember that during the show and apply that sense of ease to how I used the wah.”

Hey, the wah is another pedal that you could add to Mustaine’s cheat sheet. Just don’t wait decades before trying one. And if in doubt, here are Dave Mustaine's Top 5 tips for guitarists.

A new Megadeth album could be arriving sooner than we think. According to James LoMenzo anyway.

In an interview with Portuguese site Metal Global, the bassist, who returned to the fold to replace co-founder Dave Ellefson in 2022, said “we’re actively working on music right now.”

“We’re talking with Dave (Mustaine, Megadeth’s singer/guitarist) every day. Dave really wants to do another record and just get something fresh out there.”

LoMenzo didn’t appear on the band’s last record, 2022’s The Sick, The Dying...And The Dead! That album had nothing if not a troubled birth. It took over two years to complete, with recording complicated not only by Mustaine’s throat cancer diagnosis, but by Ellefson’s dismissal in 2021 over allegations of sexual misconduct. His bass parts had to be removed from the album and re-recorded by Testament bassist Steve Di Georgio. Following this LoMenzo rejoined the band in 2022, just before the album’s release.

In the Metal Global interview LoMenzo spoke about how he was itching to play on that record: “When I had just joined the band, they just finished recording it. I begged, I pleaded, I said, 'I know, I know, I know, but could I please play bass on this?’ ’Cause there’s a few things I had heard were so great.

“And they were, like, ‘We’ve been doing this for two years. We just have to get on the road. It’s done.’ I was, like, ‘All right.’

“But Steve Di Giorgio did an amazing job. I really love the way he played on this. And I enjoy playing his style.”

Whenever the new album emerges it’s a fair bet it’ll stick closely to the thrash template Megadeth and Mustaine played such a huge part in establishing all those years ago. In a recent interview with Rock Hard Greece, the 62-year-old reiterated his commitment to the genre, saying: “If we (Megadeth) started doing music that wasn’t heavy and it wasn’t thrash, I would probably not want to do it any more”

“Thrash metal music is one of those things that makes you feel alive inside... I can’t remember anything that I’ve ever experienced that makes me feel as good as thrash metal - not a drug, not a drink, not a person, not a thing,”

The band finish up the last dates of their European tour in France, Spain and Portugal this week, before embarking on an extensive US tour in August and September. For more details go to the band’s website.

Dave Mustaine has launched his own signature brand of electric guitar strings and straps in association with Gibson.

The Megadeth mainman has worked closely with Gibson to come up with the strings, which, its says here, deliver “the powerful, heavy sound and exceptional playing performance that he requires”. 

The Dave Mustaine Signature String Set is made of nickel-plated steel in the US and is, apparently, the “loudest, best performing” strings he’s ever used. They also feature a reinforced carbon core for exceptional tone, sustain, and durability, and sport alternating black and green ball ends that are useful for easy identification when restringing. And they’re available in all of Mustaine’s preferred gauges - .010, 013, .017, .030, .042 and .052.

Meanwhile, the strap has been especially created for Mustaine’s Gibson, Epiphone and Kramer guitars. It’s a beautiful looking thing too, made of elegant full-grain black leather, embossed with Mustaine’s trademark ‘silhouette’ logo and is adjustable from 44” to 65”. No prices for either the strap or strings have been mentioned as yet by Gibson.

The strings and strap are just the latest items to roll off the Mustaine/ Gibson production line. Since teaming up three years ago the partnership has come up with a whole range of signature guitars, mostly the iconic Flying Vs that the guitarist has always loved. Back in 2021 Mustaine declared that “I feel I am finally at home with Gibson and I am proud of what we’re building together.”

Currently on tour in Europe, Megadeth have an extensive North American jaunt lined up for later this summer. Their 33 date Destroy All Enemies Tour kicks off in Rogers, Arizona on August 2 and trails through most major US cities before winding up in Nashville on September 28.

Their most recent album, The Sick, The Dying...And The Dead! came out in autumn 2022. The album, their 16th in all, was beset by a number of delays, with Mustaine battling throat cancer, the dismissal of long-serving bassist David Elefson over allegations of sexual misconduct and, of course, Covid. Nevertheless, it went Top 5 in both Britain and the US.

For more information on the entire Dave Mustaine/Gibson range go to www.gibson.com. The 62 year old metal icon can also be heard talking about his career and relationship with Gibson here.

The front-to-back brilliance of Megadeth's 1990 classic Rust In Rust In Peace, was an unexpected artistic miracle.

Given the wreckage arising from the band’s late-80s drug issues, you’d have had more chance of throwing a stick of charcoal to a gorilla and getting a scale drawing of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man in return than Megadeth writing and recording a career-defining album. Megadeth were a shambles. 

With trusted lieutenant, bassist and (back then) Owen Wilson look-alike Dave 'Junior' Ellefson by his side, guitarist and vocalist Dave Mustaine directed operations, but the pair of them had long-standing issues with cocaine, heroin and God knows what else that had seen Megadeth bail on a seven-date stadium tour with Iron Maiden.  But everything that made Megadeth so exciting – Mustaine’s sneering polemic, hyperkinetic riffs etc – was about to coalesce in Rust In Peace, and it started with a changing of the guard.

Drummer Chuck Behler was on his way out as the touring cycle for So Far, So Good, So What neared conclusion. His tech, Nick Menza, had already filled in during soundcheck when Behler was AWOL. To paraphrase Gary Busey in Point Break, Menza was young, dumb and, er, full of ambition. Megadeth needed somebody like Menza, a dude whose excesses were restricted to piss and vinegar – and unshakable self-confidence. They needed a lead guitarist, too. Former guitarist Chris Poland had demoed four tracks for Rust In Peace but there was no chance of him rejoining. Then, from nowhere, enter Marty Friedman.

“He was wearing vile shoes. The knees were ripped out of his pants,” Mustaine told US extreme music mag Decibel. Mustaine might not have cared for Friedman’s appearance and thought his name wasn’t metal enough, but he knew that he had found a player. Friedman’s name was already recognised in the pantheon of shred guitar after partnering Jason Becker in Cacophony. “I went back into the room and told him he got the gig, but he had to get his hair fixed and get some new clothes so that he didn’t look like a bum. He was an incredible musician. Very willing to do what it took. When he came into the studio – I had been sober – I felt I had lost grasp of my trade... I couldn’t believe he was that good.”

The contrast in styles between the exotic Friedman and the feral pentatonics of Mustaine was the most exciting dynamic in Megadeth’s Rust In Peace. Mustaine was adamant that rhythm parts were doubled, but Friedman let loose for the solos. Both players used Jacksons during the recording. Mustaine used a King V with a Kahler bridge, and his classic Seymour Duncan humbucker combo of a Jazz in the neck and SH-4 JB in the bridge. Friedman used the Jackson Kelly, it too fixed with a Kahler fixed bridge, with a single SH-4 in the bridge position. Mustaine used his Marshalls. Friedman used a variety of amps, most notably a Bogner Triple Giant.

Mustaine’s seemingly bottomless well of ambition, dug out from his perceived slights at his ejection from Metallica, could have been one of the reasons that he hired producer Mike Clink. Sure, Clink had worked with Michael Schenker and UFO, one of Mustaine’s heroes, but it was his success with Appetite For Destruction that sealed the deal. As it transpired, Clink left when Axl Rose came calling again, and Micajah Ryan finished the album.

Megadeth had put together a compendium of thrash metal jams that changed the game. And it was looked at as a game, a competition, an arms race between themselves, Slayer, Anthrax and Metallica. It seems preposterous, but the one-upmanship delivered an album with such knucklebenders as Tornado Of Souls, Five Magics, and the extraterrestrial panic of Hangar 18. 

Conceptually, the track was sketched out by Menza, a perma-stoned alien nut – Friedman told Decibel “I thought he was out of his mind, rambling on about aliens and government conspiracies” – but Mustaine had written the music for Hangar 18 years before Megadeth were formed.

“I wrote a lot of songs when I was really young,” Mustaine told Total Guitar magazine's Ed Mitchell in 2010. “Rust In Peace... Polaris was written before I was in my first band, Panic. So was Mechanix. Hangar 18 was just another one of those songs, although it was actually under a different title. These were songs that I took with me to that first band – didn’t get a chance to get them out in my second band [Metallica] – but my third one [Megadeth] I did.”

The intro chord progression, familiar to anyone who can play the haunting clean part to Metallica’s The Call Of Ktulu [on which Mustaine is credited as a co-writer], sets the tension bar high; Hangar 18 might have been a fantasy skit on Roswell, Area 51 and various pop-culture alien tales, but it is also perhaps the purest expression of the tension within Megadeth. Not between each other, per se, but the tension and compulsion to create a record that would usurp anything their peers could come up with.

“You can almost hear The Beatles influence and the Led Zeppelin influence at the front of the song,” Mustaine told Total Guitar. “Then in the middle of the break when we go to the first extended solo section, it’s a very Spanish kind of part. Then the end solo, when the guitar duel takes over, it’s no holds barred, get the fuck out of the way!” 

Good luck with that part. Mustaine should consider himself fortunate; he only had to compete with Friedman. To master Hangar 18 on guitar you’ve got to master Friedman and Mustaine.

• Dave Mustaine's top 5 tips for guitarists

Marty Friedman’s name will forever be synonymous with his box-office lead playing during Megadeth’s golden era, redefining what was possible with metal guitar with his spectacular solos on tracks such as Tornado Of Souls and Hangar 18. But Friedman has admitted that he has had it with the solo, at least the traditional format of the solo, and says he hopes it “dies a slow and painful death”.

Speaking with Guitar World, Friedman he wished a pox upon the eight bars of hot licks that we have come to expect of the guitar solo in rock and metal, declaring it out of date, unimaginative, and worst of all it boring. The audience might be listening, but unless they're a beginner player who will naturally be impressed by technical wizardry, they’re not feeling anything.

“I hope the traditional guitar solo dies a slow and painful death,” he said. “Guitar solos need to be inventive. They need something to keep listeners involved, especially those who are not learning to play and only listen. Because when you're learning to play, you tend to be impressed with anything you can’t do, right? And if you’re young and just catching the guitar bug, that excitement can be magical. It’s like, ‘How do they do that!?’ That element is awesome... but it means less than zero in everyone else’s eyes”

Friedman’s comments differentiating between the section of the audience who are players or aspiring players, and general admission music fans, echoes sentiments made by Kirk Hammett to Total Guitar, who argued that those who don’t play the instrument – i.e. the overwhelming majority of the audience – won’t remember your solos (though in our case, they might remember them for all the wrong reasons). 

Not that Hammett was cursing solos into oblivion; he was stressing the importance of the song to do its thing, and without a good song you don’t have anything.

“People are not going to remember a great guitar solo,” said Hammett. “I hate to say it for all your readers out there. They will remember a great melody. They will remember a great song. And I am not talking about musicians. Yeah, musicians will remember a great guitar solo but non-musicians, who are the majority of the fucking listening world, they are not going to remember guitar solos.”

So what can be done to make guitar solos a more memorable experience for the general public? Hammett’s approach on Metallica’s latest studio album, 72 Seasons, was to prize spontaneity over all else, leaning into his Angus Young influences, and classic British rock of the ‘70s, and to react to whatever was going on in the song, and with James Hetfield’s vocals. Friedman says it’s a question of emotion.

“We need guitar music that makes those people feel something,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of guitarists to bring something to solos that will achieve that.”

Thinking like the vocalist can help. That’s how Friedman might approach it, he says, and that gives him an alternative to the “boring old solo”.

“All that other eight-bar and tapping stuff; that’s got to be over,” he said. “There must be something melodically unique that connects us on a higher level. That’s what I’m looking for from guitar today, and I hope it’s what young players are searching for, too.”

Friedman did, however, sound as though he saw enough evidence in a new generation of players that suggested eight bars of flashy licks was on its way out. 

Some of that next generation of players were similarly forthright about solos when they were breaking out, like in 2019 when Tim Henson of Polyphia went one step further and wished guitar music as a thing would “die a painful death”, which is to say he wanted people to “use the guitar as a tool to make music versus, like, ‘I’m going to play guitar music’… Because so much of it is just not good.”

But Friedman might have other cause for finding hope in tomorrow's player. He is presently offering a Truefire masterclass in soloing via the online guitar lessons platform. The full program “immerses guitarists in a revolutionary learning experience focused intensely on cultivating their unique originality and own artistic identity”. It is priced $99.99, and you can sign up now at Truefire.

You can read the full interview with Marty Friedman in the March issue of Guitar World, which you can find at Magazines Direct.

• 4 tricks to improve your guitar solos

Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that floated your boat this year.

Best of 2023: Rust In Peace is considered by many fans to be Megadeth’s finest hour, and for good reason. Featuring main man Dave Mustaine on peak form as a player and songwriter, bolstered by the debut of virtuoso guitarist Marty Friedman, the 1990 album is a landmark for metal guitar – it’s technical, melodic and aggressive, both from a rhythm and lead perspective. While songs Holy Wars… The Punishment Due and Hangar 18 are rightly the first big guns that spring to mind from the band’s fourth album, also notable is a live favourite with the finest solo on the whole record: Tornado Of Souls.

Back in 2011, Guitarist magazine held an online poll to discover what guitar fans consider to be the greatest solos of all time; Tornado Of Souls was placed at number 10 and the only representative of the metal genre to make the top 20.  On reflection, the performance was probably Friedman’s greatest creative contribution to the band, which he quit rather acrimoniously in 2000 but reunited with for a few special guest live appearances with in 2023.

It may be an example of a lead Mustaine didn’t have a fretting hand in, but there’s still plenty of his influence to be celebrated in the song. The unusual use of aggressive, urgent riff work throughout and muted, natural harmonics for the intro, for example, as well as Maiden-style twin harmonies in the midsection. The subject matter is also very much from Mustaine.

On Rust In Peace themes of conflict (Holy Wars…, Take No Prisoners, Rust In Peace… Polaris), UFO conspiracy (Hangar 18) and ghosts (Lucretia) loom. But Tornado Of Souls is very much a personal song. Though some of its lyrics seem metaphorical, Mustaine has said the track is about the breakdown of the dysfunctional relationship with his then-fiancée, Diana, after being engaged for six years.

“Tornado Of Souls became my way of dealing with the end of that relationship,” explained Mustaine in last year’s A Life In Metal autobiography. “Really, that’s all it was, an explanation of how I was feeling at the time. Lyrical references aside, it was not a song about murder or death. It was about the decay that comes with being stuck in a bad relationship.”

Friedman’s solo eclipses the personal drama. It’s a tour de force of technique and highly creative phrasing in the natural B minor and B dorian scales. It has smooth legato, bends, tasty arpeggios with economy and sweep-picking used in an unpredictable but melodic way. Mustaine clearly knew what he was doing when he hired Marty.

In shredder circles, the 28-year-old Friedman’s name was already highly regarded when he replaced Jeff Young in Megadeth. In his late teens, the guitarist developed his own take on neoclassical playing, and by 1986 he’d joined with a like-minded virtuoso called Jason Becker in instrumental shred band Cacophony. After two albums together (Friedman’s first solo album Dragon’s Kiss was also released in 1988), the band split up when Becker joined David Lee Roth’s outfit and Friedman then got the call to audition for Megadeth.

Mustaine’s first impressions weren’t promising: “I picked up the record [Dragon’s Kiss], tried not to laugh,” Mustaine recalled in A Life In Metal. “On the cover, Marty wore some sort of shimmering leather jacket (or jumpsuit; it was hard to tell) open to the waist. His hair had been styled into long, flowing, two-tone curls.”

Yet the Megadeth leader soon changed his tune: “Less than two minutes into the first track I was sold. More than that actually. I was shocked. This guy wants to join us?” Marty went on to ace his audition. The first Megadeth album he played on, Rust In Peace, marked a new chapter for the band, featuring the recorded debut of not just Friedman but also drummer Nick Menza.

“By just about every conceivable standard, Rust In Peace was a watershed event for Megadeth,” Mustaine reflected in A Life In Metal. “Megadeth was back to being a powerhouse four-piece band, one that had the potential to surpass even the line-up that had produced our first two records. We went into the studio armed with a bunch of great songs and a commitment to playing fierce and sober, like the greatest thrash metal band on the planet.” They sound like it on Tornado Of Souls.

Never a man to hand out superlatives to others without well-earned reason, Mustaine was definitely impressed with his new guitarist’s lead performance on the album.

“By the time we went into the studio with Marty, the album was already completely written,” Mustaine told Guitar World in 2010. “And one thing that most people don’t realise is that on every Megadeth record, I play the majority of the rhythm parts, with only a little embellishment from the other guitarist. So all Marty had to do was put the solos on the top of everything, and he did a great job.”

Of all those solos, Tornado Of Souls was the one Megadeth’s chief was most taken with. As Friedman recalled on his website: “When I finished the solo to this one, Mustaine came into the studio, listened to it once, turned around and, without saying a word, shook my hand. It was at that moment that I felt like I was truly the guitarist for this band.”

• Dave Mustaine interview: “I suck at a lot of things, like walking across a tightrope, but I definitely don’t suck at guitar!”

It looks like the end of an era for Megadeth as Kiko Loureiro has announced an “extended leave of absence” from the band after nine years of service, with Dave Mustaine paying tribute to his outgoing electric guitar maverick and announcing his replacement.

Loureiro had stepped down from touring duties in September owing to family reasons, with Finnish metal guitar ace Teemu Mäntysaari standing in for Megadeth’s autumn dates. 

But the situation has not changed, and with the thrash institution scheduling an epic run of dates in 2024, Loureiro has confirmed that he won’t be joining them, with Mustaine officially ordaining Mäntysaari as his six-string lieutenant.

“I would like to thank Kiko for his dedication and hard work these past nine years, helping us to achieve a Grammy on Dystopia and the additional awards we have received on this latest record, The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!” wrote Mustaine in a statement posted to the official Megadeth website. “I could not have done this without Kiko Loureiro.”

Loureiro enjoyed some historic moments as Megadeth’s lead guitarist, playing on two studio albums, Dystopia (2016) and The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead (2022). Earlier this year he got the opportunity to play with his good friend and former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman onstage as he joined Mustaine and co in Japan and at Wacken Open Air.

To see Megadeth 2023 augmented with Friedman and performing Rust In Peace and Countdown To Extinction-era classics such as Tornado Of Souls was bucket list material for any Megadeth fan, not least Loureiro, who always saw himself as a fan playing in the band.

“My nine years with Megadeth have been an unbelievable journey, filled with countless ‘pinch me’ moments,” wrote Loureiro on Instagram. “Unforgettable tours, a Grammy award for Dystopia, a Grammy nomination and various accolades for The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead are just a few of the highlights. It is hard to put into words the magnitude of these experiences.”

“I am sure any heavy metal fan can appreciate how incredible it is to play and create music in a band you grew up listening to, and to share a stage with a guitar legend like Dave Mustaine, along with phenomenal musicians like James LoMenzo [bass guitar] and Dirk Verbeuren [drums], not to mention our incredible crew.”

The band has enjoyed the services of some of metal guitar’s elite but many would argue that Loureiro was the best of them. Perhaps even Mustaine himself, who was fulsome in his praise for Loureiro and wished him the best for the future.

Mustaine said that there had been lots of discussions over Loureiro’s future and said he respected the outgoing guitarist’s decision. It was Mustaine who initially advised Loureiro in September 2023 to sit out the tour and put his family first. 

“Kiko is a top-notch professional, a maestro – and he did not want to hurt me or Megadeth,” wrote Mustaine. “We came up with a solution to find a fill-in for him during that time and that’s when he presented and trained Teem Mäntysaari to take over for us.”

Mäntysaari, who also plays in the symphonic melodic death metal band Wintersun, was initially a substitute but his performances made him an easy choice to carry on in the role. There is something fitting in Loureiro identifying his replacement.

That Loureiro’s departure has been announced as an “extended leave of absence” suggests that the door is not closed to him potentially returning at some point in the future. But right now the spot is Mäntysaari’s – a player Mustaine says reminds him a lot of Marty Friedman.

“It’s uncanny because he plays a lot like Marty,” he told Wes Styles, in an interview you can hear above. “And it is so exciting. At certain times I just close my ideas during a set and hear these songs played – whether it is Kiko in the past or Teemu now – they just sound really magic because these guys have really learned the songs. 

“They’re not just going out there and banging their guitar around. They actually learned the solos from some of the other virtuosos that I have played with over my career.”

You can see what Mustaine means below, with fan-shot footage capturing some proof, if needed, that Mäntysaari has got a handle on all this. Tornado Of Souls? No problem. And so it continues, Megadeth rolls on with another virtuoso playing lead...

Marty Friedman was a guest on the Monsters, Madness And Magic podcast this week, discussing his journey as a guitar player, and he had revealed that he had just finished an video for the online guitar lessons platform TrueFire that would help guitar students learn how to be an artist. 

He also had some advice for young players – and some interesting stories from his time as a student. Asked by the host Justin Young, if he had any particularly salient bits of advice from his guitar teacher growing up, the former Megadeth guitarist did not disappoint, revealing that his one teacher – a good teacher all things considered – did have have his idiosyncrasies. 

Namely an aversion to jewellery, and a particularly concerning idea of what constituted reward for a productive practice session. 

“He gave me some funky advice that I still remember,” says Friedman. “I came to my lesson wearing a ring. My teacher once said, ‘What the fuck are you wearing a ring for? That looks like you’ve just been raiding your mother’s jewellery box.’ I never forgot that, and because of that I never wore rings when I played. 

“You know why? Because he was right. I took it out of my mom’s jewellery box. I saw all these rock musicians with rings and shit and thought, ‘Wow! I’m going to show up to my lesson with a ring.’ I never forgot that, never wore rings after that.”

Maybe there’s a practical reason behind that. Noise is hard enough to mute when playing high-volume electric guitar as it is without metal jewellery catching on the string. There was nothing practical about what followed.

“Another thing he said, which thankfully I didn’t take this advice, [was] ‘Every time you complete an exercise properly, reward yourself with a bong hit.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s a great idea!’ I did it for a while. I got a lot done but you don’t remember but you got done.”

Friedman’s advice for anyone looking for guitar lessons is to remember that the teacher doesn’t know everything. Find someone who will teach you want you want to learn, or at least what you need to learn – and make the most of the abundant online and printed resources for learning.

“The student has to remember that that teacher is not the be all and end all, and there are a lot of other places to get information, whether it be right or wrong, easy or hard or whatever,” says Friedman. “The teacher is just showing you whatever he’s got to show you to get through the half-hour or hour while letting you think that he knows everything. And I kind of figured that out.”

Friedman’s teacher, he of the bong hits and the ring aversion, wouldn’t teach him what he wanted to learn. He didn’t understand why his teacher couldn’t teach him the Ramones. 

He had to look elsewhere to seek advice, and it’s a habit that he has continued to this day. If you see someone play something you like, ask them how to play it.

“Even one phrase appealed to me I’d be like, ‘Dude, show me that. How do you do that?’ And I still do that now,” he says. “I’m that asshole who asks you to show him something. I still do it. I am fortunate I get to play with all these wonderful players, and I am the guy who stands over them. ‘You know that thing you played in the first intro of that song? Can you show me that? I’ve never seen that done before.’ Most times they are happy to show it to you.”

And this all goes back to what Friedman will be covering in his TrueFire video lesson; how to be an artist, and how to think develop a musical identity as opposed to learning whatever techniques are in fashion at the time. 

Friedman says you don’t need a teacher for that. The material is out there. But the question he is asking is what are you going to do with all those techniques, many of which everyone else also knows, too. 

“What I’m teaching in this video series is how to learn how to be an artist, and make creative decisions on the fly, intentionally and subliminally, and that’s the only way to have an identity as an artist,” he says. “Anyone can learn any techniques, practise them and perfect them, and perform anything that has already been done in music. But just say you have all the ability you ever wanted, then what? 

“What are you gonna do? You really have to decide. when are you going to be yourself? Who are you as an artist? What is your absolute musical taste? What do you want people to hear when they hear your name?”

Megadeth and Marty Friedman made a little bit of metal guitar history as the thrash kingpins former lead guitarist joined the band onstage at Wacken Open Air, Germany, this weekend for a two-song cameo, tearing through Holy Wars… The Punishment Due and Tornado Of Souls.

Early in the year, Friedman was back onstage with Megadeth, joining them for three tracks during their livestreamed performance at Tokyo’s legendary Budokan. This Wacken performance was the first time he had played with the band in Europe in over 20 years. 

While the existence of pro-shot on Friedman’s Instagram page suggests we might see some sort of official DVD/Blu-Ray release in the future, fan-shot footage has emerged on YouTube capturing what was a momentous occasion, and something to lift the spirits of the crowd who had to endure treacherous conditions underfoot. 

Heavy rain had turned the site to a bog, with the festival organisers taking the unprecedented measure of stopping admissions, with EuroNews reporting that the sell-out crowd was reduced from 85,000 to 50,000. 

Those who were there bore witness to Megadeth playing with three guitarists, with Dave Mustaine and lead guitarist Kiko Loureiro sharing rhythm duties while Friedman took lead, and he didn’t put a note out of place as he performed Tornado Of Souls, which has a solo that is an all-timer on the pantheon, and one that has become a rite of passage for many a shredder in training. 

In a March interview with Guitar World, Friedman admitted that he would probably have approached the solo differently if he was doing it all again, but out of respect for the fans who have waited a long time to hear him play it again, he was going to perform it as it was recorded back in 1990.

“If there was any challenge at all, I guess it would be playing the solos the way the fans remember them, which is something I wanted to do,” said Friedman. “My playing has evolved so much since those songs came out, and there are so many nuances I would naturally do differently now. 

“I had to resist the urge to play it like I would in 2023 and stick to the original way. For example, in a couple of those songs, I entered the solo on the downbeat, with the first note being the root of the chord. I would definitely avoid both of those things now, but apparently, I was fine with it back then.”

• Kiko Loureiro reveals the biggest challenge of playing guitar in Megadeth and being a southpaw playing right-handed

Friedman’s performance inevitably would lead to debates over which electric guitar partnership has served Megadeth best. 

For some, the state-of-the-art thrash of Rust In Peace and the box-office metal of Countdown To Extinction would make a persuasive case for Friedman. 

Others will point to the creative kinship between Mustaine and Loureiro as the high-water mark. Maybe the best version of the band is to have Friedman and Loureiro – or at least to roll it out for special occasions.

Fan-shot footage has emerged of a truly historic moment for metal guitar when former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman rejoined Dave Mustaine and co for one night only in Tokyo. 

Despite leaving the band back in 1999, Friedman effortlessly rolled back the years, with Megadeth’s former shredder-in-chief tearing through a trio of classic tracks.

The simple electric guitar arithmetic of Mustaine, Friedman and current Megadeth lead guitarist Kiko Loureiro is enough to blow the minds of anyone whose appreciation of metal has been in any way calibrated by the studio recordings of Big Four alumni Megadeth.

After all this time, Friedman back onstage with Megadeth at Tokyo’s legendary Budokan did not disappoint, even if the lineup only played three songs together. 

Megadeth had already played a few tracks from Friedman’s time with the band before he joined in on the fun. After the likes of Rust In Piece-era classic Hangar 18, Angry Again from the Last Action Hero soundtrack, and Sweating Bullets peppered a set drawing widely from the catalogue, Friedman stepped onstage for the first performance of Countdown To Extinction in nearly a decade. 

Ordinarily, you might find Friedman onstage with his Jackson MF-1 signature guitar but here he left the single-cut at home in favour of a Jackson Kelly, the Floyd-equipped EX-style he favoured in Megadeth’s heyday at the dawn of the ‘90s.

Megadeth and Friedman then barrelled through a triumphant Tornado Of Souls, before finishing up with the band’s calling card, Symphony Of Destruction. 

This was a long-rumoured performance, confirmed by Megadeth and Friedman only two weeks before the performance, which took place on Saturday 27 February and was livestreamed for an international audience.

“It has been a really long time since I have been on a stage with Dave Mustaine, making music, and we have both taken severely different paths in our lives since then,” Friedman said on Instagram. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I am so extremely proud of the part that I have played in Megadeth’s history, Megadeth’s legacy, and I am also very, very proud of the achievements that the band has had in my absence. But right now, at this moment, I just feel immense joy and serious adrenaline to look forward to playing together at this very, very cool place.” 

When the news broke, Dave Mustaine described it as being like “a gigantic birthday and Christmas present”, telling Rolling Stone that Friedman and Loureiro were “geniuses”, and looking back on the moment when Friedman joined the band, he confessed that, initially he wasn’t so sure that Friedman had what it took.

“I know this sounds really stupid,” said Mustaine. “I thought he was like a glam guy or a rock guy; I didn’t think he was a metal guy. So one day, I was in our manager’s office, and we put the CD in and I went, ‘This guy wants to play with us? Fuck, call him up.’ And that was the beginning of a really magic period in heavy metal music.”

Friedman’s time in Megadeth could not have started any better, recording stone-cold thrash classic Rust In Peace in 1990, following it with the pristine aggro and box-office production of Countdown To Extinction. Youthanasia also scored Megadeth some hits, with Friedman going on to record Cryptic Writings in 1997 and Risk in 1999. 

After management persuaded Mustaine to rerecord one of Friedman’s leads on Risk’s Breadline, it was time to move on. Friedman moved to Japan soon after and has kept himself busy with his solo work, and TV appearances. He even played on Loureiro’s 2020 solo album, Open Source, lending his ridiculous chops to Imminent Threat.

Maybe one day Friedman’s Megadeth return will see a DVD/Blu-ray release for posterity. In the meantime, you can watch the full set, plus extras, on demand via Dreamstage. It’s £14 a ticket, and the on-demand stream closes at 7.30am UK time on Thursday 2 March.

It’s official. Marty Friedman will rejoin Megadeth for a one-night show at Tokyo’s legendary Budokan, reuniting one of the most electric partnerships in metal guitar after some 23 years apart.

After many rumours, and some non-denial denials, Friedman, who played with Megadeth between 1990 and 1999, will join current lead guitarist Kiko Loureiro onstage at the Budokan on 27 February, a performance that will be available for livestream and on demand.

Dave Mustaine confirmed the news to Rolling Stone, describing the event as a being like a “gigantic birthday and Christmas present”. 

Mustaine revealed that there had been meetings between various representatives in an attempt to put together a reunion of the band’s Rust In Peace era lineup, with Mustaine joined by Friedman on guitar, Nick Menza on drums and David Ellefson on bass guitar. But Nick Menza’s death in 2016 put paid to that. With Ellefson now persona non grata following his Megadeth ouster in 2021, this is as good as it is going to get.

“When Marty said, ‘Hey, I can play at this gig,’ I thought, ‘This is so magnificent,’” said Mustaine. “It’s gonna be so much fun to get Kiko and Marty together, because they’re both geniuses on guitar. So this is like a gigantic birthday and Christmas present for me.”

How the Mustaine/Loureiro/Friedman dynamic will work onstage remains to be seen but it augurs well for an electric guitar spectacular. On one hand you have Mustaine’s animalistic leads and military precision rhythm, then on the other Loureiro and Friedman offer something more exotic and unpredictable.

Many virtuoso lead guitar players have came and went since Friedman left the band, but Loureiro is the one whose style aligns with the flamboyant and unpredictable note choices of Friedman. Perhaps it’ll be a game of paper, scissors, stone to decide who takes leads. Either way Friedman is pumped at the prospect.

“It has been a really long time since I have been on a stage with Dave Mustaine, making music, and we have both taken severely different paths in our lives since then,” Friedman said in an Instagram video. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I am so extremely proud of the part that I have played in Megadeth’s history, Megadeth’s legacy, and I am also very, very proud of the achievements that the band has had in my absence. 

“But right now, at this moment, I just feel immense joy and serious adrenaline to look forward to playing together at this very, very cool place.” 

Friedman recorded five studio albums with Megadeth, making his debut on the seminal Rust In Peace, which for many thrash fans a high-water mark for the band. Tracks such as Holy Wars… The Punishment Due, Tornado Of Souls and Hangar 18 were the dictionary definition of state-of-the-art thrash metal, the genre’s technical apogee. Countdown To Extinction followed, as did success. 

Mustaine might always have conducted business as though he were in Metallica’s shadow, looking to the Black Album’s transformative unit-shifting as evidence, but perhaps this obscured the fact that with Megadeth were a pretty big deal in their own right. The early ‘90s were good to them.

In Symphony Of Destruction, they had a hit, an evergreen anthem for the setlist. In tracks such as Architecture Of Aggression, Countdown To Extinction expanded upon the technicality of Rust In Peace, with Friedman’s lead guitar instantly recognisable as he gave Mustaine’s blue-chip grooves the hot sauce they deserved.

Youthanasia followed in 1994, placing a more commercial sheen on the Mustaine/Friedman axis of riffs, then Cryptic Writings in ’97, before Friedman’s final studio album, Risk, in ’99. It was during the recording of Risk when the relationship broke down. Megadeth’s sound had been on the wane.

There was the sense that this was a band caught between its animal instincts to write technically precise thrash jams spiked with Mustaine’s acerbic storytelling, and the search for a hit metal record. That tension, and a bust-up over a Friedman solo spot in the track Breadline that was replaced by Mustaine on a request from management, spelled the end.

Speaking to Guitar World in 2022, Mustaine said it was “definitely not okay” how it all went down. “I said [to management], ‘Well, you have three choices. Either you mute the solo completely, have Marty come back and redo it, or I do it.’And then I said, ‘If I do it, you’d better tell him.’ Well, I redid it and nobody told Marty. 

“So we’re in there listening to the finished album and the solo comes on. It’s my solo, not Marty’s… I looked at him as tears ran down his face and I knew right away that nobody had told him. I knew that was probably going to be the end of Marty Friedman.”

Well, the end so far as Megadeth was concerned. By 2003, Friedman was living in Tokyo and getting busy making music, appearing on TV, and building a prolific career for himself. Just yesterday, he released the video for the Japan Heritage Official Theme Song, a track that celebrates Japanese history and culture that finds him collaborating with the Tokyo Philharmonic.

Friedman has collaborated with Megadeth’s Kiko Loureiro before, with the two virtuoso guitarists joining forces on Imminent Threat – a full-blown shredder from Loureiro’s 2020 solo album, Open Source. Loureiro’s fifth solo album, Open Source featured a number of collaborators, so why not Friedman, and a player who he has always been compared to?

"For the last five years, I've always been compared to Marty Friedman, and Marty Friedman is a great musician – not only a great guitar player but an amazing musician,” Loureiro said. “And I'm a big fan of his solo work and Cacophony and, of course, other Megadeth years, and I had a chance to meet him two times and have great conversations about music and about life with him. I'm so happy to have Marty Friedman. He did, of course, an amazing solo on one of my songs. So, thank you, Marty.”

Megadeth's first studio album since 2016, The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead!is out now via UMe. If you can't make the Budokan you can still watch Friedman's return to the Megadeth lineup on livestream. See Megadeth for tickets.

Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has made the extraordinary claim that it was Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich who was responsible for writing the opening riff to Master Of Puppets. 

The song, which has enjoyed a summer in the limelight thanks to its inclusion in the Stranger Things Season Four finale, is one of the cornerstones of the Metallica setlist, a blockbuster epic and showcase of James Hetfield’s bona-fides as the greatest rhythm players in metal guitar. This Mustaine does not dispute.

But while discussing the contentious issues surrounding the songs he wrote while he was a member of Metallica between 1982 and ’83, which is one of the reasons why Metallica’s No Life ’Til Leather demos never saw a deluxe reissue, Mustaine tells Songfacts that he was in the room when the riff that opens Master Of Puppets was written, and it came from the drummer whom he considers a “great arranger”, if not a great drummer.

“I would love to work with James. I’d like to work with Lars again, too, but I think the real talent in Metallica has always been around the guitar – everybody makes fun of the drums,” Mustaine said. “Lars is a really great song arranger. And believe it or not, I watched him on a piece-of-shit acoustic guitar write the opening riff to Ride The Lightning.

“You know what that was? It was a guy with a guitar that doesn’t know how to play, and he’s going [mimics playing a chromatic run] on the neck. It wasn’t anything really mind-blowing by any means. The way James played it made it mind-blowing.”

• Learn to play the guitar riff to Metallica's classic Master Of Puppets
• Learn 4 surprising Metallica guitar chords from their classic songs

Asked if he realised that what he was humming was Master Of Puppets, not Ride The Lightning, Mustaine protested that he didn’t know the song-titles.

“Yeah, whatever that is. I don't fuckin’ know their song names,” he said. “I don’t listen to them. I totally respect them, I just don’t listen to them. It’s not out of me not liking them. When they come on the radio in my car, a long time ago I would change the channel, but I don’t anymore. It’s just music, and I’ve been able to put all that stuff behind.” 

It is a remarkable bit of history, and Songfacts posted the audio on its Soundcloud for clarity.

That stuff, presumably, is Metallica, and the time he spent there, then being fired, which invariably comes up in every Mustaine interview – often prompted, often not. 

Unquestionably, that is one of metal’s most legendary beefs, recent years have seen relations thaw, and in the same interview, Mustaine reminisced fondly about busting someone’s leg after they went for Ulrich, and getting in between Hetfield and a would-be assailant.

The Big Four tours that mustered Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax under the one banner in 2011 are something that he would like to see happen again, if only to pass the baton onto anotherBig Four. He urged Metallica to “step up” and make it happen, and for Slayer to reunite for the occasion. 

• 5 songs guitarists need to hear by… Megadeth

“I really think it's time for the guys in Metallica to step up, and us do one last round, see if we can get Slayer to come out of retirement and do a ‘Big Four passing of the torch’ to the new Big Four,” Mustaine said. “It would remain to be seen who they are, but I have a feeling it would include some of the players we already mentioned [Arch Enemy, Lamb of God, Trivium].

“I think it would be really cool symbolically if we did something at like, the LA Coliseum, even if it's one show and that’s it. Slayer is from Los Angeles, so it would probably make it more convenient for them to go home at night.” 

Don’t count on it happening, however. Gary Holt and Kerry King have both came out publicly to say Slayer were too soon to call it a day, but there has been no suggestion that there would be a reunion, and besides, Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth are all in business. With the former two are working on new records, Megadeth touring The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, there is no need to be passing torches.

“I personally have been hoping for this for a while, and I keep asking and asking and asking,” said Mustaine. “They’re just not into it. But that’s up to them.”

"Dave is very picky" says Kiko Loureiro about Dave Mustaine – but he means that literally too. In a new interview with Rick Beato he illustrates that downstroke Inc is not Megadeth's business, instead there's all kinds of upstrokes and rhythmic subtleties that have become part of the Mustaine riff sound he needed to immerse himself in when he joined the band in 2015.

"He has heavy hands," Loureiro says of his boss, "and I practiced my entire life to play very lightly and softly." It's part of the Mustaine magic that has made Megadeth such a force in thrash metal.The Brazilian guitarist demonstrates all of this to Beato with his signature Ibanez. And he also reveals he's a left-handed person playing guitar right-handed.

"This [picking] movement with my left hand is way more precise," notes Loureiro."So he has to work harder on his picking technique because he uses his right hand: "I have to practice this, and I knew since the beginning," But there's surely a trade off because he's fretting with his left hand? It's not that simple for Kiko. In fact, he plays down the whole thing. 

"It's only the rock musician that switches," notes the guitarist of playing right-handed as a musician. "You never see someone play a cello [left handed]… so it's only in rock. When you start it doesn't matter. I think the bad part is [I] use a lot of left hand to write, to open doors, to carry stuff so then it might be a problem if you practice a lot, you might have some tendonitis. So I've had some tendonitis throughout my life because of that."

Dave Mustaine and Kiko Loureiro talk Megadeth's Dystopia

Gibson has expanded its Dave Mustaine Collection by adding a pair of Custom Shop high-end electric guitars to the Megadeth founder and frontman’s signature series.

Assuming the familiar EXP silhouette, with the aggressive V shape body complemented by the six-in-line Explorer headstock, these Ebony VOS and Red Amber Burst models offer a more refined take on the Megadeth man's none-more-metal metal guitar. 

There’s gold hardware on the Amber Burst model and nickel on the Ebony VOS, and have a tune-o-matic bridge with a string-through-body chevron tailpiece. 

• Dave Mustaine shows you how to play Megadeth classic Symphony Of Destruction

The Amber Burst model has a solid mahogany body topped with a figured maple cap, the Ebony VOS is mahogany with a plain maple cap. 

Both models have a 25.5” scale, have a hide glued-in Mustaine custom-profile mahogany neck topped with a bound ebony fingerboard seating 24 medium jumbo frets and inlaid with Mustaine’s signature MOP dual-triangle design.

As you would expect, Dave Mustaine’s signature Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor humbucking pickups occupy bridge and neck positions here, and each has their own individual volume control, with a master tone control for fine-tuning your sound.

Gibson and Mustaine have opted for Switchcraft jacks and switches as standard, Grover Mini-Rotomatic tuners, and a black Graph Tech TUSQ. 

As for signature touches, well, besides the Mustaine signature engravings on the pickup covers – and the fact that this, frankly, is not your Granddaddy's Flying V – they are kept to a minimum.

Look on the back of the headstock, however, and you'll find Mustaine in silhouette, legs splayed in full-on thrash power-riffing mode, and Mustaine's signature also graces the truss rod cover. It does not specify on the Gibson site, but often with these signature guitars (i.e. Slash's Les Paul Standard) you will find a blank truss rod cover plate included in the case.

Either way, this is definitely a more guitar than the EXP Rust In Peace model which was launched in the summer and finished in Alien Tech Green.

Both models ship in a custom hard-shell guitar case with a certificate of authenticity, and are sure to become collectors items, with only 75 of each variant being produced. They’re priced $6,999 and available now. 

For more details, head over to Gibson.

Thrash titans Megadeth are certainly not a band to shy away from a killer riff. Main man Dave Mustaine and his large array of sidemen guitar players have delivered some of the greatest thrash metal in the last 30 years.

While we think of this genre as being very riff-based and lending itself to power chords and single note riffs, inside Megadeth’s songs you will uncover some pretty cool chords. It’s not all about crushing power chords and open string chugs when it comes to this band.

In this lesson we’re going to check out four cool chord ideas from their back catalogue.

DM6

The intro to the song Hangar 18 is full of aggressively strummed chords. There are some great chord voicings here, including this chord.

This Dmin6 is a D minor chord without a 5th. It has the 6th in place of the 5th. This is part of a run that starts with D minor before raising the 5th (The note on the G) to the 5th fret to give you a Dm#5 and then again to give us this chord.

You could also view this chord as a Bdim/D, which is a B Diminished triad with a D in the bass.

Spider chords 

The Spider Chords are a reference to a Mustaine signature move. Dave developed a unique approach to switching between power chords on adjacent strings without needing to move the fretting hand too much.

In this example, play a D5 power chord rooted on the A string with your first and third fingers. The Bb5 power chord rooted on the low E is played with your second and fourth fingers.

This approach allows you to play both chords without removing any fingers.

EM9 

Not a player to stick to conventional shapes, this Em9 chord featured in the intro of the track In My Darkest Hour showcases some of the big stretches Mustaine is capable of.

Although there are easier ways to play an Em9, this version has a very haunting quality.

It’s important to ensure the stretched out fretted notes don’t interfere with the ringing open strings in this chord.

A/E

The second chord in the mega hit A Tout Le Monde is an A major triad that follows the songs opening F#m chord, however, the shape used, and the 5th (The E) being moved to the bass gives this voicing a unique sound.

The root note is actually the highest note you hear in this inversion. You head the 5th, then the 3rd before the root at the top

Learn 4 surprising Metallica guitar chords from their classic songs

Dave Mustaine says stubbornness and the hope of writing music with Metallica’s James Hetfield is part of the secret to his longevity – and he thinks there is a “good possibility” that the two might collaborate in the future.

Mustaine’s exit from Metallica in 1983 is one of the most legendary stories in metal, setting the scene for decades of acrimony, offering no shortage of motivation for Mustaine to make Megadeth the preeminent thrash band in the world. 

But over time there has been a thawing, and in a recent interview with VWMusic, Mustaine admits that he still harbours ambitions of writing again with Hetfield, and if anger over his ouster lit the flame under Megadeth, the possibility of a reconciliation with Hetfield, and the chance to combine their electric guitar talents once more, remains a motivating factor to stay in the game.

“I have been secretly hoping there’d be a day where James [Hetfield] and I can write together again,” he said. “I think the world really does want us to do that, and I think there is a pretty good possibility of it happening down the line. 

“I do think that it’s possible that one day James is going to come around and that he and I are going to be able to do something together again. I guess that’s one of the things that has always kept me pushing forward. I think it’d be good for Megadeth, and it could be great for Metallica too.”

Mustaine also noted that his stubbornness – or being a “perpetual badass” as some people have called him, plays a part too.

“One of the other things, as far as longevity is concerned, is that some people have called me a ‘perpetual badass,’” said Mustaine. “I remember the first time I heard that, and I thought, ‘Wow, that sounds like a Kid Rock album title.’ [Laughs]. But I understand it because when you’re not willing to give up, that’s when a lot of people can start to draw strength from you.”

As to what form such a Mustaine/Hetfield project would take, Mustaine does not say.  The pair have shared the stage on a number of occasions, such as the Big Four tour in 2010 that put Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax on the same bill. In 2011, he joined Metallica for a run-through of Phantom Lord, a Kill 'Em All track co-written by Mustaine.

A few weeks back, Mustaine revealed to Classic Rock that he texted Hetfield his support after the Metallica frontman admitted to feeling insecure about his guitar playing.

“I said: ‘James, I love you and I really like your playing.’ He didn’t answer. Of course not,” said Mustaine. “Why would he? The point is I wanted him to know that I’ve had those feelings too, but I don’t now.”

Mustaine said that when he joined the band, Hetfield had not yet learned how to play guitar, but is someone he now considers one of the best metal guitar players on the planet – a marked change from the days when Mustaine would introduce Mechanix with a dig to Metallica’s The Four Horsemen, as though they played it too slow. Now he says Hetfield has no reason to feel insecure.

“For him to have those feelings, that’s a lie, because he’s a mind-blowingly talented guy,” said Mustaine. “So I just felt I needed to say something to him. I didn’t tweet it. I didn’t want anybody to know what I said.”

Megadeth’s new album, The Sick, The Dying…And The Dead is out now via UMe. Mustaine and co are presently on tour across the States with Five Finger Death Punch. See Megadeth for full dates.

As anyone who has tried to navigate the tab book for Rust In Peace can attest to, playing lead guitar in Megadeth is one tough gig. In the red corner, you’ve got the animalistic style of band leader Dave Mustaine, in the Blue, well, take your pick. 

Right now they’ve got the virtuoso Kiko Loureiro playing inside and outside of the metal guitar vocabulary. Back in the ‘80s, it was Chris Poland, the player who could tie you into a knot with his legato. 

And then there was Marty Friedman, the Cacophony alumni whose taste for the exotic lit up the Megadeth canon for almost a decade, recording landmark releases such as the aforementioned Rust In Peace and its follow-up, Countdown To Extinction. 

But, all good things come to an end, even when you are as extravagantly gifted as Friedman. In 1999, during the sessions for Risk, a mix-up over a solo in Breadline – the third single to be plucked from the album – turned it all sour.

Megadeth guitarists come and go and rarely do we hear Mustaine express too much regret, but in the latest issue of Guitar World, he admitted that what happened over the guitar solo “was not okay”, and that the whole situation could have been handled better.

• Dave Mustaine's top 5 tips for guitarists

As Mustaine tells it, Friedman had tracked his solo but management did not like it. That left three options: “I said [to management], ‘Well, you have three choices. Either you mute the solo completely, have Marty come back and redo it, or I do it.’And then I said, ‘If I do it, you’d better tell him.’ Well, I redid it and nobody told Marty.”

It didn’t take long for the fuse to burn out. When the band listened back to the final version, Mustaine said Friedman was distraught.

“So we’re in there listening to the finished album and the solo comes on. It’s my solo, not Marty’s… I looked at him as tears ran down his face and I knew right away that nobody had told him,” Mustaine said. “I knew that was probably going to be the end of Marty Friedman.”

Mustaine has spoken before about Megadeth’s management leaning on the band during the Risk period to write more commercial material. He said Friedman’s departure was ultimately on them.

“Having been a partner with Marty for so many years, as much of an enigma as he was, I could tell he was really upset and he had had enough,” Mustaine said. “What happened to Marty was definitely not okay. Our management was supposed to tell him and, for whatever reason, they didn’t do it. I think that was a terrible thing to do to him.”

Megadeth will release their first studio album since 2016 when The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! hits record stores on 2 September via UMe.

Megadeth's new album The Sick, The Dying…And The Dead! is getting closer and it sounds like it's going to be a cracker. No Supercollider nonsense here, folks! This is Megadave Mustaine and his crack team in 21st century thrash mode, and now they've brought along Ice T for company!

The video for new single Night Stalkers also forms the second chapter of a cinematic trilogy and first single We'll Be Back's first part in June. 

The Sick, The Dying…And The Dead! will feature twelve new tracks, The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! will be released on CD, vinyl, and cassette, as well as digitally through all online services on 2 September. That digital version will contain two extra tracks: Police Truck and This Planet's On Fire – the latter featuring Sammy Hagar as a guest. 

“For the first time in a long time, everything that we needed on this record is right in its place," says Mustaine. "I can’t wait for the public to get hold of this!”

You can preorder the album here.

5 songs guitarists need to hear by… Megadeth

Continuing their extensive collaboration with metal icon Dave Mustaine – founding guitarist and vocalist of big four thrash pioneers Megadeth – Gibson have just unveiled the Dave Mustaine Flying V EXP Rust In Peace in Alien Tech Green finish.

Promising to deliver a powerful, heavy sound along with outstanding playing performance the new signature model features a longer 25.5” scale glued-in mahogany neck with a compound radius ebony fretboard.

Along with a SlimTaper profile and 24 medium jumbo frets, this metal machine offers a super slick feel with a tight, snappy response – ideal for articulating those high speeds riffs and runs with precision and clarity.

Based on Gibson’s time-honoured Flying V design that appeared in 1958 as part of their ‘modernistic’ range of electric guitars, this model features Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners with kidney buttons, a Tune-o-matic bridge and a stop tailpiece – all finished in black chrome.

A set of signature Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor pickups have been installed with custom Dave Mustaine wiring and are controlled via two independent volume knobs along with a master tone knob. 

These high output passive humbuckers are perfect for recreating the kind of tones heard on Megadeth records.

Developed in collaboration with Seymour Duncan during the recording of 1990’s Rust In Peace, the Dave Mustaine Thrash Factor 'bucker is known to produce a tight low-end response along with slightly scooped mids and an aggressive top-end.

The guitar’s mahogany body is finished in an eye-catching gloss nitrocellulose finish called Alien Tech Green. 

Set off against the black hardware, the instrument's unique look is completed by black witch hat knobs, two-tone green/pearloid Rust In Peace diamond inlays and an Explorer-style headstock.

Priced $2,999.00, a Rust In Peace custom hardshell case is included along with a Dave Mustaine signature Richter strap and Dunlop strap lock buttons.

For more information head on over to Gibson.

Gibson has launched its first signature guitar for brand ambassador and Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine. The Dave Mustaine Flying V EXP adopts Gibson’s classic V profile and augments it with a six-in-line headstock more commonly seen on an Explorer.

It arrives in two finishes – Antique Natural and Silver Metallic – with each guitar emblazoned with a Mustaine signature graphic on the rear of the headstock. But besides the name on the truss plate, the Flying V EXP is noteworthy for being a high-performance version of the Flying V featuring a number of off-menu spec choices for a Gibson electric guitar.

The Flying V EXP has a longer 25.5” scale. Instead of the traditional 12” fingerboard radius, here we have a compound radius ebony ‘board housing 24 medium jumbo frets. And, okay, this has nothing to do with the performance but the MOP teeth inlays gives that fingerboard a go-faster vibe.

Mustaine has plumped for his signature Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor humbucking electric guitar pickups for the bridge and neck positions, which replicate the classic JB/59 bridge/neck pickup combo that gave him his tone on Megadeth’s 1990 masterpiece Rust In Peace.

Both finishes are complemented by black chrome hardware, with the headstock equipped with a set of kidney bean Grover Mini-Rotomatic tuners, and a tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece.

In many respects, this is a hybrid of classic designs – fundamentally, it’s still a Flying V, with a solid mahogany body and a set mahogany neck carved into a SlimTaper profile.

The vintage/modern duality continues to the controls, where we have witch hat-style knobs for the two independent volume pots and master tone control. A three-way pickup selector is mounted between volume and tone pots.

It will be interesting to see just how slim that neck is and how its profile measures up to Mustaine’s previous signature models from the likes of Dean and ESP. Speaking to MusicRadar, Gibson's Brand President Cesar Gueikian described how the company developed its signature models with artist input. 

Having designed signature models with the likes of Tony Iommi, Adam Jones and Slash, he explained how the collaboration with Mustaine was going to be a little different, with the Megadeth man's signature guitar developed across all of Gibson's brands, from Custom Shop and USA lines to Epiphone and Kramer, too.

“The good thing about working with artists like Dave, Slash, Adam and Tony is they know what they want. And so that actually makes it easier for us, because creating the initial hypotheses of what we're going to prototype is actually much faster. And so working with Dave, he really knew what he wanted. 

"We then pivoted really into creating a number of different options and prototypes that were hitting what he was looking for, leading to the final prototypes that he just took out on tour. And that was a great moment for testing. He was confident enough in the instruments that he said, 'Alright I let me put them through a tour’.”

Gueikian revealed that Mustaine was playing a prototype acoustic guitar on the forthcoming Megadeth album, The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, that will be put into work in the months to come.

“It's really interesting because we first started with a smaller body but a sharp cutaway, and he actually used that guitar on the [Megadeth] record that hasn't come out yet. And then we pivoted into a bigger body in the style of the Gibson Songwriter. 

"And so we are going to go with that bigger body. A very particular guitar; highly involved, 24-fret acoustic. Absolutely beautiful. Every every detail into design and then the construction is a very involved process because of all the things that Dave wanted.”

The Gibson Dave Mustaine Flying V EXP is available now in limited quantities from Gibson and select retailers, and is priced $2,799 and ships with a hardshell case. See Gibson for more details.

Dave Mustaine has confirmed that the new Megadeth studio album will be titled The Sick, The Dying And The Dead. Tracking is well underway for long-awaited follow-up to 2016's Dystopia, and Mustaine shared a little of the title track in a video birthday message to a fan.

Luckily, for the wider heavy metal community, Megadeth fan Joe's 43rd birthday was as good an occasion as any for the Megadeth main man to confirm the album's title, and he was even so good as to share a little music, allowing a little of the title track's intro play out as he checked in from the control room.

While Mustaine moves on with his message before the track could get going, it sounds like a typical Megadeth intro, a little melodic throat-clearing to set the scene before the blue touch-paper is lit and the electric guitar fireworks go off.

The Sick, The Dying And The Dead will be the first Megadeth album since 2009's Endgame to not feature David Ellefson. The long-time Megadeth bassist was fired from the band in May following a leak of explicit messages and videos between Ellefson and another woman.

In a statement, Mustaine said the decision was not taken lightly, but suggested that there was discontent in the camp prior to the incident. 

“While we do not know every detail of what occurred, with an already strained relationship, what has already been revealed now is enough to make working together impossible moving forward,“ said Mustaine. “We look forward to seeing our fans on the road this summer, and we cannot wait to share our brand new music with the world. It is almost complete.“

Mustaine promised new music was not far away, and judging by the video above, it sounds like the band are on the home stretch. Mustaine excused himself to get on with “a busy day recording, and fixing vocals, and finishing up my guitar solos – and I've got a couple of little rhythm things to fix today, too.“

But with no replacement for Ellefson yet announced, maybe there is some recruiting to do also. Time is of the essence. On 20 August, Megadeth hit the road with Lamb Of God, Trivium and Hatebreed for the US-wide Metal Tour Of The Year Tour. See Megadeth for full dates.

Megadeth were formed in 1983 by a most incandescent Dave Mustaine. Sure, most young metalheads have a belly full of fire but Mustaine had an axe to grind. The year had been pretty rough on him.

He had just been ousted by Metallica, an inciting event that would shape his musical endeavours for the decades to come, with the episode taking on the mythical quality of a superhero origin story. A burning desire for revenge and barely concealed one-upmanship serviced the magma at Mustaine’s core 24/7, and he was quick to let it out.

Mustaine’s temper would come in handy, like when he first met long-time bassist and co-collaborator David Ellefson after throwing a plant pot at his then neighbour’s apartment in complaint at the noise. Soon after they found common purpose, with Ellefson proving a more than capable wingman whose flat-picking bass style jived nicely with Mustaine’s kinetic guitar arrangements.

It was no surprise that Megadeth turned out as they did; hyper, self-destructive, relentless. Mustaine’s talents with the electric guitar lean towards the animalistic and spectacular, and he has displayed the canny knack of finding the right lead guitar player at the right time. 

Over the years he has cast the net wide. Some, such as Kerry King, were pinch hitters. In 1984, King played four shows with Megadeth before Slayer became official and set about carving their own name into the long arm of heavy metal history. Mike Albert was another, filling in on tour in ’85 for Chris Poland.

All in all, Mustaine has welcomed 11 guitar players to the Megadeth alumni, and Megadeth has never sounded so good as when Mustaine’s lead guitar foil had a totally different style.

Take Chris Poland, who had superhuman legato, the origin story of which was a childhood accident that severed tendon in his fretting hand's index finger. As an adult, it give him a slippery style, too quick for the human ear to parse, throwing in chromatic passing notes and stinging vibrato. 

Or Marty Friedman, whose reputation as a premium shredder was already consecrated by his work with Jason Becker in Cacophony, before joining Megadeth in 1990 and applying his Exotic Metal Guitar style to Mustaine’s breathtaking compositions.

Others, such as Jeff Young, Glenn Drover, Chris Broderick, and the present incumbent, Kiko Loureiro, have all served as super-capable six-string lieutenants. You can chart Megadeth’s evolution by their time spent in the band, and hear it in the influence they had on Mustaine’s songwriting and playing. Speaking to MusicRadar in 2015, Mustaine spoke of this gift for finding new talent. 

“We’ve had this uncanny knack for falling upwards whenever there’s been eruptions to business with our line-up,” he said. “Like when someone quits, gets fired or there’s a family emergency, we always seem to come out of it better. What I’m most excited about is fans seeing Kiko Loureiro play, because not many people are aware of his incredible talent.”

Unusual among metal bands, whose early work is often their most convincing, Megadeth took a little time to hit their stride. Their debut, Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good, released in 1985 through Combat records, was chaotic and ambitious.

Mustaine immortalised his Metallica beef on tape with Mechanix. The song dated back to his time in Panic, before hooking up with James Hetfield et al, but was reworked by Metallica for The Four Horsemen and used on Kill ‘Em All. Of course, Mustaine’s Mechanix was faster. 

Finding five Megadeth songs of special interest to guitarists is a fool’s errand. The sin of omission is clearly too great. 

All but the guitar-less Dawn Patrol could be included from their 1990 thrash metal tour de force, Rust In Peace. Take No Prisoners offers a textbook example of a frantic rhythm figure retaining the gift of groove. Tornado Of Souls is a solid-gold classic. Stick Rust In Peace on shuffle and eight out of nine times you’ll land on some action.

Then there’s In My Darkest Hour, from So Far, So Good... So What! (1988), a track that proved Mustaine knew the value of restraint when the song called for it. The Conjuring – from Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying (1986) – is quite possibly Megadeth’s heaviest moment on record, and is animated by a sense of dark theatre and ritual.

Mustaine has retired the song from the set, insisting the thematic content – black magic, sorcery – is incompatible with his Christian beliefs. More’s the pity. Or maybe not. Maybe it makes picking the setlist easier. If only we could use the same rationale.

1. Holy Wars… The Punishment Due (Rust In Peace, 1990)

When it comes to understanding Megadeth’s capabilities and aesthetic constitution, Holy Wars… is the Rosetta Stone. Recorded in 1989 with producer Mike Clink – hired on the strength of his work on Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction – Rust In Peace is the alpha and omega, the very acme of Mustaine’s widescreen songwriting. Megadeth had threatened to write songs like this before but only now had the stars aligned and they found the means, the chops and the vision to do so. 

Here, Mustaine takes an intractable conflict as the subject matter, stirs up a hornets’ nest of riffs to open the jam, accelerating towards the grandeur of the middle section, which is of course introduced via a Marty Friedman nylon-string set piece for a Moorish/Spanish flourish. 

This mid-section then features some of Friedman’s most tasteful note choices, complementing the chords underneath, before a syncopated natural harmonic riff comes up like blips on a radar screen as we head for an extended denouement in which Mustaine and Friedman trade solos, echoing the melodies introduced at the start of the song, and build towards a climax. 

The structure of the song even echoes the thematic content, the mid-section partitioned by aggression on either sides. Nowhere has Mustaine/Friedman dynamic been more complementary than on here, and to think that Friedman had to push for a second pass at some of the solos.

Rust In Peace remains a foundational release for metal. Hitherto, the guitar solo was just a power up. But Holy Wars… demonstrated how the appliance of avant-garde shred, of exotic scales and unorthodox phrasing, could be used to elevate a thrash metal composition into something more grand, something more musically daring.

And there’s an ellipsis in the song title. Everything Megadeth is in here. 

2. Hangar 18 (Rust In Peace, 1990)

Picking up where Holy Wars… left off – quite literally, it’s track two on the record – Hangar 18 anticipated the success of The X-Files as Mustaine plays Fox Mulder and unspools a paranoid fantasy of governmental coverups, alien autopsies and the extra-terrestrial fauna found in the warehouse spaces of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio – an important locale for those tuned into the fevered conspiracies of Roswell 1947. 

Again, it is musically audacious, if a little more formally conventional. The opening chord progression is identical to Metallica’s The Call Of Ktulu, only delivered as eighth notes at 161bpm.

Kudos to Ian Christe, publisher at Bazillion Points Books, for zooming out on the influence and noting that the same ascending chord progression was used in the chorus to Hey Bulldog by The Beatles, proving that no matter what corner of the musical subculture you find yourself, it all goes back to Liverpool and Lennon/McCartney.

A pedal-point riff on D, the verse is an all timer; sacrificing some bass note heaviness for tension proved a worthy trade-off. Besides, Ellefson holds it down here, locking in with the late Nick Menza’s drum pattern. The solo is where this mystery jumps off. If songwriting is storytelling, the verse and chorus feels like the setup with the big reveal coming at the solos. Again, Friedman takes the path less trodden for his note choices. 

It would be a leitmotif of Friedman’s time in Megadeth. He had a second sight when it came to using the Phrygian-dominant, harmonic minor and Aeolian modes to hack into the emotional arc of Mustaine’s songwriting and broaden its canvas. Perhaps Tornado Of Souls was his high-water mark. No Friedman solo is better. But we are assuming that once you’ve pressed play on Holy Wars… you’ll make it to the end of the album anyway.

3. Good Mourning/Black Friday (Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?, 1986)

Let’s take it back a few years to Mustaine’s partnership with Chris Poland and an album that many Megadeth fans would consider a close second to Rust In Peace. 

Opening with Wake Up Dead, a spiritual antecedent of Rust In Peace’s Lucretia, Peace Sells is a consistently spectacular record that sees Mustaine et al take more stylistic risks than most of their peers ever dared to. Take the title track, with its propulsive pseudo-disco beat and Ellefson’s bassline establishing a solid groove for some primal boogie from a cynical Mustaine. 

Good Mourning/Black Friday was another swing for the fences. If Mustaine as guilty of chasing hits in the post-Youthanasia era here he seemed to be actively resisting any constraints on his songwriting. 

This is Mustaine’s imagination running wild, with the extended “Good Mourning” intro section written in the emotional dream cadence of A Nightmare On Elm Street movie. There’s something soft-focus about Mustaine’s arrangements here, the acoustic, the all-but-liquid melodic lead guitar from Poland, the reverb and the chorus. Hey, it was 1986. 

Again, it’s another bipolar arrangement, a song jammed together from two? Either way it takes a 180-degree turn into some of Mustaine’s most well-executed thrash rhythms. 

Substance abuse might have been wreaking havoc but the music held together. Sometimes if the material is strong enough, the record will make it through intact, even if the band did not. Samuelson and Poland left the band soon after, Poland returning in 2001 to drop some solos on The System Has Failed.

Just listen to how Mustaine builds the tension towards the second half of the song before Gar Samuelson’s drum tag drags us into the pit, where a really mean riff awaits.  

All things considered, Peace Sells is Megadeth’s heaviest album, with Wake Up Dead, The Conjuring, Devil’s Island and the “Black Friday” section here all alive with a sense of danger that Mustaine – and his peers – found so hard to summon for most of the 2000s.

4. Fatal Illusion (Dystopia, 2016)

Kiko Loureiro’s Megadeth debut pulled Mustaine out of whatever creative funk had seen him make some questionable choices, most notably on Super Collider. After all, it sure does help when you employ one of the most gifted guitar players of his generation. The spiritual uplift from such positive HR practices is instantly recognisable on Dystopia.

In the grand reckoning of the Megadeth discography, Dystopia might not make the podium, but it has Mustaine rolling the clock back, playing the role of paranoid android in a society where we are watched 24/7 by big tech and who knows who else. 

All that sort of thing is grist for the Mustaine mill, and he leans into it here, reanimating the machine. The intro even sounds as though he is trying to get the Megadeth thrash engine back up and running. 

As it turns out, Ellefson had the jump leads, with a kinetic bassline once more providing the foundation for an up-tempo riffer that bears all the Megadeth signature moves. No one constructs a groove quite like them, taking a moment’s pause with for some lead guitar melody then some spectacle.

Enter Loureiro, lighting things up with an ascending run of sweep-picked arpeggios. When it comes Mustaine’s turn, he throws in some old-school rock ’n’ roll double-stops, wide-interval pentatonics, and an ascending run and bend that all but takes the strings off the ‘board.

5. Symphony Of Destruction (Countdown To Extinction, 1992)

There are many ways to look at Symphony Of Destruction. In some respects, it is Megadeth’s Ace Of Spades; you can’t discuss their discography without mentioning it, and for some that makes it over-played. 

And yet while it might lack the surprise of a deep cut rediscovered – The Skull Beneath The Skin, Hook In Mouth, My Last Words – it has a crystalline purity of purpose and execution. 

After the hyper-technical rigours of Rust In Peace, this minimalism found Megadeth in the pocket of a simpler, more sinister groove. Ellefson, again, earns his corn, even if he’s just keeping the eighth notes coming. 

Given its spare arrangement, Symphony Of Destruction makes for an excellent entry point for those pulling apart Friedman’s lead style, shifting the modes of his solo to work with the chord he is playing over, and doing so with the most elastic and effortless of touches.

In this case, it is Ellefson who is offering Friedman a wider harmonic palette to solo over, and he jumps all over it, showing a little restraint at first, some blues creeping in, before shuttles through some arpeggios that’ll have you going back to the record over and over again to see what had just happened. 

Ultimately, Friedman brought the dramatic structure of Mustaine’s songwriting and put it in a solo.  As with the riffs, as with the melodies, with Megadeth it is all about heightening the tension, dialling up the energy before the release.

Megadeth's Dave Mustaine: my top 5 tips for guitarists

What is it?

Dave Ellefson's new signature basses are not just for the metal player. They'll handle all that musical rough and tumble, no problem, but the Megadeth bassist and Jackson have designed a bass that's got a classic look to it, modern electronics, and a wide range of musical potential.

The pointy four-in-line headstock is gone. The sharp edges have been rounded off. As with Adrian Smith's signature Jackson S-style, there's a restraint to the design and a Fender-esque quality that should play well to all kinds of players. We've got the retro maple Paddle Pointed headstock, matching the immaculate 21-fret maple fingerboard. 

Both the four and five-string Ellefson basses feature a P+J pickup configuration with master volume, blend, and a 3-band EQ to control an active EMG P Split Single-coil in the middle position and an active J Single-coil at the bridge. Speaking of the bridge, both of these CBXM basses feature a super-solid HiMass unit. 

Indeed, the four- and five-string models are all but identical. Both have graphite-reinforced, quartersawn maple necks bolted onto a solid poplar body. The big differences lie in the scale length and nut width, with the five-string an inch longer in scale at 35", and measuring 1.75" across the nut as opposed to 1.625" on the four-string.

The frets are nice and fat, the neck profiles comfortable. The balance is bang-on. The body contours feel right whether seated or standing. Indeed, everything points to the CBXM being a player-friendly instrument. There's even a heel-mounted spoke wheel for making quick adjustments to the truss rod, which is the sort of thing the gigging bassist will really appreciate.

Performance and Verdict

The P+J pickup combo packs a hefty one-two punch. The split-coil has genuine width to its low end while the J-style single-coil is sharp, articulate, and bruising in its midrange. If those are the default tones, then you've got plenty of scope for experimentation.

Seeing a 3-band EQ at this price is a bonus, and it makes an already versatile bass something of a Swiss Army tone knife. You can take this anywhere. On the five-string, the low B is super smooth and, well, just so rich and thick. Across both basses, you can dial in more aggressive mids for hard-rocking or peel them back for funk.

There are so many musical voicings you can take, so many sweet spots to be found across the sweep of the blend control. Blues, jazz, whatever... Roll it towards the split-coil for a bit more warmth; take it to the bridge for a sharper and more aggressive attack.

There is no shortage of output; a little growl from an overdrive suits the CBXM basses well. But we'd be hard-pressed to say whether it is better as a thrasher's bass or as a blues cat's. It can do both, and it is just such fun to play.

The 12"-16" compound radius necks give the CBXM a contemporary feel, ideal for busy, note-heavy basslines, and for noodling up the top end of the fretboard. We also like that the signature flourishes are on the subtle side, with Ellefson's signature and radiation logo on the rear of the headstock. 

As to which we prefer? Well, they are so similar; there's no separating them. If you need the five-string setup you will be rewarded with a well-priced and immaculately finished bass with a low B string you can hang the jam on. But both are exceptional, highlights of Jackson's Indonesian-built X Series, which is typified by instruments like this, with excellent specs and solid builds. Megadeth? Megabass.

MusicRadar verdict: Jackson might always be considered a metal brand but the new Ellefson signature basses are proof positive that it can make high-quality basses for players of all styles. These are exceptional.

Hands-on demos

Jackson

Specifications

• Price: £719 / $699.99 / €639 (IV), £769 / $749.99 / €754 (V)
• Made in: Indonesia
• Body: Poplar
• Neck: Quartersawn maple, 34” scale (35” scale for five-string)
• Fingerboard: Maple, 21 frets
• Pickups: EMG Split Single-coil, EMG Single-coil
• Controls: Master volume, pickup blend, 3-band active EQ
• Weight: 5.8kg/12.8lbs, 6kg/13.2lbs
• Case/gig bag included: No
• Left-handed option: No
• Contact: Jackson Guitars

It was a headline-grabbing collaboration: thrash legends Metallica paired with pop icon and closet metal fan Lady Gaga, but the pair's performance at the Grammys on Sunday evening was marred by technical difficulties, namely James Hetfield's mic being switched off.

As you can see from footage of Moth Into Flame above, Papa Het was forced to share a mic with Gaga, who lent harmonies and lead vocals to the Hardwired… To Self-Destruct track.

At the end of the performance, Hetfield threw his signature ESP across the stage in frustration.

We'd wager he's not as angry as Dave Mustaine, however, as when Megadeth went up to collect the award for Best Metal Performance for Dystopia, the house band burst into Metallica classic Master Of Puppets, naturally.

As you'll no doubt recall, Dave was fired from 'tallica prior to the recording of first album Kill 'Em All, paving the way for Kirk Hammett to join the band. It all makes the award ceremony's second Metallica-related cock-up rather awkward.

Read more about Metallica's journey to create Hardwired... To Self-Destruct in our in-depth interview with James and Kirk.

Thrash titans Metallica joined forces with Dave Mustaine to play five songs from 'Kill 'Em All' at The Fillmore, San Francisco on 10 December, in celebration of the group's 30th anniversary. Oh yeah, and Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne and every surviving 'Tallica member also dropped by.

Saturday (10 December) saw the group close the final night of a four-show run at The Fillmore, San Francisco with a star-studded line-up of guests that included Dave Mustaine (who appeared for five songs, including co-credits 'Phantom Lord', 'Jump In The Fire' and 'Metal Militia'), Jason Newsted, Ron McGovney and friends of the band Hugh Tanner, Lloyd Grant and Mike Osegueda.

If that wasn't enough for the crowd of the 1,150 capacity Fillmore, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne also swung by for a run of 'Sabbath covers, including 'Paranoid', 'Iron Man' and 'Sabbra Cadabra'. Check out the full setlist below (originally found on www.NME.com).

The group also recently sent out a free EP, 'Beyond Magnetic', of tracks rejected from the 'Death Magnetic' sessions to their fan club - and it's much better than that description makes it sound.

Following the Lou Reed debacle (we can't even say it anymore), Metallica are clearly making a concerted effort to 'metal up the place'. And, if that's the case, we're onboard.*

Metallica 30th Anniversary Show set list

10 December - The Fillmore, San Francisco

'Orion'
'Through the Never'
'Ride the Lightning'
'The God That Failed'
'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)'
'Rebel Of Babylon'
'Blackened'
'Dirty Window' (with Bob Rock)
'Frantic' (with Bob Rock)
'Sabbra Cadabra' (with Geezer Butler)
'Iron Man' (with Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler)
'Paranoid' (with Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler)
'King Nothing' (with Jason Newsted)
'Whiplash' (with Jason Newsted)
'Motorbreath' (with Hugh Tanner)
'Phantom Lord' (with Dave Mustaine)
'Jump In The Fire' (with Dave Mustaine)
'Metal Militia' (with Dave Mustaine)
'Hit The Lights' (with Lloyd Grant, Dave Mustaine, Ron McGovney)
'Seek & Destroy' (with Jason Newsted, Dave Mustaine, Lloyd Grant, Ron McGovney, Hugh Tanner, Mark Osegueda, and The Soul Rebels)

* We're not against bands experimenting outside of their usual genres - just Metallica.