Dave Mustaine has played his share of challenging gigs with Megadeth. But it was the closing night of the historic Big 4 tour — Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax at Yankee Stadium in September 2011 — that found the metal frontman in a serious bind.
“My neck was getting ready to stop working,” he tells UCR, remembering the gravity of what he was facing that day. “The show must go on,” he adds. In the conversation below, Mustaine details how he was able to soldier onward and step onstage in front of 41,000 people to finish the tour. Read More: Why Dave Mustaine Was in Agony at the Final Big 4 Concert | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/dave-mustaine-interview-2024/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Megadeth is back on the road on Aug. 2 for the Destroy All Enemies tour. Mustaine discussed the new trek, the band’s latest album, The Sick, the Dying…and the Dead!, and his love of Sammy Hagar and Judas Priest.
You’ve already been doing some shows this summer overseas. “Kick the Chair” is back in the set for the first time in 15 years. What made you think of that song?
It’s one of the heaviest songs on [The System Has Failed]. Somebody mentioned it and with James [LoMenzo], Dirk [Verbeuren] and Teemu [Mantysaari] playing now … you know we [previously] had limitations on the songs we could put into our set, because of the use of video and the reluctance of any of us to learn any new songs — and also, my limitations on my voice after I had my neck fused together and a plate put in my vocal box are
Read More: Why Dave Mustaine Was in Agony at the Final Big 4 Concert | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/dave-mustaine-interview-2024/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
How has that changed things for you when it comes to writing new music and playing shows?
That’s changed a lot of stuff, because my voice has been limited because of trying to save my ability to walk. They fused my neck together, because I’d gone to a chiropractor and he had adjusted me while he was angry at something and broke a bone in my neck. So the guy broke my neck and I lived with it for a few years in agonizing pain. I finally got an X-ray and they said, “You need to get you neck fixed now.” That was right before the Big 4 show at Yankee Stadium. The day before the concert, I was in the hospital. The day of the concert, I had flown out right before it and was on so much anti-inflammatory steroidal medicine so I could walk. Because my neck was getting ready to stop working. [But] I went out and played and we had all kinds of tape all over the stage [that said], “Do not headbang.”
You’ve been doing this cool series of videos for the latest album, starting with “We’ll Be Back,” with a whole storyline. I wondered how the concept came about.
There’s five of them, and we were actually talking recently as this campaign winds down for [the current album] about doing a sixth video as a climax to the story, so that when we do our next record, we can start fresh again. [Similar] to guitar playing, now all of the good chords are taken, because there’s so many guitar players. The video directing and producing world, there are so many people now with the advent of photos and videos on everyone’s cellphone. Everybody’s a videographer. Everyone, everyone is a photographer. So how do you put this all together nowadays? I mean, you let ‘em fight it out and the best man wins.Read More: Why Dave Mustaine Was in Agony at the Final Big 4 Concert | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/dave-mustaine-interview-2024/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral