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| Megadeth |
| with Dave Mustaine on Jul 14, 2001 |
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Last February, R-E-Z went to Amsterdam to talk with Dave Mustaine and new guitarist Al Pitrelli about their upcoming "The World Needs A Hero" album (out on May 14th). By now, we know that the record has been received well almost everywhere and that the shows at Graspop and Bospop were killer. Six 6 months after our first encounter, again we had the chance to talk to Dave Mustaine about his band Megadeth. Here we go… | |||
| Hi Dave. How do you experience the live shows until now? Good. It`s going very well. | |||
| We did an interview before the album came out. We`re wondering what the reactions have been from the fans now that the record has been released for some months now. It`s nice to hear that you guys liked the shows. Thanks. I do not really know what the fans are saying, because I haven`t spoken to many of them. I know that the ones I really talked to are very much into it. We try and take the fans into consideration with everything we do, although when you`re in the studio you can`t ask them anything. You`re just guessing. But when we play the new songs live, like "Return To The Hangar" or "Dread And The Fugitive Mind", they love these songs. When we do "Promises" you can see that the people react to it as something really special. | |||
| What do you think will be the contribution from Al on the next album? Well, problably at least the same as he did on this record. It won`t be less, because he`s so good. We would be stupid not to use him. To not take advantage of his gift would be a shame. | |||
| At your show in Bochum, Al got a lot of space in the spotlights while you were headbanging behind him in front of the amplifiers. Did this happen naturally or did you specifically tell him to take his freedom on stage? Well, Al is doing the parts which the other guitarplayer is supposed to and I`m doing my parts. If he`s doing his parts, he can pretty much do whatever he wants. It`s important to have a band with the audience and the best way to do that is to come close to them. I`m very comfortable with this situation and with Al. | |||
| Dave, what are your plans for the near future? Shoot another video or release a new single? We have recently released our new single in the States called "Dread And The Fugitive Mind". It`s a special version with a third chorus at the end of it. You can also download it on our website at www.megadeth.com to hear what it sounds like. After we did Japan, Australia et cetera, we`ll start touring the States from September 6th until October 16th, I think. We will be playing 26 concerts in 40 days at venues with some 1.500 seats. | |||
| This time, we want to play small places to meet the core fans. Tickets will sell out quickly and we`ll give them solid 2 hour shows. With the new Sanctuary deal and all, instead of pretending that we are really, really at the top -which in a lot of places we are- we want to do some special stuff for our core audience. | |||
| Do you think you`ve lost a lot of real fans? I think with our last two albums, the perception hasn`t been too good. So obviously, we lost some. But, we also gained some. The thing is, we never want to lose any! If you lose one and gain two, that maybe be okay for some people. I don`t want to lose any. | |||
| The show in Bochum really gave us the old Megadeth feeling, like you`ve found the metal spirit again. There was this very positive vibe. Do you agree on that? The show at Bochum was very personal. I felt that way too. At least there`s two of us, haha. | |||
| Is that your ultimate goal, trying to get that feeling every show that you do? Well Johan, I don`t know whether that`s the ultimate goal. I think you have to try and connect with the people. To me, the ultimate goal is to make yourself happy while you`re playing, because when you`re happy on stage, you go to a very special place where nothing matters. It`s an escape and you start to play better than you ever have. The band really comes together and the fans get to witness something very special. If you`re more worried about connecting with the audience… | |||
| Well, there`s always gonna be one asshole in every crowd. There just is. For me to focus on that asshole like us, I lose. We play lots of concerts and everywhere, in every city, country or continent there`s always one in the crowd. That`s okay, you know? If he`s the asshole, then he`s the one and not me, haha. | |||
| Dave, are there any countries you`ve never played before? Turkey and Russia were two places we`d never played, but we just did on this tour. As you may have heard, Kuala Lumpur cancelled on us. They said that I`m public enemy number 1 there and if I`d go there, they would arrest me. They confiscated all of our records, they held up the trucks at the borders and cancelled our concert. If I go there, I`m going to jail. So I won`t be going there, haha. I don`t think it has anything to do with the way I present myself. I`m a pretty fucking decent person. There are some bands, just their behaviour alone should have them put in jail. | |||
| My behaviour for anything would get me out of jail, because I`m a professional. I think it has to do with what the music is about. The people overthere think that I`m poisoning their youth. We have had problems like this before in our career. Even in my own country. They`ve stickered our records in the US. In Germany they`ve censored the cover twice now. This happened with the "Youthanasia" cover, for instance. The word "Youthanasia" caused the problems that particular time. | |||
| How do you look back at all the travelling you did throughout your 16 years with Megadeth? Did it change you? It`s fun being able to come to your country, to see you and your people. I learned a bit about the history. My wife is Dutch, you know? A lot of people around the world think that all of Holland is described with either wooden shoes, windmills, tulips or the fucking Bulldog. When I come here, I see really solid people that are really loving with their families. I see good food, although it`s different. A lot of it is influenced by Asia. I see terrific kickboxing, you`ve got some great fighters. The women are very beautiful and I really like the unbelievable waterways with all the canals and stuff. | |||
| And, billions of fucking bicycles chained to fences, haha. That alone is really interesting. You had that experiment with the white bikes. I mean, that`s cool. You will never see that in the US. I`m sure there would be some asshole with his whole yard full of white bikes painting them black trying to sell them. | |||
| Are you already writing material for the next album? Yeah. When we get together at soundchecks, that`s when we start doing music. I`ll come up with a riff and every once in a while some of the other guys will have an idea and we work from there. We think about new stuff a lot, but with all the interviews and travelling we don`t the actual time to do something with it. Being on stage during the soundcheck with the amplifiers ringing in your ears, that`s when it happens for us. It will get close to the finished product that way. | |||
| Dave, in February you told us that you were going to play some stuff from the very first Megadeth record. Well, we didn`t hear any so far… That`s correct, absolutely. We tried "Looking Down The Cross" but it didn`t work out the way we wanted it to. It did not sound good. You know that it`s difficult to expect Al to learn these songs in the little spare time that we have on tour. We do our concerts, get on the road and wake up in the next city. We do interviews all day, radio stuff et cetera and then there`s the next gig. We don`t have any time left, really. The next song we want to add is "Hook In Mouth" and after that we`ll try "Ashes In Your Mouth". We did talk about doing some really old stuff like "Skull Beneath The Skin" or "Killing Is My Business". | |||
| There`s a chance we might be playing these eventually. We have this funny thing when we do our US tour. People can go to our website and choose their ultimate setlist for the show at their city. We`ll give the fans 30+ songs to choose and we`ll play 24 of them. Whether we want to play them or not, we`ll do the setlist chosen by the fans for that particular show. The other guys love to play their instruments for 8-9 hours a day, they do not care. All they want to do is get on stage. To me, 2-3 hours is enough. Well, its just a fucking heavy metal jukebox! | |||
| Cool! Who came with that idea? You`re looking at him, haha. | |||
| Our last question is about a contradiction in your behaviour we recently read about. At the one hand you`re a decent family man but on the other hand, you love being the bad guy when it comes to acting in a movie. Can you explain this to us?
Absolutely. I love to play the bad guy. Just because I`m a professional and a pretty decent person, doesn`t mean I don`t like playing a really bad motherfucker?! In real life, when I`m mad at somebody, it`s over. I know that when I`m mad at you, you`re fucked. So, when I`m acting, I don`t want to look like a guy that works in a fucking bookstore. I`d rather be someone who`s gonna kill somebody or blow up a building, stuff like that. Because it`s just that I have the face and personality that go along with playing somebody who is dangerous. When I`m with my kids, I`m different. | |||
| Of course. But when I go out on the streets or do my shows, don`t even fucking think about trying to bullshit me. It will problably be the same with you. There are certain people in my circle that are very close to me and I would never hurt them in anyway. Then there`s other people and if they only sneeze at the wrong time, I may fucking split their head open… | |||
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(Johan Godschalk) |
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