Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Opens Up About Health Issues, Recording ‘Ride the Lightning’ & Finally Hitting No. 1

Dave Mustaine couldn’t have asked for a better start to Megadeth‘s new self-titled album.

Megadeth, the thrash group’s 17th (and, according to Mustaine, final) title, put the band at No. 1 on charts around the world after its Jan. 23 release, including for the first time ever on the Billboard 200. The single “Tipping Point” topped the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart last October, while “I Don’t Care” was No. 5 in November. “Puppet Parade” debuted at No. 9 on the Hard Rock Songs survey earlier this month.

How’s that feeling to Mustaine? “It’s been like a really big chubby,” he tells Billboard — with a smirk — via Zoom from his home office in Franklin, Tenn., where his Grammy Award for “Dystopia” sits behind him. “That was terrible,” he adds quickly, going on to express a more genuine reaction for how well the set is being received.

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“It is gratifying,” Mustaine says. “I hope the fans will fall in love with this album and keep it on the charts. Ever since we started getting those No. 1 tracks, this has had a really profound effect on everybody around us. They’re all feeling vindicated because of their belief and their hard work to make this happen, ‘cause this was a bona fide team to make this record.”

It’s also, of course, “bittersweet” for Mustaine and the Megadeth team, which begins touring to support the album with a 12-date Canadian tour that kicks off Feb. 15 in Victoria, B.C.

The quartet — with Swedish guitarist Teemu Mantysaari making his first appearance on a Megadeth album — was “way past the halfway point” of making the album when Mustaine’s many physical ailments began taking a greater toll than before. “I said to [son and co-manager] Justis, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this. My hands are killing me,’” he recalls. “I’m gonna be 65 this year. I’ve been ridden hard and put away wet — the cancer, the (spinal) fusion, the Saturday night palsy, the arthritis, the stenosis and the reverse stenosis, the bulging discs, the fractured vertebrae…that sh-t catches up to you. And there’s only so much aspirin you can eat before your kidneys start saying, ‘Me too! I’m gonna stop working, too.’

“We were all talking about it and everybody said they understood and they were supportive, and that to me was so refreshing. I remember when I got sick one of the ex-bandmates called up my wife and said I was being selfish, and I thought, ‘He said what?!’

“Nothing surprises me with some of the guys in the past,” adds Mustaine, who’s seen nearly three dozen musicians come through the band he formed during 1983 in Los Angeles after parting ways with Metallica. “That’s why it’s so refreshing with these guys I’m playing with right now. We really love to play together. If that’s what you’re about, you don’t let the fly sh-t on the dancefloor trip you up.”

Mustaine says he did have all of Megadeth‘s songs written by the time the farewell decision was made, including the aptly titled “The Last Note,” at the end of which he intones, “Here’s my last will, my final testament, my sneer/I came, I ruled, now I disappear.” “Obviously there was some oppression in my mental state,” Mustaine acknowledges, “and once I started writing that stuff, it just came out. The good thing is it’s out there, and it summarizes how I feel and what it’s gonna be like that last night.”

Also raising eyebrows on Megadeth is “Ride the Lightning,” the title track from Metallica’s second album and one of two on that set that Mustaine co-wrote. It was recorded as a bonus track, and at the suggestion of management. “We went in and talked to the (Megadeth) guys,” Mustaine says. “I said to the guys when we started, ‘We have to be as good or better than the original track,’ and there’s only a few ways we could’ve made the song any better, ’cause it’s a great track. It was great when I wrote it with James (Hetfield), it was great when they rerecorded it, and it was great when we took it apart and put it together now for the new Megadeth album.” Mustaine is confident that Megadeth will start playing it live, too, “at some point.”

“I just wanted to do the right thing,” Mustaine says. “I wanted to respect James and close the circle with those guys with that track and just show my respect for my time that I had in the band.”

Mustaine says Megadeth will start out playing four songs from Megadeth during the Canadian trek, which will feature support from fellow Big Four thrasher Anthrax and Exodus. The group plays South and Central America during the spring as well as the Sonic Temple festival in Ohio on May 17, then heads to Europe. A run of North American dates begins on Aug. 8 in Sturgis, South Dakota, and runs into late September, with more on the horizon. In fact, Mustaine says, Megadeth is booked throughout 2027 and could stay out even longer.

“Most tours that we do are two to three years,” he explains. “I can’t see it coming any shorter than two years, unless my hands give up on me. The time’s coming, but right now I can still play, and I want to go out on top. If I feel like it’s starting to suffer, that’s when the end will be near and that’s when I’ll probably look into changing my life. I think this is a great way to say thank you to the fans for everything. I’m just hoping that any of the fans who have moved on will remember Megadeth and go get this album.”

As for after the tour, Mustaine says that “the future’s pretty much an enigma for me.” But he doesn’t think this will be the last we hear from him, either. “Just because I don’t play live or I can’t record anymore doesn’t mean I can’t write songs,” Mustaine says. “We have so many songs in the archives we just never worked on, so that’s a possibility, me meeting with other writers and working on songs with them.

“Honestly, if I could do that I would rather do it with my guys first, so we could keep making music in the future. I just know that I’m gonna keep putting one foot in front of the other, and for every live show we do right now I’m gonna play it like my life was on the line.”