MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE Remembers NICK MENZA, Talks Musical Collaborations

June 4, 2016

On June 2, Barbara Caserta of Linea Rock conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine at the Gods Of Metal festival in Monza, Italy. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On how his writing and playing has changed the most over the years:

Mustaine: "I think probably I've become more open-minded to other people contributing to my songwriting, which is probably the biggest thing. Because, you know, thinking about your songs and thinking from beginning to end, 'This is a piece,' versus, 'I wonder what that person's contribution will be to this song.' All of a sudden, it changes, because you're doing a collaboration, and a lot of times… It's like with a car: do you have the engine in the front, or do you have the engine in the back? Me personally, I like the engine in the front, because if I'm going really fast and I hit something, the engine in the back will crush me. So if I think about my musical approach and other people's musical approaches, I don't wanna tell 'em they're wrong."

On his favorite memory of late MEGADETH drummer Nick Menza and what he thinks Menza's best performance was on a MEGADETH song:

Mustaine: "That's a hard question to answer. What my favorite memory of Nick was… There's a lot of 'em. We had a lot of good times in the past. I was really happy for him when he became a dad. And best performance he's done? Hmm… I don't know… I think it would probably have to be something off the 'Rust In Peace' record, because after that record, he kind of went slower and slower, so… I think that that probably was his best record."

On whether there was ever a real possibility of the classic MEGADETH "Rust In Peace" lineup reuniting:

Mustaine: "See, the confusion is… We tried that several times. Most people think that there was a failed attempt this last time. There was four times I tried to get him back in the band, and there was a lot of problems that were going on. And out of respect to the dead, I'm not gonna talk bad about him. I just wanna say he was a great addition to MEGADETH, and I've always loved him for his contribution."

MEGADETH played its first show with drummer Dirk Verbeuren (SOILWORK) on May 20 at the Rock On The Range festival in Columbus, Ohio.

He was recruited to play drums for the band while Chris Adler is busy touring with LAMB OF GOD.

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