DAVE MUSTAINE: METALLICA Was Planning To Fire LARS ULRICH Before CLIFF BURTON Died

July 29, 2009

Greg Prato of RollingStone.com recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

RollingStone.com: "Endgame" is certainly one of MEGADETH's most riff-heavy releases.

Mustaine: Making this record, there was a lot of different facets. When I was writing this, I had a lot of material that I had saved over the years, and a lot of stuff that had been really fast, riffy, and exciting, but just not as melodic as where we were during the '90s. I was assembling the songs and thinking about the possibilities of Shawn [Drover, drums]. When we got in here to start doing a record, I was thinking, "God, these guys have so much potential, what are we going to do?" And I started to really push the envelope, and write songs that were really super aggressive, and had a lot of guitar playing. It was almost self-indulgent with the guitar soloing. I realized, "Dave, you're not a guitar player for making songs for the radio. You had a couple of songs that you were successful with the radio, but that ain't your style, come on."

RollingStone.com: To set the record straight, did you or original MEGADETH bassist Dave Ellefson write the bass line to "Peace Sells"?

Mustaine: Me.

RollingStone.com: What do you remember about the writing of that song?

Mustaine: I was homeless at the time, and I was living in a rehearsal place in Vernon, California. I was seeing a girl, Diana — there were a lot of songs I wrote about her. I actually wrote the lyrics to that song on the wall, in that building. I didn't have any paper in the studio, but I had a Sharpie, so I just wrote on the wall. Whoever inherited our rehearsal room after I moved out, saw the original lyrics to "Peace Sells" on the wall. They probably painted right over it and didn't even know it.

RollingStone.com: As far as you know, is it true that on the last METALLICA tour Cliff Burton was on before he died, the band was planning on firing Lars Ulrich at the tour's end?

Mustaine: That's what Scott [Ian, ANTHRAX guitarist] told me. He said that when METALLICA got home, that James [Hetfield], Cliff [Burton] and Kirk [Hammett] were going to fire Lars.

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