DAVE MUSTAINE: SLAYER Has 'The Best Live Show That I've Ever Seen'

Before the Jägermeister Music Tour's opening night in Dallas, SLAYER's Kerry King, MEGADETH's Dave Mustaine, and ANTHRAX's Scott Ian chatted backstage with SPIN.com about what's changed over the past two decades, an upcoming U.S. "Big Four" tour with METALLICA, and their "timeless" sounds. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

SPIN.com: So who puts on the best show [on the tour]?

Mustaine: The best live show that I've ever seen is SLAYER. Their energy is just over the top. We try to play our best. But, as far as the energy and stuff, I've never seen anybody do what Kerry and SLAYER can do.

King: We're all totally different animals. I call MEGADETH nerd metal — not detrimentally, but they're guitar geeks. They blow away the guitar geeks. They're very good at what they do. And then you have guitar geeks come look at us, and they're like, "Yeah, it's kind of heavy." But the intricacies of the leads and stuff? C'mon, that's MEGADETH's specialty. We're just angry and throwing and spitting aggression. All four band (including METALLICA) started from one place and evolved into a four-headed monster. There's four very different things happening.

Mustaine: Same body; four different heads. That's a great way to put it.

SPIN.com: Who's the best guitarist on this tour?

King: It's got to be either Dave or [MEGADETH guitarist Chris] Broderick.

Ian: Yeah, I'd say either Dave or Rob [Caggiano] from our band. From a pure technical standpoint as players, they're insane. It's just like they're using a whole other language that I could never even learn.

Mustaine: Everyone's such a talent. Kerry's right hand is just so fast and articulate. And Scott has all these melodies. Everybody has their own niche. Chris Broderick is a better guitar player than I am because he's learned — I don't know the names of the scales or any of that shit. I'm self-taught, and to a degree that's what makes all us as raw as we are. I remember when Kerry and I played together — Kerry was in MEGADETH for a while when we couldn't secure another guitar player — and just the two of us playing together, it was just so cool. We were from two different worlds, but we were converging on this new style. And I knew that something was going to happen. When Kerry came over and helped us out — those concerts are legendary. Watch them on YouTube. The filming is shit. But the concerts were legendary.

Ian: You've got all these guys with just amazing right hands on this tour. The rhythm capabilities of everyone is second-to-none.

Read the entire interview from SPIN.com.