MEGADETH Mainman Says GIGANTOUR Is Doing 'Better Than Expected'

MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine recently spoke to Aaron Yoxheimer of The Morning Call about Gigantour, the six-week festival trek co-headlined by MEGADETH and DREAM THEATER. Several excerpts from the chat follow:

On the need for another traveling metal festival, which arrives in Reading, PA today:

"I wouldn't compare this to those other festivals [such as Ozzfest, Sounds of the Underground]. I'd compare it to something a little more old-fashioned and not based so much on being sponsored by alcohol companies and a lot of things that these other festivals have associated with them.

"I'm not taking a dig at those other festivals, 'but if you go back to things like Monsters of Rock, the California Jam, or Clash of the Titans, they were real festivals, not a flea market with bands playing in between. Ticket prices are low [$20-$40 on average], and the bands are playing for nominal fees, so it's truly about the love of music.

"It would be great if we had Clear Channel or some huge corporate sponsor dumping millions of bucks into this, so we could make the tickets be even more affordable and maybe get more popular bands, but I wanted to do things in an honorable way, without compromising the fans' or my own integrity."

On ticket sale figures posted on the Internet, which show that the tour has barely filled venues to half-capacity in most markets:

"We were looking in the beginning to play to 3,000 to 5,000 people a marketplace, but unfortunately some of the buildings able to hold those numbers weren't there. … There was nothing else available except for much larger places. So it's really easy to say that this thing isn't selling when you walk into a large venue and see a really small amount of people in proportion to its size.

"But we know that's not the case. We know that this is doing better than we expected. In fact, I just received word from our agency that they believe in this and we're already talking about next year.

"I've been pretty aware of what I do business-wise and I think every right decision I make makes it easier for young musicians that come after me. So I have a duty do the right thing, not only to myself and to my family, but to my successors as well. I have had [negative] experiences [on] other tours, but there was never anything that occurred that made me hate the people I was touring or working with. Even the MÖTLEY CRÜE tour [the 2000 Maximum Rock tour] — which I really loathed — I don't hate the members, I just hated the tour."

On his detractors:

''It's easy to talk badly about someone when you don't know them. A lot of people think I'm unapproachable, but all you have to do is go to our web site and see how much interaction I have with our fans. And believe it or not, when I'm out in public and not on stage with a guitar and a microphone, I'm really pretty shy. I really have a hard time taking compliments because of that. Another thing is that sometimes when people ask me for something I say no because it's just not something I do."

On a recent visit to Pittsburgh, where a woman asked him to sign her breasts. When he declined, she cursed at him:

"I'm there thinking, 'First off, I'm married, and second of all, even if you were hot, it wouldn't happen. You've obviously got no mirrors in your house if you think you can just walk up to somebody and say, 'Sign my [breasts]."