MEGADETH Mainman Talks About Upcoming Album

David Borgioli-Jones of Rockdetector.com has conducted a brand new interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Rockdetector.com: It's really exciting to hear there's a new MEGADETH album on the horizon. What stage are you at with it?

Mustaine: "Well, we're still working on developing the songs. We don't leave until the middle of the month to start working on it. We go into the studio on the 19th of April."

Rockdetector.com: Are you writing all of the material for this album or are the other guys contributing as well?

Mustaine: "So far I have. I mean, there's one song that has some stuff from the Drovers [Glen and Shawn, guitar and drums, respectively] that I'm looking at. So far 11 of those songs on the record have been started and one of those has something from them. But I also had told James Lomenzo [bass] that if he wanted to submit some stuff during the song writing process that you know, I'm cool with that. So we're going to have some really interesting stuff going on with these guys because they're all really good players."

Rockdetector.com: How did you first meet up with James Lomenzo?

Mustaine: "You know what? He was recommended to me by the person at ESP guitars that handles all of the relations with the artists there, a guy named Allen Steelgrave. When MEGADETH had decided to go out and play after the record was written — you know, I had no intention of making this a permanent thing — but as things continued to progress and they got better and better, I decided that I would make it a permanent thing. I looked at the positions that I'd had in the band and what I wanted to do going forward and that's when I decided that I wanted to get a different bass player and that I wanted to work with Glen Drover and that I needed to see where Shawn Drover was with all of his stuff because he hadn't had a lot of experience prior to being in MEGADETH. Talking to him was really exciting because he knows so much about music and metal in general. And to be able to go in there with him and his brother and to make the songs now is really exciting for them because they're starting to see the processes of creating the songs that they've been listening to and enjoying for so long."

Rockdetector.com: David [Ellefson] and yourself were in MEGADETH since the very beginning. Do you miss having him in the band even though things went bad in the end?

Mustaine: "Well, you know what? I have talked to him since the break-up. And of course remember he sued me. And I tried talking to him after that to see if there was anything left there and it was just too foreign. You know, I had said something to him about doing something with MEGADETH and although as preposterous as that seems after having somebody drag your name through the mud in a public arena where literally millions around the entire globe saw all this stuff, it was really hard for me to go back to him and say, 'Hey you know what? Do you want a second chance?' But, um… that's not really what happened. I just kind of wanted to extend an olive branch and just say, 'You know what? No hard feelings, you spent a lot of money to try and sue me and you lost, and I'm sorry for that'."

Rockdetector.com: What was James MacDonough's reason for leaving the band?

Mustaine: "Um, no reason. He just had come in to help me on a basis where we wanted to tour and the whole thing, like I said in the beginning, I didn't know how long it was going to last. So none of this was permanent, it was just temporary. The Drovers were still in another band (EIDOLON) at the time."

Read the entire interview at Rockdetector.com.