Musicians - Dave Mustaine

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	Musicians - Dave Mustaine

Dave Mustaine (born September 13, 1961) is a heavy metal guitarist, songwriter, and singer. As the central figure of Megadeth, he is one of a handful of people considered to have pioneered thrash metal and speed metal.

Beginnings

David Scott Mustaine was born September 13, 1961 in La Mesa, California, United States. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he grew up in various low-income Southern California suburbs.

Metallica

In 1981, he left the band Panic to join Metallica, serving as lead guitarist for the young thrash band for two years. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich had posted an ad in a local newspaper, called The Recycler, looking for a lead guitarist. In his own words, Mustaine remembers his first meeting with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich: "I was convinced that I should be in the band and went to rehearsal. I was tuning up when all the other guys in the band went into another room. They weren't talking to me, so I went in and said, 'Well? Am I in the band or not?' and they said, 'You've got the gig.' I couldn't believe how easy it had been and suggested that we get some beer to celebrate."

Despite not being the vocalist of the band, Dave felt he was the leading member of Metallica and tended to use a microphone during their early gigs. In one show, from 1983, Dave is shown speaking in his trademark snarl and swearing drunkenly at members of the crowd who were throwing things. At one point Hetfield even asks: "What the fuck are you doing, man?", as Mustaine appeared to be making very little coherent speech.

Mustaine's membership in Metallica, however, would not last. Brian Slagel, an early manager of the band, recalls in an interview: "Dave was an incredibly talented guy, but he also had an incredibly large problem with alcohol and drugs. He'd get wasted and become a real crazy person, a raging maniac, and the other guys just couldn't deal with that after a while. I mean, they all drank of course, but I guess they could all hold their liquor better than Dave, and I could see they were beginning to get fed up of seeing Dave drunk out of his mind all the time."

Soon after this, in a drunken state, Mustaine walked into the building and poured a full can of beer down Ron McGovney's bass so it trickled into the pick-ups. When he next came to play it, McGovney was shocked and in his own words "blown across the room"; he decided he'd had enough of Mustaine's antics and quit.

One of the final straws for the band was on a road trip from San Francisco to New York to meet up with producer Johnny Z. A crash with a jeep during a snow storm near Wyoming left the band's touring van in a ditch. Nobody in Metallica's van was hurt, but since the incident occurred while Dave Mustaine was driving punch drunk, the other members quietly agreed that as soon as they started the new phase of their career, they had to get rid of Mustaine.

In April of 1983, Mustaine was fired, officially for his drug use and personality clashes with founding members Hetfield and Ulrich. The band packed up Mustaine's gear, drove him to a Greyhound bus station, and put him on a bus back to Los Angeles.

During his short time in Metallica, Dave Mustaine toured with the band, co-wrote several songs which were later featured on the albums Kill 'Em All and Ride The Lightning (and, according to Mustaine, Master of Puppets) and recorded several songs with the band, including the No Life 'Till Leather demo tape.

Megadeth

In 1983, Mustaine was extremely angry after being kicked out of Metallica; he concluded that one of his goals in life should be to create a band more successful than Metallica. After his four day bus journey, he arrived in Los Angeles and soon set about forming Megadeth with bass player Dave Ellefson, Kerry King of Slayer on guitar, and Gar Samuelson on drums. Kerry decided to stay with Slayer and was replaced in 1984 by Chris Poland. The band then released their first album Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!, which suffered from poor production due to the band spending half of their production money on drugs. The album still received relatively good reviews.

In 1985, after recording Killing Is My Business..., Mustaine approached Jackson Guitars for a custom built guitar. Jackson built him a modified Randy Rhoads series King V with 24 frets. After creating the guitar for Mustaine, the company began mass-producing a Dave Mustaine series Flying V. This line continued into the early 2000s, when Mustaine switched to ESP guitars.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Dave Mustaine ]

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Musicians - Dave Mustaine

Beginnings

Metallica

Megadeth

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