BAND HISTORY
 
Dave Mustaine got fired from Metallica in April 1983. The reason for this, according to James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, wasn't just the alcohol abuse, but the fact that Dave got very aggresive and destructive every time he was drunk. He also combined the use of alcohol with the use of different kinds of drugs.
After being fired, Mustaine moved to a small appartment in Hollywood, not very into playing music at that time, until... Well, until he had a word with his neighbour living beneath him, a 18-year old guy from Minnesota, called David Ellefson. David: "At that time Dave had only one subject to talk about, and that was Metallica."

As time went by Mustaine started to focus on other things, putting the thoughts regarding Metallica somewhere in the back of his mind. As soon as he started converting his negative energy into positive energy, Megadeth was formed quite fast. They recorded a demo-tape which was 'released' in the tapetraders circuit, spreading like fire. In the very beginning of the band, a drummer by the name of Lee Rash joined the two Dave's on their 'Megadeth trip'. They couldn't find a singer at that time, so after drinking quite a bit of alcohol, Dave took the microphone in his hand and tried to sing himself for the first time, on newyears eve 1983.

Dave didn't feel very comfortable in his role as guitar player and singer at the same time, so he hired a friend of his, to play guitar on the first couple of concerts. This friend was Kerry King from Slayer. After some time King got replaced with Chris Poland, who brought a friend with him, by the name of Gar Samuelson, to replace Lee Rash.

With this new line-up they got a call from Combat Records in 1984. When this happened they knew they were heading in the right direction. Their first album, 'Killing is my business... And business is good', was released in June 1985. It didn't get that much attention from the press, nor from the fans, which was probably due to the bad production.

David Ellefson remembers the first tour, being support act for Exciter, as the 'tour from hell': "The tour took about six weeks, and during that time we wrecked three cars and four vans. The trouble already started on the first night, when our drummer showed up four hours late, so we had to perform after Exciter had already left, so the place was almost empty." He also remembers a concert on December 31 1985. "It was a special show for newyears eve in the Civic Center in San Francisco. We were opening for Metallica, Exodus and Metal Church. Our name wasn't even mentioned on the list, and the audience wasn't very nice. Especially Dave was very hurt by that."

Despite Dave's problems with alcohol and drugs, which made him quite infamous in some parts of society, the band managed to release a second album, on Capitol Records this time. At the start of the recording of the second album, they were still signed to Combat, but Capitol payed Combat an amount of money for which Combat were willing to release Megadeth. Then Capitol gave Megadeth $15,000 to improve both the production and the artwork of the new album. Capitol also wanted a new title for the album ('Wake up dead') but Mustaine kept to his own beliefs and decided to leave the name 'Peace sells... But who's buying?'. The album was released in October 1986. The first tour, supporting Alice Cooper, wasn't a really big success.

After that tour, they did a quite exhausting club tour, with Flotsam and Jetsam, Metal Church and Overkill, to name but a few. The title track could be seen on MTV at night, and 'I ain't superstitious' was used for a Japanese car commercial. The total tour for Peace sells... took about 70 weeks (!), but it was worth it, because by the time the third album, 'So far, so good... So what!' was about to be released, Peace sells... was sold over 500,000 times...!

The third album wasn't done by the same band. Of course, the two Dave's were still in it, but Gar Samuelson was replaced by a guy by the name of Chuck Behler, and Chris Poland was replaced by Jeff Young. Ellefson: "Something had to happen. We got into a couple of fights, Dave and I were doing all the interviews, and most of the time it was Gar and Chris totally opposite to Dave and I, and since it's our band, they had to leave. Mustaine: "Junior and I had a drugsproblem, they had a HUGE drugsproblem. Especially Gar was living on the edge, doing heroin most of the time.

So far, so good... So what! was released in January 1988. The reviews of the album were mostly positive, but it's in fact a small miracle that the album was finished. Despite the problems the ex-members had with drugs, Dave and David weren't very sober also. That's one of the reasons Jeff Young tried to get the band in his control, after the release of the third album. Dave didn't want that to happen of course, so Jeff Young had to leave the band. Chuck Behler had to go also, since Dave and David did their best to quit doing drugs, when Chuck was just using more and more.

Another line-up down the drain. Mustaine got a little depressed after that period, but there were definitly also some positive things worth mentioning. 'Anarchy in the UK' was a big success, although (or maybe because...) shops like K-Mart refused to sell the album, just because of that punk cover. Another good thing to look back at was the performance at the 'Monsters of rock' festival (Castle Donington). They performed together with Kiss, David Lee Roth, Guns N' Roses and Iron Maiden. Ellefson: "I think that was the best line-up the festival has had so far."

Since Dave and David were the only two left, again, another line-up had to be formed. The new drummer was called Nick Menza. He had previously been a 'roadie' for Chuck Behler. He wasn't a real roadie though. It's like Dave said: "He was there as a drummer waiting for Chuck to fuck up...". The new guitarist was a little surprising. His name was Marty Friedman, and he was trained by the, at that time respected, Mike Varney. A quote from Dave: "He's short and thin and has a really great attitude, because he hardly talks, but plays like a son of a bitch!". With this line-up they made album number four, which was released in September 1990, and was called 'Rust in peace'.

With this line-up, they performed on the 'Clash of the titans' tour. The promotion tour for the album made clear that Dave was done with the past and was more than ever looking to the future, with an important goal in mind: To keep the current line-up for more than one album. Before all interviews, the journalists were checked for alcohol and tabacco. Mustaine was very open, in the interviews he gave, about his past and seemed to be ready for a better and refreshing future. As he said himself: "The past has been buried. My biggest problem was, that I wanted to be better than I really was."

Dave's goal, to maintain this line-up for more than one album, was achieved at the moment album number five was released, in July 1992. It was called 'Countdown to extinction'. They felt it was the best album they had released so far, and seemed to get more serious about making music every day. An extensive tour followed the realease of the new album. They also did a short tour with Metallica in the beginning of 1993.

Dave, at the time around the release of 'Countdown...': "I'm no longer interested in what other people think. I'm happy without having to impress with work from other people. I used to be jealous of things other people had, but jealousy is wanting what other people have, without having to work for it. You know, I work for everything I want. I've worked for everything I have now. I don't have more than what I've worked for and I don't have anything I don't ought to have."

Although Dave seemed to be released from the 'demons from the past', it went the wrong way, during the tour for 'Countdown...' at the same time his son Justis was born. The touring schedule was too exhausting, and Dave didn't have any time to be with his wife and child, at the time his child was born. It started out with a couple of beers in his hotel room, and he ended up taking deadly amounts of pills. He was hiding it from his wife, and refused to admit that he was addicted again. It's a miracle he survived, as he said so himself, but he managed. He spent some time in a private drug clinic, and came out, dedicated to not ever use drugs again, and spent as much time as possible with his family.

A little story from the time between album number five and six. The band went on a tour with Aerosmith, and had to quit around two weeks after they went on the road. "The guy (meaning Mustaine) has a big ego-problem", said Steven Tyler. "Aerosmith is a good band, but not for this period of time", replied Mustaine. "When he introduced me to his wife, he said:" "This is Dave Mustaine, he is Megadeth"."No, I'm not not, there's four of us", said Dave. "Bullshit", replied Tyler, "You're Megadeth, and I'm Aerosmith." "That's when I knew it for sure. Steven Tyler is an asshole."

On to the next album, album number six, entitled 'Youthanasia'. It was released in November 1994, and the expectations were high. The album was recorded in Phoenix, Arizona, in a studio specially built for the recording of this album. Dave, David and Marty all moved their families to Scottsdale, Arizona. The release of the album was followed by a pretty long tour, all around most parts of the world. The story about the recording of the new album and the building of the studio, can be seen on the video 'Evolver: The making of Youthanasia'.

About a year later a compilation album was released, by the name of 'Hidden Treasures'. It contains seven tracks taken from soundtracks and tributes and one previously unreleased track, called 'Problems'. They already recorded it once at the time of 'So far...', but it got replaced by 'Anarchy in the UK'. The album was a way to give fans the opportunity to get the Megadeth songs/covers, without having to buy all those soundtracks and tribute albums.

On June 17, 1997, 'Cryptic Writings' was released. The first single 'Trust'  was released on May 26. Dave, David and Marty moved to Nashville to record it. The producer was Dan Huff. The album almost got the grammy award. After having a sort of cancer, Nick was asked to leave the band, and the new became Jimmy DeGrasso, an ex-member of Suicidal Tendencies and a member of the side project MD.45. The story continues...
 

 
DAVE GETS THE BOOT
 
When young Dave Mustaine responded to an advertisement in a paper by some guy named Lars in 1982, he had no idea that he would someday be a household name in any metal-loving family. At the time, Dave was just one of many guitarists in San Francisco who all hope to make it big some day. After meeting with Lars, Dave became one of the founding members of the band Metallica, which took the San Francisco bay area by storm and soon had a great following there. So great was the following that a record lable couldn't help but want to sign them. And so Metallica, after a few lineup changes which made the lineup Lars, Dave, James and Cliff, went off to New York to record its first album. But it wasn't that easy. First off, Dave was not completely content with his standings as the lead guitarist. He found that he wanted the band to play a certain way while the rest wanted to play another which while it was similar, was not the same enough for him. So a power struggle of sorts emerged. Additionally, the other members of Metallica were not extremely fond of Dave's drug habits which had become a problem forhim recently. So they just needed a good reason to kick him out.
 
And they got it soon enough. One day in New York, Dave came to the studio with his two pit bulls, which he brought for some reason, probably because he thought it was cool. When he arrived at the studio, James kicked one of the dogs. So Dave punched James in the mouth. Then Cliff tried to hold Dave back so that he wouldn't be able to do any more, and Dave flipped him over onto a TV. Lars just sat there and got angry, supposedly yelling something like "fuck, man... I didn't want it to end like this!"
 
But it did. Just a few days later, Dave was on his way back to San Francisco on a bus thinking about his next band, which he knew must succeed and be just as good as Metallica, if not better, in order to have his "revenge" upon the band that he had helped to found but had turned against him.