Dave Mustaine is readying his final Megadeth album, aptly titled Megadeth. More than 40 years since Mustaine founded the band, he views the album – coming after 13 Grammy nominations, a win for Best Metal Performance and 17 albums – as a fitting coda to the vaunted thrash pioneers’ run. As part of the album, Mustaine confirms to Rolling Stone the rumors that he re-recorded his version of “Ride the Lightning,” the title song of Metallica’s 1984 album for which he got a co-writing credit following his 1983 departure from the band.
“It wasn’t really that I wanted to do my version,” he tells Rolling Stone. “I think that we all wanted it to turn out a certain way, and for me, this was about something so much more than how a song turns out. It was about respect.”
That respect, he says, is for Metallica singer-guitarist James Hetfield. “No one ever talks to me about that,” he says of Hetfield’s prowess. “One day he’s a singer, the next day he’s this fucking powerhouse and I’ve always respected him as a guitar player.
“So I wanted to do something to close the circle on my career right now, since it started off with [Mustaine’s band before Metallica] Panic and several of the songs that ended up in the Metallica repertoire, I wanted to do something that I felt would be a good song,” he explains of choosing to include his rendition of “Ride the Lightning” for Megadeth’s farewell album.
Metallica developed the song, using some of Mustaine’s guitar riffs, into a hair-raising narrative about a wrongfully convicted man awaiting execution. The title “ride the lightning,” a euphemism for dying by electric chair, came from Stephen King’s The Stand. Their recording was a kinetic thrashathon with machine-gun-fast guitar notes and solos and Hetfield’s convincing screams for mercy. Megadeth’s recording is a little faster and a little deeper, since it’s in a lower key, and Mustaine snarls the lyrics more than Hetfield but the guitar playing sounds just as muscular.
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The band did not set out to record the song for the new album; rather, its genesis stemmed from them playing it in the studio one day. “Our intentions were pure,” Mustaine says. “I didn’t have any reason I was going to say, ‘Oh, hey man, this thing that we’ve had for 40 years where you guys will never tour with me, me doing the song is going to change things.’ That wasn’t it at all. It was more about: This is my life going forward. I want to do things that are respectable. And I think doing something where we can pay honor to the guy that … I mean, I hate to say this, because it’s just so fucking arrogant, but the guitar playing in Metallica changed the world.”
The 10-track album, which features the previously released first single “Tipping Point” is set for release on January 23. The band will announce a series of farewell tour dates later this year.
Mustaine says Megadeth have no plans to play the song live, adding that neither Hetfield nor Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich heard about the rerecording’s existence ahead of time. “It was not for lack of having the thought or the courage or anything like that. I know the last time James and I talked, we were talking about some business stuff and I haven’t spoken to him since,” Mustaine says. “So I was hoping that we could get his approval on this before we release the track. But when it turned out the way that it did, I think there were so many people that were happy that we did this, that we just went for it. And I’ll be more than happy to talk to him when I get the opportunity, but I don’t have his number anymore.”
While the two may have lost touch, Mustaine welcomes the possibility of him and Hetfield speaking again. “I also know that time takes time to heal wounds and I don’t know if we still have that kind of relationship anymore,” he adds. “I know I would like to hang out and listen to new music and goof off and do shit like that, but maybe we’re all too old. I don’t know.”
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Though he hopes it might open a window to their conversing again, Mustaine makes it clear that this song is not about renewing old friendships. “I think the whole purpose of this was not to try and rekindle relationships or anything. It was about showing respect to a man that… I don’t believe he thinks I respect him and I wanted to make that clear.”
“I wanted to pay tribute to the band,” he adds. “And just now that I’m getting ready to hang my guitar up, I wanted to make sure that nothing is left unsaid.”
