Mustaine

by Dave Mustaine

  I thought it would be a relief to be rid of Gar and Chris, but that proved to be a bit of a miscalculation, since I was already pretty far down the road to addiction myself. Junior and I were of the opinion that we were the best, and that no matter how sick we were, no matter how fucked-up or exhausted, we were going to get up and play. Not just go through the motions, either. We were going to outplay everybody, even if it killed us.

  Chuck fit right in. He knew how to hang, he knew how to play. What more could you ask? But we still needed a new guitar player to replace Chris Poland. The first option was a guy named Jay Reynolds, who had played in a B-list metal band called Malice. For whatever reason, Malice had never quite hit the big time, but they were a legitimate band with serious, committed players. The first time I saw Jay, I thought he was fantastic, the perfect choice to play guitar for Megadeth. The guy looked great: tall and lean, with long, blond hair, boots up to his knees, playing a Flying V. Junior and I saw him at a club in Reseda, California, and my first thought was, He’s totally metal; he’s the right guy.

  I knew Jay was a work in progress, that he might not have the chops to step right in and take over for Poland. But I figured we could work with him. I had taught people how to play before, and I was willing to do it again.

  Unfortunately, with Jay, the package was basically empty. Jay was a well-connected drug user, which proved to be at once beneficial and detrimental to Megadeth: beneficial in the sense that Junior and I now had ridiculously easy access to a seemingly endless supply of drugs; detrimental in the sense that, well . . . Junior and I now had ridiculously easy access to a seemingly endless supply of drugs. We’d go over to Jay’s apartment at least once a day. Chuck Behler ended up moving into the same building just to cut down on the commute.

  “This is the smartest thing we’ve ever done, hiring Jay,” I once said, only half-jokingly.

  “Yeah . . . one-stop shopping.”

  I laughed. “Cut out the middleman.”

  We had no problems with Jay. He had a great look, great personality, always had money. Forget about the drug problem—if Jay had been a great guitar player, he might still be with Megadeth today, because that’s how well we got along.

  But he wasn’t a great guitar player.

  Jay joined Megadeth at the Music Grinder as we began writing and rehearsing, and eventually recording, our third record, So Far, So Good . . . So What! After two records a style had been established: I played the main rhythm tracks and the other guitarist played a single rhythm track right down the center. So I would do a rhythm track on the right, a track on the left, and the other guitar player would add a rhythm track right down the middle. We did this because it gave every song a unique sound, one that came to be Megadeth’s signature, but also because I’m a better rhythm player than most of the guys who have played with the band. So we were in the studio, and it was time for Jay to start playing.

  “Okay, let’s hear your part,” I said.

  Nothing. Jay sat there on a stool, looking off into space.

  “Jay?”

  “Yeah . . . ummm . . . I’m gonna get my guitar teacher to come down here, if it’s okay with you guys.”

  Guitar teacher?

  “What are you talking about, man?”

  “No, it’s cool,” Jay went on. “He’ll do the solos for now, and then I’ll have him teach me.”

  Jay smiled as innocently as a child. It was like he’d been trying to hide for weeks the fact that he was in over his head, and now he’d come up with a solution. Except it wasn’t a solution at all.

  I turned to Junior, whose jaw, like mine, was almost on the floor.

  “We’re fucked,” I said.

  He didn’t disagree.

  If we bothered to rehearse once in a while, we might have seen this coming, but with studio time already booked and paid for, and with a deadline fast approaching, we had no choice but to open our arms to Jay’s guitar teacher. His name was Jeff Young, and he presented an entirely different set of challenges than did Jay Reynolds. In fact, if you had taken Jay and Jeff and cobbled together their best attributes—Jeff’s playing and Jay’s style—you would have had one hell of a speed metal guitarist.

  Jeff, poor lad, looked like Bobby Sherman, with smooth, boyish features and perfectly layered hair that looked as though it had been subjected to a blow dryer for a half hour every morning. When he walked into the studio, he was wearing Sperry Top-Siders and Ocean Pacific board shorts that fit almost like hot pants. Remember, this is the pre-Jordan era, before kids started wearing hoop shorts down to their calves and everyone else followed suit. In some corners of the world (not mine, of course), Jeff would have been considered stylish. To me, he wasn’t.

  But he was willing to play Jay’s stuff, and you had to admire him for that.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got,” I said.

  Jeff started playing, and I’ll be damned if the guy wasn’t good. Really good. Like . . . totally different than anything I’d heard or seen. There were a lot of talented guitar players around L.A. at the time, most of them cut from the same cloth: gunslingers all. Jeff was different, and the fact that his appearance belied such a muscular style of play really caught me off guard. After Jeff played for a little while, Junior and I excused ourselves to talk in private. Now, granted, we were both out of our minds at the time. I’m sure I was fucked-up when I saw Jeff play, so there is some question as to the validity of my assessment.

  Nevertheless . . .

  “He’s good,” Junior said. “But you know . . .”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to put him through Rock School 101.”

  Junior laughed, primarily because he was a graduate himself. He knew the curriculum, he knew the rules.

  These are the clothes you will wear. These are the shoes. This is the kind of jewelry you wear in the metal community. Here’s what you do with your hair (down, not up).

  We took Jeff outside and chatted with him for a while, tried to get a better read on his personality, but it was just so hard, and we had so little time. I was still in a state of shock over Jay.Jeff nodded politely, answered every question with just the right amount of enthusiasm, but I was having a hard time getting to the important part. The part where I extended an offer. I couldn’t get past the OP board shorts and the Top-Siders. I couldn’t see his eyes through the Vuarnet sunglasses. He was such a fucking pretty boy, and I kept thinking to myself, Am I going to regret this?

  I took a deep breath.

  “Jeff, we’d like you to be in the band.”

  He nodded, tried to play it cool. To this day, I’m not sure whether Jeff had any idea this was coming; it’s quite possible he had no aspirations beyond helping Jay learn to fit in with Megadeth. Certainly he seemed surprised.

  “But there’s one thing . . . ,” I added.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re going to have to change everything.”

  Jeff let out a little chuckle. “What do you mean everything?”

  “I mean your hair, the way you dress, the way you walk and talk. Everything.”

  Jeff ran a hand through his teen-idol hair, looked down at his Sperry Top-Siders and his OP board shorts. I’m sure he thought he looked great, and in many parts of the universe, especially Southern California in the late 1980s, he probably did. But not in heavy metal. And certainly not in Megadeth. Jeff shrugged, smiled awkwardly.

  “Okay, man. Whatever you need.”

  In retrospect, the substitution of Jeff for Jay was a personnel issue that could have been handled better. I basically called Jay up and told him he was out—before he’d even been in. It was cold and bloody, and I regret the way I did it.* But these types of decisions just naturally fell on my shoulders; no one else wanted the responsibility. It’s somewhat ironic, I know (the old pot calling the kettle black), because I wasn’t exactly clear-headed and 100 percent reliable myself. But, again, it was my band. For better or worse, I had to take the reins.

  HAVING REMIXED PEACE Sells,
Paul Lani was brought in by Capitol Records to handle mixing duties on So Far, So Good . . . So What! Paul had some impressive credentials. It’s just that, in my opinion, they were the wrong credentials. He was most famous for his work with Rod Stewart, and I didn’t know that before we hired him, or I would have vetoed the label’s decision. Rod Stewart, especially by the late 1980s, was a decidedly pop figure; Megadeth was a thrash metal band. It’s true that there are times when musical forms can be merged. Certainly there is no shortage of examples of engineers and producers from one genre cross-pollinating with another. Generally speaking, though, it’s an awkward partnership. Pop and metal aren’t friends. Each knows exactly where the other lives and tries to keep its distance. They choose different streets, neighborhoods, zip codes.

  For those reasons and more, I was skeptical. But I was excited about the record and the songs we had assembled. Chuck had brought a new dimension to the band, and now Jeff was beginning to fit in as well. Maybe, I thought, this will all work out just fine.

  By this point it had become a bit of a tradition for Megadeth to include one cover song on each album. After “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ ” and “I Ain’t Superstitious” we had a well-deserved reputation for making interesting choices in this regard and for putting a distinctive metal twist on songs revered within other genres. Yes, this flies in the face of my metal-vs.-pop philosophy, but a great song is a great song. I decided relatively early in the writing and recording process that I wanted to include a Sex Pistols cover on So Far, So Good . . . So What! I was a punk fan from way back and had long been head-over-heels in love with the Pistols. I suggested “Problems”—one of my favorite punk songs—as the perfect cover song, but Jay Jones disagreed.

  “If you’re going to do a Pistols song, it has to be ‘Anarchy in the UK,’ ” he said. Jay’s choice was at once philosophical and pragmatic. If there was one Sex Pistols song that everyone knew, it was “Anarchy in the UK.” There would be instant identification on the part of listeners, and it could be easily marketed.

  “And it makes sense because you guys are a political band,” he added.

  That one I didn’t buy. We were writing very dark songs containing apocalyptic images of war and death, but that did not necessarily make Megadeth a political band. Not at the time, anyway. Yes, we had touched on political themes—“Peace Sells” being the most obvious example—but we were not overtly political.

  Nevertheless, after some consideration, I agreed with Jay and we decided to record “Anarchy in the UK.” The coolest thing about the entire experience was getting Steve Jones from the Pistols to play guitar on the track. We didn’t know how he would respond to the invitation, but he was quick to accept. He was living in Southern California at the time, and he just rode in one day on his Triumph motorcycle and strolled into the studio with a smile on his face and . . . a cast on his arm!

  “What the fuck happened to you?” I asked him.

  He laughed.

  “Ah, I was riding my bike in Brentwood and some woman turned in front of me. I went flying right over the handlebars.”

  Proud man and resilient punk that he was, Jonesy wasn’t about to let a little thing like a broken arm prevent him from playing. We sat around for a little bit and talked about music. I was totally enamored, of course, because I’d been such a fan of the Pistols, and it was a real treat to have him in the studio with us. When I suggested we get down to work, however, Steve made a surprising request.

  “I need a hundred dollars and some suction.”

  I laughed. So did David Ellefson, who was with me at the time. Jonesy did not laugh. “Dude, you’re kidding, right?”

  No reaction.

  “I’ll tell you what. How about I give you a thousand dollars and you can go get some suction yourself, because I ain’t calling anybody to come down here and blow you.”

  Jonesy was in the process of getting sober at that time (I don’t recall whether he had crossed the finish line), and I suppose it’s possible he was just fucking around with us for laughs. It’s also possible that he was completely serious. Regardless, much to my relief, it all just sort of went away, and by the end of the day Steve was in the studio, playing guitar on “Anarchy in the UK,” while I spit out the vocals like Johnny Rotten.

  Between the time we recorded So Far, So Good . . . So What! and the time the record was released, a number of things transpired, some good, some not so good. Among the former was an appearance in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, director Penelope Spheeris’s documentary about the late-1980s heavy metal scene in Los Angeles. “In My Darkest Hour” was included in the soundtrack, and I was featured on the promotional poster for the film. Remarkably enough, given our fondness for drugs and depravity, the guys in Megadeth came off as perhaps the smartest and most thoughtful artists in the film. I don’t know whether that says more about us or the general state of heavy metal in the late 1980s. A little of both, I suppose. In my opinion, Penelope, who also directed the Megadeth video for “Wake Up Dead,” off Peace Sells, is a genius; she perfectly captured the feeling of that era, in all its glorious, self-destructive decadence. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II was critically acclaimed and generally credited with helping to kill the glam rock* movement in Southern California. For that alone, Penelope deserves a big pat on the back.

  For all our success and apparent upward trajectory, Megadeth still had its share of problems. Both Jeff Young and Chuck Behler had quickly immersed themselves in the band’s culture, and I was for the most part in denial about the extent to which we were all spinning out of control. This manifested itself in ways tragic and comic, and sometimes tragicomic.

  Photographic Insert

  Photograph by Daniel Gonzalez Toriso

  The only school pictures I have. Ages ranging from three to twelve.

  Me with my B. C. Rich Bich guitar. Playing with Megadeath. Photographs by William Hale

  This is what it looked like before I painted it black. Photograph by Brian Lew

  James, Lars, Ron, and I partying after a show at The Whisky in L.A. Photograph by William Hale

  Megadeath sound check with Kerry King in Berkeley, 1984. Photograph by Brian Lew

  From the “Wake Up Dead” video shoot. Photograph by Robert Matheu

  Proudly displaying my Jackson King V, my first signature guitar. Photograph by William Hale

  Live in Berkley. Photograph by William Hale

  Photograph by Rob Shay. I love this Flying M guitar. Jimmy Page and I both received awards from Kerrang! Photograph by Ross Halfin. Photograph by Rob Shay

  My daughter, Electra.

  My son, Justis.

  With my beautiful wife, Pam.

  In 2004, on our first tour with pyro—Blackmail the Universe tour. Glen Drover is playing guitar on right and Shawn Drover is on drums. Photograph by Rob Shay

  At one point in the mid 1980s, I was set up on a date with Belinda Carlisle, the former lead singer of an almost freakishly popular girl band called the Go-Gos and at that time a solo artist. In this case, I was more than happy to suspend my feelings about pop and metal making strange bedfellows. Belinda was gorgeous, and she was, at the time, ubiquitous (as well as single). I have no idea if she was a fan of Megadeth or of heavy metal in general. I know only that through an intermediary I was to meet her and we were to embark on an honest-to-goodness “date.” Belinda came to the Music Grinder one day while we were starting to mix So Far, So Good . . . So What! Unfortunately, her timing could have been better. Moments before she arrived, I had finished snorting a balloon of heroin. As she knocked at the door I chucked the empty balloon behind a dresser and lit up a joint—better the sweet smell of weed than the acrid odor of smack. Belinda walked in, looking positively radiant—and sober, I should add—and smiled.

  “Hello,” she said.

  I tried to choke back a lungful of smoke, but to no avail.

  “Whoo-huh!” I barked, a cloud of gray filling the air.

/>   Belinda turned on her heel and walked right back out of the room. And that was the end of that particular love story. It was, I guess, doomed from the very beginning.

  WITH SO FAR, So Good nearly in the can and only final mixing necessary to complete the job, Paul Lani decided that he would find greater inspiration in upstate New York than was available in Southern California.

  “Let’s go to Bearsville,” he said.

  “Where?

  “Bearsville. It’s near Woodstock.”

  Woodstock . . .

  The way he said it, you’d have thought he was talking about Shangri-La. I got it, of course. Inspiration is important when you’re making music or creating any type of art, and if Paul thought proximity to Woodstock or the pastoral beauty of upstate New York would result in a better record, then I was all for it.

  Up to a point.

  Bearsville Studios had been founded in 1969 (that’s right, the year of the Woodstock music festival—hardly a coincidence) by Albert Grossman, a talent manager whose roster included Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and the Band. All of these artists, and many others, had called the studio home at one time or another, so the place certainly had a strong reputation. Grossman, however, had died a couple years earlier, and Bearsville Studios would soon fall into decline. Whether that process had already begun by the time we got there to mix So Far, So Good I can’t say for sure. I do know that only a few days passed before I had seen about enough of Woodstock. My exasperation had little to do with the bucolic surroundings and everything to do with the eccentricities of Paul Lani.