Dave Mustaine Talks and Talks $h!+ About His Time with Metallica

Dave Mustaine talks with Shawn Ryan....not with the music community, but rather a former Navy SEAL and C.I.A. contractor. An interesting choice. Ryan is clearly a fan (which is cool to see).

Ryan asked Dave about his martial arts experience (Dave is a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo). Dave said he got into it back when he was 12 years old and started playing guitar at 14. According to Dave, his mom was a Jehovah's Witness and she left him when he was 15 because of his guitar playing (and selling marijuana). That's the tip of the iceberg. Dave did not have an easy childhood. He doesn't say it like he wanted sympathy... just matter of factly.

When asked about how he first met up with Metallica, Dave Mustaine talks about answering an ad in the classified section, So I got a newspaper called "The Recycler," and it's just a rag from Los Angeles, Orange County. It's like a county classified ad magazine. And I'm looking in the classified ad magazine. Go figure. The biggest band in the world would advertise in this newspaper. So I look at it and it says, 'Wanted lead guitar player' and mentioned a couple bands. So I called up and I got Lars (Ulrich) on the phone, and I said, 'Yeah, well, I like Motörhead and I like Budgie. And he goes, 'You like effing Budgie, man?' And I went, 'Yeah, I do.'

Dave said he met up with James Hetfield, Lars and then-bassist, Ron McGovney for an audition. "I set up my amps and I plugged my guitar in and I just started warming up. [And] they wouldn't come in. They wouldn't come into the rehearsal room. So I put my guitar down and I thought, 'This is really strange.' And I walked out and I said, 'Guys, are we gonna do the audition?' They said, 'You got the gig.'"

According to Dave, "We were driving through the snow. None of us knew how to drive through snow except for Lars, because he was from Denmark. And I'm driving this Ryder truck. It's a 24-foot truck, and it had a tow bar and it had James's pickup on the back. So when we were driving, we hit black ice and the whole thing spun around while I was driving. And I managed to keep it upright in the middle of the freeway, but the truck stopped and oncoming traffic was coming towards us.

And the events that happened at that location… The guy that had produced — I think he produced the first (Metallica) record; his name's Mark Whitaker. He was the guy that was doing our sound and stuff. He almost died. I had to push him out of the way, and a truck was to the right or right where he was standing. So if I wouldn't have seen that truck coming and saved his life, he'd be dead right now. And when we went to the U-Haul place to get our truck, we placed and moved all of our gear into the new truck. James and Lars had made a decision to replace me because they tried to pin that driving thing on me as the last straw."

The story that got spread around back in the '90s was that Dave was driving the band (they took turns), but he had been drinking heavily. One of the other guys took over driving, Dave passed out and the next morning they woke him up and told him it was time he went home. They gave Dave a one-way bus ticket from New York back to Los Angeles.

Another account says that Dave had a dog that started ripping up the inside of Ron McGovney's car. James yelled at Dave to get the dog out and Dave, in turn, got upset and attacked James and Lars.

I did some research, and there are a lot of different accounts of the events that led to Dave's firing, but over-all, sources said that Dave had a severe alcohol addiction. Additionally, he would become very violent after drinking. Dave has gone through the 12-step program and no longer drinks.

"We all drank. That's why they called it ALCOHOLICA. I mean, they didn't call it DAVE-ALCOHOLICA. We all drank. And they continued to drink like that even after I was gone."

Dave also talks about songs that he feels he helped write that he did not get credit for. "I wrote a lot of their music that made them, and all the solos on that first record were mine — the best Kirk (Hammett) could do is try and copy them."

Dave has credit on "Jump in the Fire," "Metal Militia," "Phantom Lord", "The Four Horsemen", "Ride the Lightning", and "Call of Ktulu." Additionally, Dave says he contributed to "Fade to Black", "Leper Messiah", and "Battery" but has received no credit. Metallica denies that Dave's work is a part of any of those songs.

Three hours plus. Dave talked about pretty much everything. They actually took breaks in the interview. Shawn Ryan really handles the interview well. Dave Mustaine talks about a variety of topics... Ryan pulls him back into focus when necessary, but he is really likeable and respectful in this interview. I think I'll join his 4.4 million followers.

I learned a lot about Dave Mustaine and better understand why he was so angry back in the '90s. He actually came off pretty likeable and he's proud that, as a parent, he's been able to break the abuse cycles that he grew up with. Does he talk some $h!+? Yes, he does, but who knows? These type of situations are usually what one side said, what the other side said, and the truth lies in the middle.