Last August, the long-running thrash-metal band Megadeth posted a video titled “The End Is Near” that opens with an apocalyptic montage out of the movies — cities on fire, despairing newscasters, that sort of thing. It was pretty much par for the course for a group that takes its name from a nuclear-warfare fatality metric and whose best-selling album is called “Countdown to Extinction.”
What was surprising: the part where an artificial intelligence-generated version of Megadeth’s skeletal mascot, Vic Rattlehead, cut in to announce that the band’s next studio album, its 17th, would be its last. “Forty years of metal, forged in steel, ending in fire,” Rattlehead said before revealing that a global farewell tour would commence in 2026.
The Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine, now 64, followed up with a written statement saying that he wanted to go out on his own terms and at the top of his game. The band, which the singer and guitarist founded in Los Angeles in 1983 — not long after he was kicked out as lead guitarist of fellow heavy metal pioneers Metallica — has earned five platinum albums, won one Grammy and headlined its own recurring traveling music festival, Gigantour.
Mustaine, known for his lightning-fast guitar shredding and snarling vocal style, later revealed the driving force behind his decision to retire: hand issues. He is suffering from Dupuytren’s contracture, a condition that pulls one’s fingers inward toward the palm, in addition to severe arthritis.
In a recent video interview from his home in Franklin, Tenn., Mustaine, whose long red hair cascaded down over a bomber jacket, said that about halfway through the recording of the band’s new self-titled album, out Jan. 23, he was experiencing severe pain after “some really grueling guitar days in the studio.” He told his management that he didn’t know how much longer he could keep going.
Mustaine held his left hand up to the camera, pointing out a pronounced cord on his palm, a sign of thickened fibrous tissue. He illustrated how the middle finger of his fretting hand would eventually curl up. “I’m hoping that at some point there’s going to be some miracle drug or surgery or something that may save the day,” he said, “but for now, I was told that I need to wait another year and then have a follow-up appointment.”
Ultimately, he made the decision to end the band, which has gone through innumerable lineup changes over the years. (Mustaine is the only consistent member.) “I’m sad because so many people are taking it sad instead of being happy for me, for everything we’ve done together,” he said, “but I’m not upset that people aren’t happy with my decision. It just shows how well we were doing our jobs.”
Casey Tebo, the director of “Megadeth: Behind the Mask,” a promotional film set to open in theaters on the eve of the new album’s release, said in a phone call that Mustaine had created a family of sorts with his audience. “Megadeth fans are the kids who snuck behind the school and smoked cigarettes, the kids with patches on their jackets,” Tebo said. “Megadeth is a band for the outcasts, and their fandom for this band is very near and dear to them.”
Megadeth, along with Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, is one of the so-called Big Four progenitors of thrash metal, a subgenre that emerged in the early 1980s, characterized by breakneck tempos and blistering riffs. Back then, the idea of those bands becoming huge successes would have been “beyond ridiculous,” Eddie Trunk, host of SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation” metal show, said in an interview. “But they basically brought in a whole scene that is now very commonplace and has had a huge influence on a lot of the more current rock and metal bands.”
Among them is Chained Saint, a young, rising thrash group from southern Florida. The band’s guitarist, 18-year-old Ethan Kahn, cited Mustaine as a major inspiration: “He has a genuine knack for writing great songs while still appealing to the metalheads that want to hear those brain-scratching riffs that make you make a nice stank face” — a contorted expression relaying deep admiration.
The current Megadeth guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, 39, grew up in Finland listening to the group. He described Mustaine as a “very demanding, yet at the same time fair, boss and band leader.” Mäntysaari was glad that Megadeth hadn’t entered the studio knowing this would be its final LP. “If that was the way we went into composing music on this album,” he said, “I think it might have been more pressure on us.”
Behind Mustaine were two framed gold records — for Megadeth’s early genre-defining albums “Peace Sells … but Who’s Buying?” (1986) and “So Far, So Good … So What!” (1988) — and the band’s Grammy Award. When asked what his proudest Megadeth moment was, Mustaine, who became a born-again Christian in 2002, pointed to his Grammy acceptance speech, in which he thanked Jesus Christ: “Everybody goes up there and they all say God, but nobody says Jesus.”
The rapper Ice T, who was featured on a track from Megadeth’s 2022 album, “The Sick, the Dying … and the Dead!,” said he held Mustaine in high esteem for his strong convictions. “I don’t know if he’s a Trump supporter or not,” Ice T said. “I’m not, but I respect people for standing on what they stand for.” He added, “Sometimes you’ll be on Twitter and you might post something, and they go, ‘Oh, wow, you agree with Dave Mustaine.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s my man.’ And then they back off.”
Mustaine said that perception of his politics was incorrect. “I’m a Christian, and I answer to a different set of angels,” he said. “I obey the law, but no, I’m not a right-winger.” He also clarified that he is spiritual, not religious: “We used to always say that religion’s for people who are afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people like us who have been there.”
Life was hard from the start for Mustaine, who was born in La Mesa, Calif., in 1961. His father, whom he has described as an abusive alcoholic, divorced his mother when Mustaine was 4. His mother, a maid who converted to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, moved the family often to elude her ex-husband. “When my mom became a Jehovah’s Witness, I hated it and I needed to get out,” Mustaine recalled. By the time he was 15, Mustaine was living on his own, supporting himself by selling drugs. He sought solace in heavy metal and its attendant vices.
In 1981, Mustaine joined the band Metallica, co-founded in Los Angeles by the drummer Lars Ulrich and the singer-guitarist James Hetfield. Two years later, before the recording of Metallica’s influential debut, “Kill ’Em All,” Mustaine was booted from the band for repeated drunken belligerence. The firing, which came without warning, hurt and confounded Mustaine, who channeled his rage into Megadeth.
In the press, Mustaine would trade barbs with Ulrich in particular. Metallica, meanwhile, went on to become one of the biggest rock acts in the world. In an emotionally charged scene in the 2004 Metallica documentary “Some Kind of Monster,” Mustaine confronted Ulrich in a mediated meeting: “It’s been hard to watch everything that you guys do and you touch turn to gold and everything I do [expletive] backfire.”
In an interview, Marty Friedman, Megadeth’s lead guitarist from 1990 to 2000, spoke fondly of his time in the group and said that he had “immense respect” for Mustaine, given his former bandmate’s perseverance in the face of adversity. “People say he’s difficult,” Friedman said. “People say he’s not a cool guy. Or, you know, he whines about Metallica or whatever.” He added, “Just imagine your buddies become the Rolling Stones of heavy metal. I give him a pass for everything for that.”
Where does Mustaine’s relationship with Ulrich and Hetfield stand today? “On my side, I’m cool with it, and on their side, I don’t know,” he said. “I hope they’re cool.” In what Mustaine described as a full-circle moment, Megadeth covers Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning,” a song Mustaine helped write, on the new album.
He didn’t know whether Metallica had heard his version yet, but expressed hope that his ex-bandmates would like it. “One thing I do know is that I wanted to pay my respects and complete the circle, and I think that that’s what we’ve done here,” he said. (A representative for Metallica said neither Ulrich nor Hetfield were available for an interview.)
Today, Mustaine — who in his 2010 memoir estimated he’d been to rehab 17 times — partakes in the occasional drink. (He operates a wine brand, House of Mustaine, with his wife, Pamela, and their daughter, Electra.) “It’s almost 3 p.m., and if things were like they were, I would be drinking by now and trying to figure out what was going to happen tonight,” he said. “Fortunately for me, that man is gone, and I’m a much happier person right now.”
Mustaine said his outlook on life had changed even further since he was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma at the back of his tongue in 2019. He recalled an oral surgeon with terrible bedside manner telling him, “Oh, you got ‘the Big C.’” He added, “I thought, ‘I’m going to kill this guy!’ How do you say that to somebody and not expect them to lose their mind?”
Mustaine, now recovered, said he’s no longer so quick to anger. Next year, he’ll release another memoir, “In My Darkest Hour,” detailing his “gnarly” cancer treatment.
As for what he’ll do post-Megadeth, Mustaine wasn’t entirely sure. He mentioned staying involved with music in some way and rebuilding a World War II-era Harley-Davidson with his son, Justis, who is on his management team. In the meantime, Mustaine is focused on Megadeth’s farewell shows, which begin in Canada next month and have no set end date.
Had he envisioned Megadeth’s final concert? “I was joking around the other day about how I thought it would be a good idea to have a bunch of shows booked at the end of this tour, and don’t tell me which one is the real last one,” he said. Mustaine pictured getting on the tour bus after a gig and heading down the road for a while before someone would spring the news on him.
“Hey, well, that was our last show,” he imagined them saying. “No need to cry your eyes out up onstage tonight.”
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