There’s rarely an ideal way to retire from making music. That response from the audience is always going to call for them. Moreover, that instinct to express yourself through art will always claw away at their brains. But for Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, he feels extremely content with finally hanging it up after over 40 years. But why?
In an interview with Kory Grow of Rolling Stone at Mustaine’s book launch event, the moderator was mildly skeptical of the decision to retire. After all, so many people retire and then go back on their word. But the guitarist lifted up his left hand and explained why an injury will keep him from performing the way he wants to.
“I’ve got what’s called Dupuytren’s contracture,” Dave Mustaine shared with the audience. “In the center of my hand, the tendons have grown together and are pulling my finger down. So I have the option at some point to do surgery, and I figured I would do this tour and do the support for this record, and at that point, we’ll see what the technology’s like. … I think about, ‘Could I carry on if I just sang?’ I wouldn’t want to do that. I would want to play guitar, because that’s my love.”
A Hand Injury Is the Reason Dave Mustaine Is Calling It Quits
After releasing their eponymous album in January 2026 and debuting at number one on the Billboard 200, Mustaine couldn’t hide the joy over such an accomplishment. Admittedly, touring for the album has felt a little bittersweet for him. However, he shared that he hopes to immortalize their final tour with a live album.
“There’s times when we take the stairs in the back, and walking up the stairs … I say, ‘It’s your stage,’ and I go up there and do my job,” Dave Mustaine said. “If we were to want to, say, have some live recordings of us playing songs for the future, it might be a good idea to record a bunch of different live tracks. But yeah, we’re going to have fun doing it, regardless of whatever we’re going to do.”
Diehard Megadeth fans will still be thrilled to learn that Dave Mustaine may unleash their vault of old recordings too. “There’s bits and pieces and little stuff like that,” he teased. “There’s a couple completed songs from the last album with James [LoMenzo], Teemu [Mäntysaari], and Dirk [Verbeuren], that we did not release yet. But I think those are supposed to be bonus tracks for the label or something. … There may be a song or something, but I don’t know.”
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