Dave Mustaine

Dave Mustaine (born September 13, 1961) is a heavy metal guitarist, songwriter, and singer. As the central figure of Megadeth, he is one of a handful of people considered to have pioneered Thrash Metal and Speed Metal.

Megadeth

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Mustaine returned to Los Angeles after departing Metallica and formed Megadeth with bass player Dave Ellefson, Kerry King on guitar and Gar Samuelson on drums, Kerry didn't last long and was shortly after replaced by Chris Poland, the band then released Killing Is My Business... And Business Is good, their first album wich suffered from poor production due to the band burning half of their production money on drugs. The album still received some good reviews and the band carried on by realeasing their thrash metal classic: Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? in 1986, the album was a bomb and redefined Megadeth's place in the "Big Four" of thrash metal along with Slayer, Metallica and Anthrax. Due to incessant drug problems and Dave suspecting Chris Poland of stealing the band's equipment for drug money, both Poland and Samuelson were fired.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles - Dave Ellefson - Kerry King - Gar Samuelson - Chris Poland - Drug - 1986 - Slayer - Metallica - Anthrax

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Megadeth's new line-up after alot of auditions settled with Chuck Behler on drums and Jeff Young on guitars, they recorded their only album "So Far, So Good... So What!" in 1988 but due to Mustaine sinking deeper and deeper in drug abuse, the album suffered greatly and was a far cry from Peace Sells' quality although including some classic songs (In My Darkest Hour and Mary Jane). Mustaine had to undergo drug rehabilitation therapy and the band was disbanded for a short while.

Related Topics:
Chuck Behler - Drum - Jeff Young - 1988 - Drug rehabilitation

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After a complete healing, Dave Mustaine came back in the music world a new person, he enlisted Marty Friedman (of Cacophony fame) as lead guitarist and Nick Menza as drummer. They worked on a new project and the result was Rust In Peace (1990), a landmark album in the world of Thrash Metal that would be one of the best albums of this era, this masterpiece of technical ability and killing riffs is a proof that Mustaine didn't need drugs to make great music. The line up worked so well that they recorded another album two years after, their biggest commercial success, Countdown To Extinction would go double platinum.

Related Topics:
Marty Friedman - Cacophony - Nick Menza - 1990 - Platinum

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The band decided to go more in the "commercial" way, the result was Youthanasia (1994) a fairly good album, although the band was beginning to show signs of slowing down too much for their thrash audience, reactions from the fans were coming fast, some even calling the band sell-outs.

Related Topics:
Youthanasia - 1994

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Ironically following the path of Metallica, the band went on to release two other albums, Cryptic Writings (1997), after wich Nick Menza left the band and was replaced by Jimmy Degrasso and Risk (1999), Marty Friedman was to depart after this, Risk was properly named as Megadeth completly changed their style to radio rock. Dave Mustaine quickly realised that this wasn't the way to go as the album got poor sales and fans got really disappointed. Adding new guitarist Al Pitrelli (Savatage) to the band, Dave recorded The World Needs A Hero (2001), an album that launched Megadeth back in the Metal scene, reactions among fans of the band were varied but the album was pretty much accepted.

Related Topics:
Cryptic Writings - 1997 - Risk - 1999 - Al Pitrelli - Savatage - The World Needs A Hero - 2001

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Then something tragic happened to Mustaine, including the MD.45 project with Lee Ving of Fear.

Related Topics:
MD.45 - Lee Ving - Fear

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