Mustaine stands tall with the Gibson Custom Shop version of his signature Flying V EXP, which will become available in October.
Megadeth’s leader Dave Mustaine was about to dive into making the band’s new album, The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!, when he received a terrible diagnosis: throat cancer. “I was told by an oral surgeon just like he was ordering a cup of coffee. ‘Oh, you have cancer.’ I went out, sat in my car for a long time, and had tears down my face. I had just gone into a numbness,” he recalls.
Mustaine endured a regimen of 51 radiation and nine chemo treatments in 2019 to emerge intact—just as he has endured a career and lifetime of challenges. Over the years, the metal icon has conquered severe drug and alcohol addiction, a near-vocation-ending arm injury, a broken neck, Megadeth’s history of highly publicized personnel changes and legal fights, and rebuilding his band and its following after a questionable flirtation with a more mainstream sound. He was even pronounced dead in 1993, after an overdose of Valium. “Those were some tough days,” observes Mustaine, “but nothing was as frightening as when I found out I first had cancer.”
Megadeth - Night Stalkers: Chapter II ft. Ice-T
Kiko Loureiro, Megadeth’s lead guitarist, remembers when he got the news: “Everything started when we were about to do an Ozzy tour in 2019, and Ozzy canceled. The management and Dave were talking, and then it’s, ‘Okay, let’s start creating new songs for the new album.’ Then, maybe two weeks before I was about to go to Nashville for the new album, Dave called me and said, ‘You know what? I have cancer.’ It was horrible. But he said, ‘We are going to keep the schedule. You come here, let’s see how it goes, and I will work every day until the day I don’t feel that it’s possible.’ Dave was brave, man. He was working every day. Right after that—pandemic. Everything got canceled.”
“My neck was broken. Now there’s a plate on my throat. That’s why we did the drop tuning into D. It’s because my voice is affected by the plate.”—Dave Mustaine
And then, in May 2021, the band announced the dismissal of bassist and founding member Dave Ellefson, Mustaine’s creative foil on and off since 1983. This came following highly publicized accusations of online sexual indiscretion. Ellefson has since denounced these accusations.
Nonetheless, he was replaced for The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! sessions bymetal veteran Steve Di Giorgio, who immediately locked with drummer Dirk Verbeuren.
Megadeth’s current line-up, from left to right: bassist James LoMenzo, drummer Dirk Verbeuren, and guitarists Dave Mustaine and Kiko Loureiro.
Photo by Travis Shinn
At age 60, and after all of this, any fan would forgive Mustaine for hanging it up and enjoying life off “The Killing Road,” to borrow a title from the band’s 1994 album Youthanasia. But instead, he constructed another metal masterpiece.
“Steve came in, and we started over again,” explains Mustaine. “He put his fingerprints on it, and I think he made it a really great-sounding record.” Due to travel restrictions and Mustaine’s treatment, the sessions were spread out, but while they were among the most physically taxing that Mustaine has experienced, he says they were also some of his favorites.
Dave Mustaine plays a prototype of the forthcoming Gibson Custom Shop version of his signature model Flying V at the Barcelona Rock Fest in July. Note the through-body stringing versus the Gibson USA model’s Tune-o-matic bridge.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
“I was just fucking happy every day,” he says, “getting in my little Polaris Ranger, bouncing along the dirt road on my farm to the house next door where we set up the studio, and to be with my brothers and make this record.”
So, after all that, how does Mustaine walk onstage and do his thing like nothing’s changed? He says he doesn’t. “You go to the hospital and see other people hurting so badly for their patient,” he says. “They’re pushing their husband, or their wife, or their dad or mom, or sometimes their kids into the cancer ward, and you know they’re going to die. It just breaks your heart. You wonder, ‘Why me? How come mine’s in remission?’ That has to affect you unless you’re not human. They really helped make me enjoy what time I have left now. I just see so much in what one person does … how it affects other people.”
“Just to go through the motions—that’s not me. I am not one to settle for second best.”—Dave Mustaine
Yet for all that’s changed in his life, one thing that hasn’t is Megadeth’s music. Not even cancer could take the edge off the thrash pioneers’ sound. “We’ll Be Back” and “Night Stalkers,” the first singles released from the new album, prove that—with abrasive speed-picked riffs, shred solos galore, and cutting lyrics delivered in Mustaine’s trademark snarl. That makes sense since many of these riffs have been around for years. When it comes to writing new albums, Mustaine dives into the same always-growing library of demos and ideas he’s curated for decades.
“If you think about ‘Rust in Peace’ [the title track of the band’s 1990 album], we played that song in Panic before I was in Metallica. I had that from back in the ’70s. I’ve got stuff that was recorded on floppy discs, stuff that was recorded on tape machines, stuff that was recorded on microcassette recorders, and stuff that was recorded on answering machines.”
Recorded outside Nashville on Dave Mustaine’s property, the new album has the virtues of classic Megadeth: powerful thrash-metal rhythms, scalding high-velocity solos and fills, and mid-heavy tones, all in service of the bandleader’s dark lyric poetry.
What does set The Sick, The Dying... and The Dead! apartfrom Megadeth’s previous releases is its blend of relentless attitude and melody. The way both of the band’s guitarists see it, writing a great song always had to come first.
“The ultimate goal was how to sound powerful and thrash and violent, but also melodic and have some good songwriting skills,” says Loureiro.
Mustaine adds, “It was my goal to make a great record. Anything less than that would be a farce. Just to go through the motions—that’s not me. I am not one to settle for second best.”
Dave Mustaine’s Gear
Mustaine plays one of his earlier Dean signature models while touring in support of the Dystopia album in 2016, at the fairgrounds in Schaghticoke, New York.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- Gibson Signature Flying V EXP
- Gibson Trini Lopez
- Gibson Signature Songwriter acoustic
Strings & Picks
- Cleartone customs (.011–.054, for D standard)
- Cleartone Dave Mustaine Heavy Series (.010–.052, for standard)
- Cleartone .73 mm
Amps
- Marshall JCM800
- Marshall 1959RR Randy Rhoads
- Neural DSP Quad Cortex (live)
- Marshall 1960DM Dave Mustaine Signature 4x12s
“Dogs of Chernobyl” is a standout example of the album’s brutal melodic mashup. After announcing its arrival with Loureiro’s gorgeous classical guitar, it suddenly shifts gears into gut-punching riffs, complete with finger-twisting passages, all the while offering a chorus that rings through your ears all day. But this is no pop album. Megadeth has always delivered supremely heavy music, and tuning their guitars down to D standard for the first time added an even heavier weight to these songs.
For the most part, down-tuning has been a big no-no for Mustaine. But, this time, he didn’t have a choice. “I wanted to stay in standard tuning as a middle finger to people who had to detune to make their songs sound better,” he says. “But my neck was broken [in 2012], and they fused my neck together. Now there’s a plate on my throat. That’s why we did the drop tuning into D. It’s because my voice is affected by the plate.”
“Megadeth is not about the drop tuning. It’s about the attitude, the way we play,” clarifies Loureiro. “But I think having the D standard gives a modern sound without going to a different style.”
“I was told by an oral surgeon just like he was ordering a cup of coffee. ‘Oh, you have cancer.’”—Dave Mustaine
Both guitarists applied this album’s new tuning to their fleet of signature guitars. Loureiro—an Ibanez guy to the core—used RGs, AZs, and other models, but relied primarily on his off-the-shelf KIKO100. He says his 100 is “exactly the way you find it. I don’t change anything. You choose the DiMarzio pickups, you choose everything that you like, and then you ask the company to manufacture the guitar the way you like. I think that’s the idea of a signature guitar.”
Mustaine, who last year became a Gibson brand ambassador, went straight to his signature Songwriter acoustic and Flying V EXP for the sessions. They are, after all, the guitars he says he’s been chasing since he was a kid. “When I got my first Kiss record, it said, ‘Kiss uses the best.’ They had the Gibson logo. I knew Kiss was my band, and they used Gibson because they only wanted to use the best. It says so on their fucking records! Who would put that on their records if they weren’t telling the truth? Gibson had to be the best.”
Dave Mustaine on His Gibson Flying V EXP Signature | Megadeth Rig Rundown Trailer
Mustaine’s instrument is no ordinary Flying V. Like with every other guitar he’s endorsed, this model had to meet his exacting specifications and play just right. “Just the modification I made to the neck made this Flying V a contender. It plays just like the Jacksons that I created. Now we’ve got a 24-fret Flying V. A real flying V. It’s not a King V, not a DV8, not a VMNT, not a WXYZ. It’s a fucking Flying V. No more playing somebody else’s version of the real deal. I got the real deal, and I’ve already modified it to make it mine.” Mustaine’s new model has a mahogany body and neck, with a 25 1/2" scale, an ebony compound radius fretboard, a Graph Tech nut, an Explorer-style headstock, a Nashville Tune-o-matic bridge, Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor pickups, two volume dials, a master tone knob, and custom wiring.
Amp-wise, Mustaine still relies on his beloved Marshalls. “Ever since Papa Jim [company founder Jim Marshall] passed away [in 2012], it’s been sad for me,” Mustaine says. “The company’s changed a lot but is still the greatest amplification company for rock music. In the studio, that’s all we use.”
Kiko Loureiro’s Gear
Kiko Loureiro, who hails from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, joined Megadeth in 2015, bringing a highly melodic and sometimes neoclassical approach to the band’s guitar attack.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- Ibanez Signature KIKO100
- Various Ibanez RG and AZ series models
- Custom classical acoustic
String & Picks
- D’Addario (.010–.046)
- D’Addario heavy
Amps
- Marshall JCM800
- Bogner Shiva
- Neural DSP Quad Cortex (live)
- Marshall 1960DM Dave Mustaine Signature 4x12s
Using a blend of a JCM800 and a rare 1959RR Randy Rhoads head, Mustaine’s tone is as mid-heavy and fierce as ever on The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! Loureiro also went with the JCM800 as the foundation of his solos, but the addition of a Bogner Shiva and Ibanez Tube Screamer is the secret to his detailed lead tones.
Loureiro’s fretboard mastery is all over The Sick, The Dying... and The Dead! He is as proficient at balancing Mustaine’s go-for-the-throat solos with exotic, melodic flourishes as he is at tearing through hyper-speed chromatics. For proof, listen to Loureiro burn through the solo that follows Ice-T’s guest appearance in “Night Stalkers.”
“I really like the technical stuff: sweep picking, tapping, and the whole thing.” Loureiro says. “But I also have to keep the energy. So, I use intense bends and vibratos and have this powerful, energetic way of picking the notes. I try to mix those things and get very aggressive, but also sound very clear and defined.”
“Megadeth is not about drop tuning. It’s about the attitude, the way you play. But I think D-standard gives a modern sound without going to a different style.”—Kiko Loureiro
During his seven-year tenure, Loureiro’s earned his place in Megadeth’s pantheon of legendary lead guitarists, which also includes Marty Friedman, Chris Poland, and Al Pitrelli. It’s a position he respects and embraces. “When I write stuff for Megadeth, I’m always picturing Megadeth in my mind. I mold myself into that Megadeth world,” he says. “And I’m there to push Dave. Whenever he’s playing something very energetic or something that really connects to the early days of Megadeth, it’s like, ‘Yes, that’s the Dave we’re a fan of!’ We’re also reminding him who he is—because he’s Dave!”
In preparation for the new album’s September 2 release, Mustaine invited bassist James LoMenzo, who played in Megadeth from 2006 to 2010, back into the band and hit the road. Their recent shows have been as potent as ever live, headlining a bill called the Metal Tour of the Year that includes Lamb of God, Trivium, and In Flames. The energy, power, and technicality of Megadeth’s performances seemed more like the work of a young band hungry to make their mark. Mustaine agrees.
Rig Rundown: Megadeth's Dave Mustaine & Kiko Loureiro [2022]
“The time apart from James was really good for the two of us,” Mustaine says. “I realized how much I really like him and respect him as a player. For us now, the sum of the parts is way more than the whole. It’s the beginning of a new period for us.”
If having fought through throat cancer, replacing key personnel, and surviving Covid marks a new period, one must wonder: Can anything stop Mustaine and crew? Not until he’s ready.
“I’m not pushing it until the wheels come off, because I think that signifies that you’re no longer able to run the race,” Mustaine adds. “When it’s time for me to go and make that final pit stop, I’ll know. But I feel better than I’ve felt in a very long time. I think my playing and my singing are better now than ever, and I can’t wait to get up onstage. I look forward to it every day.”
YouTube It
Here’s a jolt from this April’s Las Vegas stop on Megadeth’s headlining Metal Tour of the Year: Dave Mustaine and Kiko Loureiro trading solo on the band’s classic “Hangar 18,” from 1990’s Rust in Peace. Scroll to 1:36 to see their fire ignite.
Eric Deaton - Oxford Mississippi
“It’s all about the one,” says Eric Deaton. “You’ve got your one-chord drone, so it’s just a groove and very funky—like James Brown’s bass players.”
Photo by Chris Johnson
Eric Deaton got his break one night when trance-blues patriarch Junior Kimbrough’s bassist didn’t show up at Junior’s juke joint, in the rolling hills outside of Holly Springs, Mississippi. Deaton was already a regular guest there, on guitar, but after he subbed on 4-string that evening, he became a staple of the low end for members of the region’s revered Kimbrough and Burnside musical families, and many other Magnolia State blues and roots players. In fact, if you’ve spent time in the bars and blues festivals of the middle and deeper South, and you haven’t seen the longhaired, cheerful Deaton bobbing to the beat, you probably had your eyes closed.
Schooled by the Kimbroughs and Burnsides, Deaton’s specialty is the rumbling, loping, snake-charmer’s pulse of north Mississippi hill country, where a subgenre of blues that lays bare the style’s deepest African roots has taken hold for generations. “It’s all about the one,” he explains. “You’ve got your one-chord drone, so it’s just a groove and very funky—like James Brown’s bass players. People talk about how hypnotic it is, and that’s true. Playing it, you feel yourself lifting off a little bit. It takes you to a whole ’nother level. It’s psychedelic!”
While Deaton, who also fronts his own band on guitar, has been a fixture on that circuit almost since he arrived from Raleigh, North Carolina, in the early ’90s with a powerful yearning to play the blues in the land where it began, his profile has risen sharply over the past three years. Major-league raw-and-dirty blues fan Dan Auerbach drafted Deaton for a host of productions, including Jimmy “Duck” Holmes’ Grammy-nominated Cypress Grove, Hank Williams, Jr.’s Rich White Honky Blues, two albums by Robert Finley, and the Black Keys’ Delta Kream. Auerbach also brought Deaton to play bass on the Keys’ 2022 world tour, and special dates to promote his Easy Eye Sound label’s 2023 blues compilation, Tell Everybody.
“I’d never been in front of an audience of that size prior to that, so it was just an amazing experience, to see how a big tour like that is put together and all,” says Deaton, who plays a Blues King PJ made by St. Blues in Memphis. “And musically, it’s been a lot of fun because I am playing the same basslines I’ve been playing since I was 18, but doing that in arenas and Red Rocks and places like that. Because Dan and Pat [Carney, Black Keys drummer] made me a featured artist on the Delta Kream record, we got to share in a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album, too.”
— Ted DrozdowskiDezron Douglas - New York, New York
“To be honest with you, I'm never worried about taking a solo. You know, that's really not my job.,” says Dezron Douglas
Photo by Andrew Blackstein
Dezron Douglas is acutely aware of what he needs to do on any given night. Whether he’s playing challenging modern jazz with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane at Birdland or he’s deep in a spacey horn-fueled funk jam at Red Rocks with Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, the vibration, according to Douglas, is the same. “Too many bass players are thinking about soloing. And you can hear that when they’re playing,” he Douglas shortly before a recent Birdland hit with Coltrane (who he has been working with for 20 years). “To be honest with you, I’m never worried about taking a solo. You know, that’s not my job.”
Douglas’ style is rooted in jazz, but not bound by it. He was mentored in college by legendary saxophonist Jackie McLean and was taught that real music education needs to happen outside of the classroom. “Jackie let me out of school for my first tour ever,” remembers Douglas. That tour was with guitarist Johnnie Marshall and it was a brutal eight-week run through the chitlin circuit. Young Dezron was ready to solo and show his new employer what he could do. “I took a solo. The crowd was clapping and whatnot. And then for the next week and a half, he didn't give me another solo,” laughs Douglas. It was a tough lesson, but taught Douglas that his role needed to be supportive above all else.
Douglas has released a string of solo albums since 2012, led his own quartet at the Village Vanguard, and developed as a composer. His latest album, Atalaya, is a deep portrait of an artist who has not only an original voice on his instrument, but in his tunes. That is increasingly rare in today’s jazz scene, where there’s a trend to value obsessive technicality over melody and groove.
In 2021, after the death of bassist Tony Markellis, Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio chose Douglas to join his solo band. “Tony and Trey had a report for 30 years,” says Douglas. “And, you know, you can't recreate that. All you can do is learn the material, pay homage, and create something different of your own.” Douglas’ intrinsic versatility has been a perfect fit with Anastasio’s soul-funk outfit. “With Trey, I get to be myself,” he says.
—Jason Shadrick
Paul Bryan - Los Angeles, California
“With the bass, you’re the bus driver, musically,” Paul Bryan explains. “It’s natural to keep your eye on the ball in terms of rhythm, harmony, arrangement, dynamics … developing spaces at the core of all of those things.”
Paul Bryan’s new album, Western Electric, is a journey through melody and groove in service of a futuristic jazz-rock sound that references classic jazz, dub, and post-rock. Bryan’s groovy and lyrical electric bass welds musical elements, intertwining with drummer Jay Bellerose, saxophonist Josh Johnson, and overdubbed synths, all often generously dosed with effects. Each sound is in service of a bigger picture—the kind of cohesive vision he seems to bring to each project.
“With the bass, you’re the bus driver, musically,” Bryan explains. “It’s natural to keep your eye on the ball in terms of rhythm, harmony, arrangement, dynamics … developing spaces at the core of all of those things.” And he does so on a wide variety of projects. Over the course of his career, Bryan’s played bass on recordings by many artists, including Norah Jones and Mavis Staples, and is in Aimee Mann’s band in addition to having produced five of her albums. He’s also a member of the Los Angeles creative-music scene, where he’s active as a player, engineer, and producer.
As much as Western Electric is a product of that fertile scene—which also includes Johnson and Bellerose—it’s so clearly from Bryan’s brain. The Fender Jazz and Jag player is an obvious record head, citing Jo Jones and Milt Hinton’s Percussion and Bass and Sonny Rollins’Way Out West as references—both of which sound nothing like Bryan’s record to a casual listener. But the concept is clear, foregrounding the relationship of his melodic, effects-heavy playing and Bellerose’s deep grooves.
And beyond the playing, Bryan approaches the album’s sonic details like a dub master: “Once you've heard something for 20 seconds, your brain goes, ‘Okay, I know what that is.’ So, I’ll do some cool reverb trick or add some cool low-end thump. I’m always trying to reset the table throughout the song.”
—Nick Millevoi
Sébastien Provençal - Montreal Quebec
“It’s all about notes duration, my intentions behind the notes, the tones, and being blessed to play in a band with my best friends, who are amazing musicians,” says Sébastien Provençal.
Photo by Vincent Gravel
It was pouring rain when Population II took the stage in Montreal’s Parc La Fontaine on June 23. The hometown trio were headlining a progressive celebration for Québec independence on the eve of St.-Jean-Baptiste Day—the Francophone Canadian province’s equivalent of the Fourth of July. A couple hundred people splashed around in the swampy grass to catch the band’s free set, and it was immediately evident why: Population II are one of the most exciting Canadian bands of the decade.
In a trio, all members are especially responsible for the band’s success or failure, but that feels particularly true for Population II, whose daring arrangements and sonic explorations dart between post-punk, jazz, garage, new wave, psych- and prog-rock, and more. Twenty-nine-year-old bassist Sébastien Provençal, sporting a 1968 Fender Telecaster Bass routed through a playground of pedals into a 1972 Hiwatt DR201 and blasted out an Ampeg 8x10, establishes and carries arrangements forward while vocalist/drummer Pierre-Luc Gratton and guitarist/organist Tristan Lacombe thrash and spark around him. Amid the storm in Parc La Fontaine, the combination was euphoric.
Provençal’s opening bass line on “R.B.,” off of this year’s EP Serpent Échelle, is an instant classic, perfectly setting the tone for the song’s mad ramble. The riff is elastic and fluid, but it’s also martial and commanding. This is the heart of Provençal’s playing: It’s playful and exploratory, but executed with such authority and precision that it feels industrial, ruthless. See also his introductory synth-bass gambit on “Orlando,” the stunning opener from their 2023 LP, Électrons libres, du québec. Provençal’s tones often mutate and morph between movements within single songs—it’s clear he puts a ton of thought into not just his arrangements, but the textures they’re presented with. “It’s all about notes duration, my intentions behind the notes, the tones, and being blessed to play in a band with my best friends, who are amazing musicians,” Provençal says. “With this in mind, my style is intentionally bold with a strong sense of vulnerability.”
Provençal’s top influences also offer a vivid picture of his style. Bootsy Collins and Aston “Family Man” Barrett knock up against punk Mike Watt, Can’s Holger Czukay, Yes’ Chris Squire, synth-rock pioneer Simeon Coxe, jazz-prog wizard Hugh Hopper, and Miles Davis’ fusion specialist Michael Henderson (“The best to ever do it on the electric bass,” says Provençal). Excellent bassists have been making smart, challenging weirdo art with their instrument for decades, carving out new meanings of the word “bassist,” but I’m grateful that I get to hear Sébastien Provençal do it here in Montreal, pushing music and this province, and this country, to weirder, cooler places.
— Luke Ottenhof