Reader: Natheniel Nikhamin
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Guitar: Rogue
Then, one day in chemistry class, I decided to check Reverb and see what the prices are like on Ibanez JPM100s these days. Not surprisingly, they’re reaching $10,000. I kept scrolling until I saw a set of bare guitar bodies with the Picasso faces engraved in the wood with a CNC machine. The gears started turning. I sent a link to my dad and said, “Thoughts?” Later, at dinner, my mom OK’d the idea. The journey began.
I ordered the basswood body from Perle Guitars via Reverb with an Ibanez Lo-Pro Edge from a retailer in Germany. I got the pickups from DiMarzio with the goal to get it to sound as similar to John Petrucci’s as possible, by using his signature Crunch Lab and LiquiFire set. I even got the toggle switch from DiMarzio, which allowed me to have a split-coil sound in the middle position. I put 500k CTS pots and a .022 µF cap on the tone knob. I ordered locking tuners from Gotoh.
The biggest issue was sourcing the neck. I couldn’t find a single builder who builds custom Ibanez AANJ necks, which left me with buying a used neck from a parted guitar. The wait for the right neck lasted around three months. I bought a 2000 Ibanez RG7620 neck in practically mint condition from Uplander Guitars in Canada. I used black, gray, and red stains I bought locally. The idea for it was to look almost robotic with red eyes and avoid too much of a copycat look, hence the color choice.
Knowing I was going to John Petrucci’s Guitar Universe 4.0, I decided I may as well show it off and get it signed. It was the right choice. This guitar was a head-turner and even brought in compliments from Tosin Abasi and Aaron Marshall. The signatures on the back include Al Pitrelli, Scott Weis, Zakk Wylde, Tim Henson, Scott LePage, Tosin Abasi, Guthrie Govan, Rena Petrucci, Mike Mangini, Dave LaRue, Lari Basilio, Jason Richardson, Plini, Fredrik Åkesson, Ola Englund, Captain Fawcett, Joscho Stephan, and, of course, John Petrucci. There are two steps left: filling in the engraved channels with resin mixed with blue glow-in-the-dark powder, and applying a clear coat to preserve the signatures for virtually forever.
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Death metal is a genre built on precision and power. Chelsea Grin’s articulate picking and gut-rattling riffs are its foundation. But thanks to a rotating cast of ripping guitarists (including Rig Rundown alumnus Jason Richardson), their five albums have shown subtle brick-and-mortar flair by incorporating elements of djent, metalcore, doom, black metal, and even post-hardcore. The current lead guitar chair has been filled by Stephen Rutishauser since 2015. His input has given their chaotic sound a more meticulous gnarl and complex rhythmic density that binds discord and darkened melodies.
Hours before Chelsea Grin’s rare club gig at Nashville’s the End, the gruesomely heavy guitarist invited PG’s Chris Kies onstage to talk gear. In this RR, the band’s face-melter details the sparkle-covered Petrucci signatures that he carries on tour and breaks down the dialed-in digital patches that color their brutal barrage.
Brought to you by D’Addario dBud Earplugs.
Man Meets Machine
“I love these guitars [Music Man JP13s] for a lot of reasons,” admits Rutishauser. “They have a bite no other guitar can achieve. I think that’s just the conglomerate of everything they put into it. It’s piercing, with a crisp, throaty midrange. It’s just a total machine.” All of his JP13s are loaded with DiMarzio-designed, Petrucci-endorsed Illuminator humbuckers. The JP13s handle all songs in drop-A and drop-G tunings. He landed on this particular iteration of the John Petrucci signature because of its tonewood pairings: basswood body, mahogany tone block, maple top, mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard. His drop-A guitars take Ernie Ball Ernie Ball 2621 7-String Regular Slinky Cobalts (.010–.056) and his drop-G guitars (like the one above) take Ernie Ball 2615 7-String Skinny Top Heavy Bottom Slinky Cobalts (.010–.062).
Sassafras Sparkle
This delicious Music Man JP13 is finished in root beer sparkle. This one is an anomaly as it has a JP13 body matched with a JP15 neck. The difference is more than a number, as the 15 model shifted to a roasted-bird’s-eye-maple neck and fretboard. He notes the varied ingredients provide less spark in his pinch harmonics, but Rutishauser does enjoy how it brightens up his palm-muted chugs.
The Boom Stick
Rutishauser’s choice for his main 8-string, which handles drop-B jams, is this Aristides 080. The unique thing about this beast is that it contains no wood and is made completely of resin-based Arium. It features a 27" scale length, MEC Electronics, and Lundgren M8 humbuckers. Plus, its C-shaped multi-scale neck (26.5"-28") starts at 2.17" wide and spreads to 2.75" at the 12th fret. The Richlite fretboard has a compound (14"-19") radius and is fitted with 24 Jescar medium-jumbo, stainless steel frets. It’s laced with Ernie Ball 8-String Slinkys (.010–.074).
A Black Hole
The 080s magnificent galaxy-sparkle finish gives way to a clear back piece that shows off the blackened Arium construction at its nucleus.
Rosé Rocker
This champagne-sparkle JP13 handles any required 7-string backup duties.
Light and Mighty
Both Rutishauser and bassist David Flinn rely on Fractal Audio juggernauts. Stephen plugs into the Axe-Fx II XL+, while Flinn runs into the original Axe-Fx Ultra. Rutishauser’s principal tone is based on the FAS Brutals. He intensifies that setting with putting a drive into the Brutals and parametric EQ after it. He’ll occasionally patch in a reverb, delay, and modulation at the end of his chain, but ahead of the EQ. The laptop runs Cubase for the guitar track, click track, 808 bass drops, and left-right stereo tracks.
Racked and Ready
Focusrite’s Clarett+ 8Pre interface controls their inputs. A Radial SW8 Auto-Switcher wrangles all backing tracks out of Cubase. Sennheiser EM 300 G3 wireless units cover both the stringed instruments and the band’s in-ear monitors. At the bottom rests a Behringer X32 Rack, which routes and regulates the band’s in-ear monitors.
Mustaine stands tall with the Gibson Custom Shop version of his signature Flying V EXP, which will become available in October.
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.