In 1981, Dave Mustaine saw an ad placed by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich in the local paper for a band looking for a lead guitarist. Shortly after Mustaine auditioned for the part, and got it. Although Mustaine didn’t last long in Metallica, as he was fired in 1983, he definitely left his mark on the band.
Now, during a recent interview on the Shawn Ryan Show, Mustaine recalled his 1981 audition, saying:
“I drove down from Huntington Beach to Newport Beach, where he lived in a place called…I think it was called Park Newport. And the funny thing was, my mom was a maid, and she had actually worked an event for catering in the complex he was in. And I’m thinking, ‘Go figure. My mom was a maid here, and your mom has a place here.’ What a story that is, two different sides of the same coin.”
“And so I went into his place and started talking to him, and he played this song called ‘Hit the Lights’ … And I said, ‘Wow, this song means way more lead solos in it.’ This is me being cocky, being me, ‘Needs more lead solos in it.’ And he was trying to figure out if I was for real. And so we went to rehearsal. He said, ‘We’re gonna try you out.’
“So okay, I knew how good I played. I have been gifted, and I know it’s not by my own doing, so I don’t try to take any credit for it. I don’t care how good I am or not, or what people say, or anything like that. I just knew what I knew.”
Mutaine continued, explaining that the band decided to cancel his audition after they heard him warming up, instead deciding to offer him the gig on the spot.
“I went to Ron McGovney’s parents’ fourplex. They had this place where James was living with Ron. I went up there with Lars, and I set up my amps. I plugged my guitar in, and I just started warming up,” he said.
“They wouldn’t come into the rehearsal room. So I put my guitar down, and I thought, ‘This is really strange.’ And I walked out and I said, ‘Guys, are we going to do the audition?’ They said, ‘You got the gig.'”
“I knew I was going to get it because I could play that stuff. I mean, there weren’t very many guitar players like me around at the time. Who were they? Randy Rhoads. There were people like that. The guy from Ratt, Warren DeMartini, was really great. But real shredders? There weren’t a lot of us around at the time.”
