Slayer guitarist on Metallica vs. Megadeth
Slayer‘s Kerry King recently took a shot at Dave Mustaine’s singing voice in a new interview whn he was asked: “Metallica or Megadeth?”
“Metallica,” King told Reigning Phoenix Music. “Well, hang on. Hang on. I’m going to be brutally honest. Metallica has a singer. Sorry, Dave.”
Dave Mustaine and Megadeth have been in the news with the announcement of Megadeth’s retirement tour and final album. Megadeth recently announced that their upcoming new self-titled album will officially be their last. Giving a few hints about the record, frontman Dave Mustaine previously teased that they “have 13 new songs for the new album… One of the songs is a cover song but I actually wrote it, so it’s kind of like a cover, kind of like my song.”
Now, after much fan speculation, it has officially been confirmed that the cover Mustaine was referring to is Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning.”
Megadeth covering Metallica classic
While Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica in 1983 before the release of their debut album “Kill ‘Em All,” he is credited with writing four songs on the record and two songs on the band’s second album, including the title track “Ride the Lightning.”
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Mustaine shared some details about their cover of “Ride the Lightning,” revealing that Megadeth’s rendition stays truer to the version he originally wrote for Metallica rather than James Hetfield and co.’s reworked version.
Insisting that he has nothing but respect for his former band, Mustaine explained why they decided to cover the track.
“It wasn’t really that I wanted to do my version,” he told the publication. “I think that we all wanted it to turn out a certain way, and for me, this was about something so much more than how a song turns out. It was about respect.”
Dave Mustaine respects James Hetfield
Much of that respect, Mustaine says, is for Metallica’s frontman James Hetfield.
“No one ever talks to me about that,” he says of Hetfield’s skill. “One day he’s a singer, the next day he’s this f*cking powerhouse, and I’ve always respected him as a guitar player.
“So I wanted to do something to close the circle on my career right now, since it started off with [Mustaine’s band before Metallica] Panic and several of the songs that ended up in the Metallica repertoire, I wanted to do something that I felt would be a good song.”
“Our intentions were pure,” Mustaine continued. “I didn’t have any reason I was going to say, ‘Oh, hey man, this thing that we’ve had for 40 years where you guys will never tour with me, me doing the song is going to change things.’ That wasn’t it at all. It was more about: This is my life going forward. I want to do things that are respectable. And I think doing something where we can pay honor to the guy that … I mean, I hate to say this, because it’s just so f*cking arrogant, but the guitar playing in Metallica changed the world.”
