Dave Mustaine explains how to be succcessful in Thrash Metal

The guitarist and singer Dave Mustaine, who is an ex-Metallica member and the founder of Megadeth, explained in an interview with BBC Radio 4 (Transcribed by Blabbermouth). The musician recalled the advice that his sound engineer heard from the famous producer Quincy Jones, who worked with Michael Jackson, back in the 80s.

Formed right after he was fired from Metallica in 1983, Megadeth became one of the most influential bands of all time. They have sold an estimated amount of more than 38 million records worldwide.

Dave Mustaine explains how to be succcessful in Thrash Metal

“For me, what I’d like to leave for future generations is to know that melody is so critical to songs. Quincy Jones is a very famous producer here in America. We were making the ‘Rust In Peace’ record at the time and had gone to this party, and Quincy was there. And he had said to our engineer/producer that the key to successful songs was beat, melody and 10 simple words.”

“So I guess the most important thing I would like to leave to future generations is to echo what Quincy had said, but to make it my own, I would say in order to be successful in thrash, you need to have a heavy beat, melody and I’d say probably 20 simple words because we sing so much faster,” Dave Mustaine said.

Since 1983 the band released 16 studio albums and 6 live records. The most recent one is “The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!” from 2022. Their current line-up has Dave Mustaine (Vocals and guitar), Kiko Loureiro (Guitar), James LoMenzo (Bass) and Dirk Verbeuren (Drums). They are currently on the road and have scheduled tour dates for Europe this August. In september and October the band will perform in the United States.