Megadeth released on their 1988 album “So Far, So Good… So What!” a praised cover of the Sex Pistols hit “Anarchy in the UK” that was part of the band’s setlist for years. However, in an interview with Steve-O, Dave Mustaine said they won’t play that track anymore.
Although he performs the black magic-themed song ‘The Conjuring’ again, he says he can’t play the Pistols cover anymore because it includes the line ‘I am an antichrist,’ which he no longer identifies with, as he is now a religious person.
Dave Mustaine tells why Megadeth won’t play “Anarchy In the UK”
“Because it says ‘I’m an anti-Christ,’ and I’m not an anti-Christ; We did that over at Download (Festival in 2016). So Nikki Sixx (of Mötley Crüe) was there. And I looked at him and for some reason I just felt that I needed to just bury the hatchet with him for something. And I don’t know what it was, but just something made me feel like I needed to just make things cool. Not that I need his approval or anything like that, and not that he cares about me at all, but I just felt like maybe there was something out there that I did.”
“And I remembered that we had a guy in our band that had a shirt with Nikki’s face on it with a red line and a circle through it. And so I’m glad that I did make that amends with Nikki, although it wasn’t like a ninth step or anything like that, ’cause I’m not in the program. But I’d gone up to him and said, ‘Hey, man, would you be interested in playing ‘Anarchy’ with us tonight?’ So the last time I played it was with Nikki at Download. And it was fun. I don’t think anybody expected to see that. I certainly wouldn’t have expected that. If young Dave would have talked to old Dave, I would have said, ‘You’re out of your fucking tree, Mustaine’,” the Megadeth leader said.
In his autobiography, Mustaine revealed that he practiced black magic when he was a teenager and that affected his life for years later.
