Drawing inspiration from Dave Mustaine

Samarjit Kambam *

If you are a metalhead, I sure hope you are familiar with the name "Dave Mustaine", the frontman and founder of thrash metal band 'Megadeth'.The name Megadeth was derived from the word 'mega-death' which refers to a million deaths due to the aftermath of a nuclear bomb blast. Up around the bend, along the driveway to speed metal aka thrash, whenever you hear the name Megadeth, the name of the band Metallica will definitely ring a bell in your head.

The two are inter-wined in many facets with Dave Mustaine as the link between them. This doesn't mean that the two are friendly metal bands. They are in fact rival bands, one trying to knock down the other, going neck to neck with each other.

Dave Mustaine hailed from San Fransisco, California. Brought up with an indifferent father who got divorced with his mom when he was a kid, life was not so kind to him. However, the love for music ran high in his veins. When he was a teenager, he formed a heavy metal band called 'Panic'. Tragic gripped his band when most of his band members died in car crashes and other causes.

During that transition phase when he was shouldering the heavy grief of irreparable loss of his colleagues, he stumbled upon an ad for a lead guitarist from a newly formed band called Metallica.He gave it a try and turned up at the audition for selection of lead guitarist. While he was warming up with his guitar for the audition, he was told by drummer Lars Ulrich, founder of the band and James Hetfield, the vocalist that his audition is over.

To his utter surprise, as he was packing up and trying to leave the spot, Lars and Hetfield toldhim that he has been selected. In fact, the Metallica crew was very much impressed by the way he toyed with his guitar.All that they asked for in a lead guitarist for their particular genre of music was in the flesh and blood of Dave Mustaine.

By the time Metallica was in its infant stage, jamming inside a garage, they were heavily inspired by Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Led Zeppelin. Metallica's debut album was "No Life 'til Leather" which was later on christenedto "Kill 'Em All" garnering attention of underground metal fans. Dave Mustaine played a great role in bringing out Metallica to the limelight by contributing lyrics, composingguitar riffs and solos.

As he went on a rampage of booze and drugs, he headed towards the path of self-destruction, sometimes leading to violent behavior. Soon, he was fired from Metallica without giving any warning or notice even though he was one of the pioneers in making the band come out of oblivion making it a tight unit. After another round of audition for a lead guitar, Kirk Hammet was selected in his place.

The bandthen became unstoppable with the chart of their success climbing higher and higher with albums such as Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, And Justice for All, Road, Reload, Death Magnetic, St. Anger etc which catapulted their fame with many of their songs going platinum both in the US & UK. But Metallica had theirown share of controversial phases. Dave Mustaine later onrevealed that Kirk Hammet had copied the original guitar solos of his creation in many of their songs.

Dave Mustaine, however beaten mentally and morally has always been a survivor. Unhindered by the mental agony after being kicked out from Metallica, Dave remained firm like a mountain and floated a band called "Fallen Angels" but it was short-lived. The band remained fallen. In his relentless quest to form a powerful band, he founded "Megadeth" alongwith bassist David Ellefson.

Dave wanted a unique metal music quite different from Metallica and other hardcore thrash bands during that time such as Slayer,Anthrax, Exodus, Testament, Overkill, Metal Church etc.Megadeth's music features complex arrangements and fast rhythm section at high b.p.m. and lyrical themes on death, war, politics and religion. Their music is crunchier, rawer, heavier, faster and powerful yet producing melodic guitar riffs and solos.

Dave's musicianship is astounding. He possesses a good voice, a voice having the right tonality for the Thrash genre of music. During that time, Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax were known as the 'Big Four' of Thrash.

Megadeth, came up with its debut album "Killing is my Business… and Business is Good" which literally changed the scenario of music. Megadeth's music is more powerful making other thrash, speed metal or power metalof the era feel like old school. In fact, Dave Mustaine's creativity and musical prowess was one class above from the contemporary thrash bands of the timeas is obvious from their second album "Peace Sells…But Who's buying".

With their album "So Far So Good… So What" their metal fan base kept on growing exponentially and was well received by fans and critics. With one lead guitarist short, Dave searched for a new lead guitarist i.e. Slash of GNR and Dimebag Darrell of Pantera but they refused to joined. He luckily stumbled upon Marty Friedman from Cacaphony, one among the guitar gods who played the way just like Dave wanted.

Marty's performance was jaw dropping. In fact, Dave knew that he had found the perfect weapon to catapult Megadeth to greater heights. Then they brought forth the most critically acclaimed "Rust in Piece" album thereby reaching No. 23 at US and 8 at UK.Mustaine had developed a writing style with a rhythmically complex progressive edge and the songs featured longer guitar solos and frequent tempo changes.

The album solidified Megadeth's reputation in the tough music industry and then there's no stopping for Megadeth. I can't get enough of listening to "Holy Wars", a song based on the clashes between Catholics and Protestants of Ireland. The instrumental guitar dual of Dave and Marty is something out of the world. I still can listen repeatedly to "Hangar 18", "The Punishment Due", "Sweating Bullets", "Angry Again" and "Symphony of Destruction" which remains one of the all-time favourites of all metalheads.

Rust in Peace was the band's third platinum album. Megadeth kept on rolling out new commercially successful albums such as Countdown to Extinction, Youthanasia, Cryptic Writings, Risks, The World Needs a Hero, The System has Failed, United Abominations, Endgame, Thirteen, Super Collider and Dystopia. Megadeth thus garnered a huge fan base and remained on the top slot of Thrash music for many years.

Weird though it may sound, I draw inspiration from Dave Mustaine. Well, inspiration comes in many forms. A whiff of aroma may inspire you. Someone may get inspired by the morning dew on a blade of grass or a gentle breeze of wind. A beautiful quote, a song, a book, a movie, a landscape and the likes may turn out to be your source of inspiration.

Inspiration can be drawn from many entities, however, as per the opinion of the writer, we the humans draw the greatest source of inspiration fromamongst human beings only. Mahatma Gandhi was the fountain of inspiration for Martin Luther King. Karl Marx drew inspiration from Voltaire, Jane Austen from Shakespeare, Marie Curie from Isaac Newton, Oscar Wilde from Victor Hugo, Lord Byron from Alexander Pope, Tolstoy from Charles Dicken…. the list would be endless. You can draw inspiration from a single person or from a multiplicity of persons.

To me, most of the works of Dave Mustaine are inspirational. His lyrics deal heavily against nuclear war, censorship and other threats to society under the iron fist of totalitarian regimes and as per the genre can be considered as works of a person of high intelligence. His lyrics defy gravity, are a cut above the rest. In fact, he is a virtuoso when it comes to music.

He was adjudged the No. 1 Guitar Player in Joel Mclver's book "The Hundred Greatest Metal Guitarists" in 2009 and 12th Greatest Guitarist of All Time by Guitar World Magazine readers' poll in 2012. He also launched a music festival called "Gigantour", an electric and affordable alternative to Ozzfest.

Over and above being a singer, song-writer, producer, actor, author and a talent manager, he also holds black-belt in Taekwondo and Ukidokan Karate. He rarely seems to run out of topics to discuss and has high level of creative energy and story-telling abilities. His penchant for neo-conservative views is often perplexing considering the nature of his artistic output. Love him or hate him, but his ineffable ability to entertain never wanes.