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Dave Mustaine remixes, remasters, restores and reconstructs the entire Megadeth catalog
By: ModernRock.com
July 7th 2004 5:46am
One of the most groundbreaking, electrifying, and provocative bodies of work
in the history of heavy rock is about to be re-unleashed upon the public in
all its blazing glory. Seven albums by pioneering metal band Megadeth,
along with a new, never-before-heard version of a Megadeth-related side
project, arrive on July 27th. Founder, singer, guitarist, and primary
songwriter Dave Mustaine spent months remixing, remastering, restoring--and
in some cases reconstructing--the band's catalog to bring it as close to his
original vision as possible. With each album packed with unreleased tracks,
demos and alternate mixes, along with painfully honest liner notes from the
iconoclastic Mustaine, these are the definitive editions of Megadeth's
musical legacy.
"I have finally gotten to go back and make everything that I was hearing in
my head available to the fans, so that they can experience the songs the way
that I feel they truly are in my soul," says Mustaine about his massive
project on Capitol Records. "Some of the songs just didn't turn out the way
that I wanted them to when they were first made, due to money restrictions,
technology limitations and so on. I believe now that there is nothing
standing in the way of what I felt when I wrote these songs and how you will
be able to hear them."
Megadeth was formed in 1983, shortly after California native Mustaine parted
ways with Metallica. "When I first started the group, I wanted to form a
band because I was very bitter about being fired (from Metallica) and my
fuel was revenge," says the bracingly candid musician. "I went from playing
music for fun as a kid to playing music for payback. I didn't really care
who was in the group; I just had something I wanted to accomplish. I was
not going to be looked upon as someone who wasn't good enough." With
something to prove, Mustaine initially set out to create the heaviest metal
band ever. Beginning with the band's 1985 debut album, Killing Is My
Business.And Business Is Good!, and evolving through a shifting series of
lineups, Megadeth crafted a dynamic, intelligent style that combined the
aggressiveness of thrash metal, the improvisational nature of jazz, and
cynical, articulate, politically-charged lyrics into an innovative mix that
built a rabid worldwide following.
Several early albums--including 1986's classic Peace Sells.But Who's Buying?
and the masterful 1990 release, Rust In Peace--solidified the band's
underground metal fanbase. In 1992, Megadeth busted out into the mainstream
with their fifth album, Countdown To Extinction, which debuted on the
Billboard Top 200 album chart at Number Two and went on to sell over two
million copies in the U.S. alone. 1994's Youthanasia followed with a Number
Four debut, while '97's Cryptic Writings yielded four Top 20 hits at rock
radio, including "Trust" and "Almost Honest" (all of the Megadeth albums
were certified gold, while So Far., Rust In Peace and Youthanasia were also
platinum-selling)
By the time of 1999's Risk, however, which featured a pop slant unheard on
previous Megadeth recordings, Mustaine himself began to grow disillusioned
with the band's direction and the music industry. 2001 saw a return to the
band's heavier roots on The World Needs A Hero, but a year later, a freak
injury- Mustaine fell asleep on his arm, causing nerve damage--forced the
singer and guitarist to put his career and Megadeth on hiatus, while
reassessing both.
Part of that reassessment involved the band's Capitol Records back catalog,
which began with their second album, Peace Sells.But Who's Buying? "A while
ago, I had heard that the Beatles, when they renewed their deal with
Capitol, they had an opportunity to fix all the mistakes that they had ever
had, even down to little typos in the liner notes," explains Mustaine. "I
don't know how much of that is true, but I always had the desire to make So
Far, So Good.So What! (1988) sound good ever since it came out, because I
wasn't really happy with it. I just wanted all of them to sound good."
Mustaine's first foray into the restoration business was that debut Megadeth
effort, Killing Is My Business., a job he now says "wasn't as hard as these
other ones were." For the rest, what Mustaine thought would be a fairly
straightforward task of some remixing and sonic polishing turned into a
major salvage operation. "We had to get all the tapes from Capitol. They
basically took the master tapes and put them on a hard drive, from which I
did everything with Pro Tools in a recording studio in the Tempe area called
Phase Four. When I opened up Peace Sells.But Who's Buying?, the amount of
work that needed to be done to get everything up to speed was reasonable.
Certain dynamics on tracks needed to be fixed and so forth, but it was in
pretty good shape.
"Then we got to So Far, So Good.So What!, which was recorded on AGFA tape,"
Mustaine continues. "AGFA had a bad run of tape at one point, and
naturally, I got a bad run of tape from those guys. So when they tried to
transfer the music from the tapes in storage in New Jersey onto the drive
for us, nothing showed up. The guy who was in charge of the transfer called
me up and said the top of the tape had this white powder all over it, and I
asked, 'Well, was it coke?' And he said no, the tape had disintegrated. So
we went into the studio, and I had to literally take every single note from
every single instrument throughout the record and fix everything with
ProTools."
So Far. might have required the biggest overhaul, but every album needed a
fair amount of work and, in some cases, even some re-recording. "You know,
it wasn't really hard when I first opened up the very first drive to roll up
my sleeves and think, 'This is gonna be great,'" Mustaine says now. "But as
the project rolled on and the difficulties started to accumulate, I began to
get a little nervous. When I got to stuff like 'Take No Prisoners' (from
Rust In Peace), and it was two o'clock in the morning and we find out that
the vocal track is gone, I was pretty freaked out."
The most extensive revision didn't involve a Megadeth album at all. However,
in its new form, The Craving comes closer to a true Megadeth effort than it
did before. If that title doesn't quite ring a bell, it's because it was
recorded in 1996 under the name MD.45, a side project formed by Mustaine and
ex-Fear vocalist Lee Ving. But when Mustaine inspected the original
multi-track recordings, he discovered that Ving's vocal tracks and harmonica
parts were missing. So he took the unprecedented step of re-singing all the
vocals himself, as well as simulating the harmonica on a guitar. The result
is a new album in many ways. "I'm the most excited about MD.45," enthuses
Mustaine. "When it first came out, a lot of people were really disappointed
in it because they loved the playing, but they didn't like Lee. I still
think Lee's amazing, but I've done something that I believe has made The
Craving really credible. I'm really, really looking forward to seeing how
the public responds to that."
The results across the board, on all eight albums, are impressive. Later
efforts like Risk benefit from Mustaine's ruthless stripping of the pop
elements, giving the album a harder, truer sound, but it's the earlier
efforts like Peace Sells. and So Far. that benefit the most. There's no
question, with the sounds refurbished and maximized, that this was an
undeniably powerful and lethal band, fully deserving their status as one of
the most influential metal acts of the last twenty years.
And Megadeth's work is not finished. His arm healed, Mustaine began itching
to play again. With drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Jimmy Sloas, he
recently completed work on the first all-new Megadeth album in three years.
A bruising sample track, "Kick The Chair," leaked online by Mustaine,
portends great things. "I think that it has come full circle back to the
aggressive, political cynical lyrics and aggressive guitar riffing that I am
famous--or infamous--for," says Mustaine. "I feel something very similar to
when I first started out when I hear this new record.it's exciting for me
and I can't wait for the public to be able to have this record in their
hands."
With a new album due in the fall (Sanctuary Records) and the catalog back on
July 27th in its ultimate form, Megadeth, in 2004, has come gloriously back
to life.
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