Fans were already shocked when drummer Shawn Drover announced his departure from Megadeth. That’s why the amazement was doubled when guitarist Chris Broderick jumped ship roughly a day later. And last night, the guitarist not only spoke out for the first time about why he left Megadeth, but also revealed plans for a new project with his former bandmate.
Broderick called into Sirius XM Liquid Metal’s 666-LIVE to talk with Jose Mangin. A video stream of the entire interview can be seen online [starting around the 36 minute mark]. However, when asked flat out what influenced his depature, Broderick said “It was simply time. I’d been in [Megadeth] for seven years and I really wanted to just be able to have that kind of creative freedom to write anything I wanted to, to go anywhere with it that I wanted to and just kind of direct my own course.” Broderick compared the split to a chef wanting to open his own restaurant, or a lawyer who wants to start his own firm.
Furthermore, while he said that he had got the sense that Drover was feeling the same way from talking to him, he was as shocked as everyone when the announcement went out. “I knew he had thought about it,” stated Broderick. “I had been thinking about it, but as soon as he quit I knew he made the right decision because Megadeth is going to be ramping up for their next recording cycle, and if you got trepidation about being a part of something, you don’t want to commit to that [the writing] process and then bail on them. And so when Shawn quit, that instantly became clear to me. So I talked to [David] Ellefson, then I went and talked to Jackson guitars my endorsement and Fractal Audio Systems, and they were all so supportive. They were like ‘Dude, we’ve got your back. You do what you’ve got to do.’ So I decided that night after Shawn did it that it is the right time…” In regards to telling Dave Mustaine about his resigning, Broderick said “He was definitely disappointed. Obviously it’s not something that he wanted to hear or anything like that,” before admitting that “in a way, we’re hired guns.”
As for what the future holds, Broderick said he’ll continue to do the Metal Allegiance shows and looks forward to working on a solo album. However, he also revealed that he and Drover might eventually work on a new project together, saying how they’ve “ talked about how we had all this material that was never gonna get released, all these killer, heavy riffs that we had written and stuff, and so we just decided, ‘Hey, why don’t we put the stuff out? Why don’t we form a band and get out these killer riffs, just to see what people think?’ So we formed a band, we’re working with a killer singer — he’s awesome — and we’ve got record labels that have made some good offers on the table, and we’re really excited about where that’s gonna go.”
Broderick admits that Drover and him still working on trademarks for a potential name of the project, while some of this material they’re working on had been presented to Megadeth (while some of it didn’t feel appropriate for the band). While this “amazing” singer’s identity is still unknown (as is the identities of any other participating musicians), it’s pretty astonishing that Broderick and Drover have moved as fast as they’ve have in working on a new band. We may still have to wait a little longer to here said project, but now we can say there are two bands featuring multiple past members of Megadeth. Meanwhile, it looks like Megadeth may have also moved fast on finding a new drummer.
