History was made for Dave when Megadeth took home their first Grammy for Best Metal Performance last week (12). It only took them 34 years and 11 nominations to receive a Grammy Award, making the overall twelfth nomination a win. Their luck has always been rocky since losing their first nomination in 1991 for Rust in Peace to a cover song, “Stone Cold Crazy” performed by Metallica for a compilation album. The Grammys continued to spurn them, making it seem like an inevitable losing battle. Megadeth lost to Metallica two years in a row, Nine Inch Nails twice, two live versions of songs from Ozzy Osbourne and the other Judas Priest, Soundgarden, Tool, and more. Luckily, 2016 was Megadeth’s year and the phenomenal Dystopia made it well worth the wait.
We all heard Megadeth receive the award while the house band played Metallica’s “Master of Puppets,” and seen Dave Mustaine’s twitter reaction, and now thanks to Billboard, we get to hear Dave Mustaine’s reaction and more.
Mustaine mentioned his gratitude:
“A little bit of everything, obviously the gratitude of being recognized, but also the disappointment lingering from the years where they’ve given the award to somebody that didn’t belong in that category.”
As everyone felt awkward hearing Metallica in the background during the Megadeth’s acceptance, Mustaine seemed rather relaxed about it:
“They could have played any song by anybody, and it wouldn’t have mattered because that was our moment,” he says. “I could see the correlation with [the band] who would think, ‘Oh, Megadeth, Metallica, we don’t know any Megadeth, but we do know this one Metallica song, so let’s play this. You think he’ll get mad? I don’t think so, let’s hope not. Hit it, Lefty!’ And then we get up there and go, ‘Boy, that was the worst f–king version of “Master of Puppets” I’ve ever heard.’ But that kind of stuff, you’ve just won a Grammy and you’re going to worry about some house band doing a cover song in the background?”
As the conversation moved away from the Grammys, Mustaine mentioned upcoming tours including two runs in North America:
“They’re both going to be very different, but exciting. One we’re headlining, and it’s very much bands of our ilk, and for the other one, we’re in a support position for the first time in years. It’s a band that I’m a huge fan of. We’re really excited to see what these different dates are going to be like and have fans see us in different capacities. The headlining dates will be these diehard fans, and the others where we’re going to be out with this band we’re supporting, and their fans are going to hear us and won’t know us from the man on the moon.”
Unfortunately, we have to wait to see when this will be and who this mysterious “big act” they will be supporting. Speaking of big acts, the topic of the Big Four arrived. Billboard wanted to know if we would expect to see another Big Four (Metallica/Slayer/Megadeth/Anthrax) tour in the future.
Mustaine responded:
“Honestly, let’s put our cards on the table — there would be a ‘Big Three’ tomorrow.”
Despite looking like Megadeth will be on the road non-stop this year, Mustaine mentioned the possibility of a new album in the works in the next year:
“I’m pretty afraid of picking up my guitar during the offseason, so I try to keep my distance from it. It starts to call my name when it gets close to new record time, and the past couple weeks, I’ve actually been playing a little bit, so it’s kind of like ‘ok, here we go.’”
The Billboard piece goes further in depth including Mustaine’s history with KoRn, you can read the full article here.
