Peaches Interviews Dave Mustaine of Megadeth - October 2023

Back in October of 2023, Peaches got the chance to chat with the one, the only Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. Megadeth performed later that month at the Portneuf Health Trust Amphitheater in Pocatello, ID. 

What is Peaches Pit Party?

A replay of Peaches Pit Party which you can hear on KBEAR 101 weekday afternoons 2pm - 7pm MST

The Artist Interrogations podcast. Hey, Brenden. Hey, Dave. How's it going? It's an honor to get the chance to talk to you today.

Oh, come on, man. I'm just a guy. Hey, can you hear me good? Yeah. I can hear you fairly well.

Yeah. Fairly well. Let me take you off speaker because I was trying to do 2 things at once. I'm, I'm, okay. Here I am.

Oh, much better. Does that sound better? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you, Lia, like I said, for joining me today. It's, awesome to get the chance to see you guys perform live at the Portn of Health Trust Amphitheatre. I know it's supposed to rain, but have you guys ever performed in the rain by any chance? We have performed in everything except for molten lava. I was always I always wonder that because we had a concert happen last year with Falling in Reverse where it rained, and it was actually one of my favorite concerts despite the whole theme being delayed and all that.

I mean, I that was a follow-up question. What's what's the worst weather that you guys performed in, and where was it at? Oh, it would be Paraguay. There was a a typhoon, or, I don't know what they called a typhoon, but, it was a typhoon that had come in. And, the rain was just pouring down, and it was, lightning strikes.

We're hitting the soccer stadium we were playing in. And on the way to the stage, lightning bolt clapped right, above when we were walking, and it should have been canceled. I don't know why it wasn't, but the rain rained so hard it was coming down sideways Jeez. With all the wind. So it didn't fall on top of the covering of the the, festival.

It it blew in from the sides and from the front, a little bit from the back because the backdrop didn't go all the way down to the ground. But it was terrible, And all our gear was ruined from the rain. We had to do so much damage repair. I know there's been a lot of A lot. Shows get shows getting canceled this year due to the rain.

The only guy I think I've ever seen perform with thunder and lightning lightning around is Brett Michaels. For some reason, he just didn't give up. He there was there was lightning and thunder going around, and he just continued to perform on stage at the same venue we'll see you at tonight. Yeah. I would think at at this point, like you said, Paraguay, at this point, you have traveled all around the world.

Do you ever get the the list of tour stops and go, oh, I like that place or, oh, man, not there again? Of course. I figured. Of course. I do that when I get our guest list.

Oh, man. That'd be great because I know, like, for how long you guys have been touring, it's just at this point, I would have, like, a spreadsheet of all the favorite restaurants all across the globe, and and I'm sure you don't get all that much free time with your sound check and performing and then having to travel to the next place, but it would be pretty cool just to, like, go see at least a one restaurant or 2 wherever you guys are at. Well, we do that. And and as far as keeping a list of all that stuff, we have a thing called our Bible, and it has, all of our stuff, and a lot of bands keep that. It's just like a a book of stuff that you keep all your your numbers that are important and, you know, much like an old Rolodex we used to have, this is something that we keep track of, you know, the guests we have, the people that we like, the places we go that we're not gonna go back to, certain, things that we do that we make sure that because the turnover rate in touring is not really that high, but you do see people come and go.

And you got to have some kind of a cliff note for these people to come in and learn stuff because, you know, sometimes they know what to do. Sometimes they know, what to do, and and the band they're working for doesn't. And everything that a guy that knows what to do is doing will seem wrong to a band that doesn't have together. Deciding the set list, with all the albums you guys have done and put out there, how do you decide what gets played and what doesn't? Do you ever just change it up all of a sudden, play a deep cut to surprise the audience?

Yeah. Sure. We do that, a lot now. We weren't doing it when Kiko was with us, but, you know, Kiko had some issues that were going on in his family life, and he had to go home. And we have an an understudy that we hired for Kiko because, you know, we we didn't know what was gonna happen, and and we we had to keep the tour, commitments because, you know, we we we just had too many people that depend on this this group to, when we make a tour, you know, we we have a lot of people that are counting on it.

So, when Kiko went home, we got a a new guitar player to come in and help us, and and he's he's doing really great. We've we've been able to go into deep cuts. He plays Marty's solos known for not perfectly. And, it's it's great because when I found Kiko, Kiko is a great guitar player. I think he's better than I am.

He was not really a big metal fan before I met him. Timu, the understudy for Kiko, was. So, it's a little bit different style playing with the 2 guys because one guy's got a little bit more, flare in one area, and the other guy has a little more flare in in a different area. But they're both really great guitar players, And, I promise anybody that comes tonight is gonna see some serious pyrotechnics. Oh, that's gonna be awesome.

I did have a one listener that was just straight up hoping for a sawn off of Killing as my business, so I was gonna make sure to note that and say that to you just because this guy has been adamant. I I think he said anything off of that album, really. He was just in all over the comment section talking about that. So Okay. Well, 2 nights ago, we opened with Hangar, and then we followed it up with Mechanics, which is off of Killing.

So, if we decide to do that tonight, he'll get what he wants. But it's hard it's it's hard with, you know, 16 albums, and that's not even including the singles that we did, you know, like go to hell and 99 ways to die and angry again and stuff like that. So we we we have so many songs to have to pick from. And, usually, what I do is when we, are in the states, we have a a different kind of set list than when we're overseas. And then we try and keep, the fact that there's metrics and stuff for the local radio stations and and different music outlets, and that shows you too what what music's popular in that area, which, songs our fan base in that area like the most.

And and then we have, an amount of songs that we, we go buy off of the statistics, and then we've got an amount of songs that we put in just because, we can. And we picked songs that are, as a little bit more obscure. Like, besides doing mechanics the other night, we played a song called Hook and Mouth, which is off so far so good, so what? Wow. And, there's a lot of albums in the mid years that aren't getting played, anything because there's just not enough time.

I mean, if we did a 3 hour concert, that would probably be enough time to play at least one track off of every album. Or if we, our our set list right now is around 18 songs, 19 songs, so we realistically could do one track off of every record. But how do you pick one song off of countdown? How do you pick one song off of rest in peace? How do you pick one song off of cryptic writings?

You know? We then that's what we've had to do. We're only playing trust off of cryptic. You know, it's it's, it's difficult. I mean, it's a great problem to have.

Don't don't get me wrong. I I love the fact that we, have too many great songs to play and not enough time. But, you know, it it would be cool if there was a a better solution to that, you know, how you could work out, playing more songs and fans getting to see more of your art. Plus, there's the, there there's the the horsepower that it burns up going out there. You know?

This isn't easy stuff to play. And, you know, it it's by the time we get towards the end of our set, our drummer's, he's starting to, get tired after 90 minutes of full on metal like that. And, so I keep that in mind, and, same thing with the guitar players, you know, we we, after 90 minutes of play, you're gonna get a little bit of some fatigue. I can only imagine trying to play, like, the same songs over and over, but then you guys have so many great songs and so many albums that it's just yeah. Like you said, it's hard to choose from, and I would think even play like, playing those riffs as intense as they are would get tiring, I would say, like, after 30 minutes rather than 90.

Do you play guitar? I don't. I, tried learning a little bit last year, and I used one of those apps. I think it was, like, tap guitar or something. I my one of my one of the listeners gave me an acoustic, and I tried learning myself.

And then the app was like Cool. The app was all like, we're gonna charge you, a $100 for the year, and I said, well, I can't afford that. So I just went I'm sorry. I caught myself. I almost said something very bad, but I think you, get the gist.

Yeah. I was gonna say, something bad. And I think I think that's not, cool. Yeah. It's, it's different because I I'm a guy who's, like, 6 foot 9, and I got the basketball hands.

So I my boss, who's a guitar player, is like, dude, you gotta pick up the bass because the guy the guys with bigger hands played the bass, or that seems like it'd be easier sort of thing. But Yeah. Well, you know, that doesn't, size doesn't always, mean, that you're gonna be good at something. Right. You know, how how many times do you see some of these gigantic guys in the NBA that just look like storks out there?

Right. And that's why I'm doing radio now. Oh, did you play b ball? I I played b ball all throughout college. I stopped my 2nd year because it got really just based off of, politics and stuff.

They had these guys come in. They recruited. And a lot of these guys that I ended up guarding were, like, 7 to £300. I'm like, I I am a strong dude, but I can't stop these guys. And they're shooting the ball over me, and you gotta be the one of the 1%.

And I always tell people that who, like, push their kids towards basketball. Just you you like, I was born tall. Bored. Yeah. Even yeah.

Any sport baseball, I can I would think would be the hardest, but even just these guys that I used to have across the street neighbor that were pushing their kids who are, like, 5 foot 8 already, and they're in high school? The parents are about 59. I'm like, you're not gonna be doing so well in football, to be quite honest, unless you can run. Or or hockey. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Hockey even too. Like, my friends are all into hockey, and I I the guy who was my height, Zdeno Chara, just retired, and he played 20 years in the league. And it's like, that height in hockey doesn't really help you out of that much because I'm like Bambi on skates. I'd be terrible.

That's funny. Just because with your legacy and all that, do you ever get these newer bands coming up to you and go, like, yeah. Do you have any advice for us? Because I know we have, like, Bad Omens, Sleep Token, even Spiritbox just all of a sudden going big time into the spotlight? Do you ever see them asking for advice from you or any other band out there?

Well, I I I don't know those guys. Cool name, for Bad Omen. And, I don't know the other band that you mentioned. We just did something recently where I think I think I saw Bad Omen's name on the day sheet. So, yeah, I would I would love to meet these guys.

But, you know, a lot of times, they they just they they just keep their distance. I don't know. I think they're afraid to, come around, that we won't we won't let anybody come back and hang out. And and, I mean, it's just the opposite. You know, we, we're there to have fun and to party and and to, you know, not get wasted on drugs and stuff like that, but just to celebrate life and and meddle and, have people walk away saying, that is the most intense guitar playing I've ever seen in my life.

Thank you so very much, Dave, for joining me today. I really appreciate it, and and I'm so excited to see you guys tonight. I think this is my 3rd time seeing you. And last time I saw you was in Salt Lake City when you guys had technical difficulties before 5 finger death punch. Yeah.

Yeah. But I'm very excited for the port. I know a lot of our listeners are all very excited, and I, again, just thank you for even calling into the show today. Appreciate it. You're welcome.

Anytime, buddy. Take care. You too. Bye bye. The artist's interrogations podcast is a production of Riverbend Media Group.

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