MEGADETH BE YOUR SANTA CLAUS!

MEGADETH BE YOUR SANTA CLAUS!

FEATURES

Moira McCormick

If any of you out there are old enough to remember Woodstock, you might recall a side-splitting parody album of that peace’n’love’n’musicfest called Lemmings. It was put out by the National Lampoon troupe, which at the time boasted such soon-to-be-ready-for-prime-time players as John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest, and involved screamingly hilarious takeoffs on rock folk of all types.

Lemmings was set at the Woodchuck Festival of Peace, Love, and Death, in which the flower children in attendance had three days to kill themselves off. By album’s end, there were still a few thousand folks left, so on came the world’s deadliest heavy metal band, Megadeath, who turned up their amps to 750 decibels and reduced the remaining festgoers to subatomic particles. The chorus of Megadeath’s swan song (performed, eerily enough, by John Belushi) went, “Living is a bummer, dying is a high...Dying is a total trip, die baby die,” while gigantic guitars whomped along like Black Sabbath at their most paleolithic. Did I mention that this record came out 13 years ago?

And thus, it has nothing at all to do with Megadeth, the modern-day L.A. metalmongers. When singer/axewielder/tunesmith Dave Mustaine christened his band, he’d never heard of Lemmings (he was still in grade school at the time it was released). He says the inspiration came from a tract on nuclear war written by Senator Alan Cranston which described post-missile carnage as “megadeath.” (Mustaine dropped the second “a,” he’s said, so his band wouldn’t get confused with the death metallurgists). So there’s no connection whatsoever between Lampoon’s Megadeath and our own Megadeth, but is does make for a pretty intriguing little anecdote, no?

Anyway, back to our story. Mustaine and company (bassist Dave Ellefson, second guitarist Chris Poland, and drummer Gar Samuelson) released their first major label album in September on Capitol Records. It’s called Peace Sells...But Who’s Buying?, and it’s a ferocious slab of high-intensity Megametal, complete with ripyer-lungs-out vocals, land speed record guitars, and enough occult references to keep the PMRC happy for months. Except that, according to Mustaine, those contemporary witchhunters wouldn’t have much to go on once they got past the song titles. Despite tunes with names like “Wake Up Dead,” “The Conjuring,” “Good Mourning/Black Friday,” and “Bad Omen,” Dave insists Megadeth isn’t promoting violence, mayhem, Satanism or any of that nasty stuff.

“We’re not condoning Satanism. It’s more or less like saying, ‘This is what it’s all about, so you better watch out.’”

“We’re not condoning it,” says Mustaine. “It’s more or less like saying, This is what it’s all about, so you better watch out.’”

Take “The Conjuring,” for example. Its subject is witchcraft, something Mustaine said he dabbled in a while ago just because it was verboten, but subsequently gave up "because I figured it was dumb.” “The Conjuring” takes the same tack, says Dave, exemplified in the lines, “Don’t summon the devil, don’t call the priests, when you need the strength, conjure me.”

Then there’s “Good Mourning/Black Friday,” the second portion of which deals with a psychopathic killer. “It’s about this real nice guy, who all of a sudden starts getting these insane cravings to hack people up,” Mustaine describes. The tortured fella’s one saving grace is that he only bumps off jerks. “It’s like mercy killing,” quips Dave.

As for the instrumental intro “Good Mourning,” it’s sort of a sequel to “Loved To Death” (from Megadeth’s previous album Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good\, on independent metal label Combat Records). “Loved To Death” was written about Mustaine’s fiancee, who, emotionally scarred from a previous relationship, was initally reluctant to get involved with him. “It’s about boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl doesn’t love boy, boy kills girl so no one else’ll have her,” Mustaine chuckles. This unlikely love song should be taken therapeutically rather than literally; Mustaine is as solicitous of his now-betrothed as a man can be, and expresses a genuinely touching concern as to whether he’ll be able to provide for her once they’re hitched. And she, apparently, takes things like “Loved To Death” in stride...Anyway, “Good Mourning” is “more or less like me going back to the gravesite, mourning the death of my love—it’s like a good cry,” Mustaine grins.

Album cut “Wake Up Dead” was inspired by a former relationship of Mustaine’s in which, as he describes, a female roommate whose attentions he didn’t particularly welcome fell for him. “Bad Omen” deals in the occult, but again in a cautionary manner, according to Dave. “It’s about some kids who are walking through the woods,” he relates, “and they stumble onto this Satanic orgy, and they watch virgins sacrificing themselves and drinking blood. At the very end it goes, The ceremony is sure to be cursed—they wait for his blessings but down come the worst.’ The song says why wait for [Satan’s] blessings? You’re not gonna get ’em.”

Fans of Old Scratch won’t find anything to feed their fancy in “Devil’s Island” either, title notwithstanding. It concerns the famed penal colony, and according to Mustaine took the movie Papillon as its starting point. “I wrote it about some guy who got locked up because he was dealing with a witch,” says Dave, “and they sent him to Devil’s Island. And it wasn’t because he’d done anything wrong—he was set up.”

Title track “Peace Sells...But Who’s Buying?” chronicles the parental and/or societal attitude towards heavy metal and the kids who buy it, along with said Everykid’s response: “What do you mean I don’t believe in God? I talk to him every day. What do you mean I don’t support your system? I go to court when I have to.” “Peace Sells” could very probably be in video form by the time you read this, according to Mustaine.

“As soon as I left Metallica, they said I was gonna be a bum the rest of my life. ”

Megadeth performs one cover song on Peace Sells-, “I Ain’t Superstitious,” a classic tune by blues legend Willie Dixon, which was given a definitive reading by Jeff Beck. “Chris Poland kind of plays like Jeff Beck,” says Mustaine, “so we thought we’d horse around to do that song, get away with that kind of stuff.”

The album closes with the appropriately-titled “My Last Words,” whose takeoff point is the final Russian roulette scene in The Deer Hunter. “A line revolves around the movie,” Mustaine says, “which is Take another drink and raise the last bet, think about my last words, they might be what I just said.’ After that, the guy puts a gun to his head—at the point when he pulls the trigger, they’re definitely his last words.”

Mustaine’s hoping Peace Sells establishes Megadeth as a metal force in its own right; he finally might be able to banish the spectre of Metallica. As one of that band’s founders, and co-orchestrators of its sound, Mustaine has thus far found his past difficult to shake, and its repercussions haven’t been all pleasant. According to Dave, he was kicked out of Metallica for reasons unrelated to music, and the remaining members have badmouthed him ever since.

“As soon as I left Metallica, they said I couldn’t play, that I was a drunk, and that I was gonna be a bum the rest of my life,” he says acidly. “Now that we’re in the majors too, they’re starting to look real stupid for all the stuff they’ve been saying.

“I’m not out to start anything,” Mustaine says.

“I’ve tried to bury the hatchet. Anytime anybody asks me what I think of their record, I say it’s fabulous, it’s great. Their stage show is great, they’re a great band. Personally, they’re dickheads, but...”

Mustaine apparently did have a reputation as something of a partyer when he was with Metallica, a phase in his life which he now declares is over. “I stopped drinking since I stopped hanging around with them,” he says. “I still drink beer, but slamming vodka as soon as you get up in the morning is not my trip. I like to know that I’m at least going to spend part of the day feeling normal. Because when you’re on tour, everybody and their brother is trying to stick something in your mouth or up your nose or down your throat.

“I enjoy begin able to think. I enjoy being in party situations too, but people think you’re full of shit if you’re always walking around with a big bottle hanging from your back, baggies hanging out of your pocket, sucking on your nose, grinding your teeth.

“There’s a party always going on anyway,” muses Dave, “so it’s better to try and spend as much time as straight as possible.”

Megadeth should begin the midst of a tour by the time you’re reading this; the United States and Japan were the first tour routes planned. Life in the big leagues is turning out to be pretty neat, it seems. And unlike stories you’ve heard about metal bands wimping out when they make it to a major label, the Megadeth men say they haven’t had to tone down their act at all for Capitol Records. “Hell no, they love [our music],” Dave declares. “Everybody at Capitol is behind us. We walk in the office, and Don Zimmerman, the vice president, walks up and says ‘Yeah, we need a little Deth around the office!”’