It seems that Megadeth leader doesn’t like what Metal Blade CEO Brian Slagel wrote in his recently launched book “For The Sake Of Heaviness: The History Of Metal Blade Records.” According to it, Metal Blade offered $7,000 to Megadeth for a deal, but the band then decided to go with Combat records for $8,000. However, Dave Mustaine states that Slagel’s version of events is not true.
In response to Slagel’s tweet promoting “The History Of Metal Blade Records,” Mustaine shared:
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If the fallacy of offering us a deal for $7,000 is any indication of the rest of this book, I hope it’s marked fiction. I’d never sign w/you https://t.co/fNZq0waPL0
— Dave Mustaine (@DaveMustaine) October 24, 2017
I’m so sorry if I got this wrong or offended you. I do remember talking to your camp at the time. If my memory is wrong again not intended https://t.co/QhkXjcczHE
— Brian Slagel (@brianslagel) October 24, 2017
Part of the book in question is available below (via Theprp):
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“The only band that I didn’t get that I wished I had was Megadeth. It was between us and a brand new label called Combat, which was part of the Important distribution firm that we’d started working out with.
“Late in 1984 they’d decided that the whole metal thing was starting to happen and they wanted to get on it by creating their own label.
“The first band that came onto their radar (and ours at the same time) was Megadeth. In the end, it came down to just a thousand dollars. We had offered them seven thousand dollars, but Combat offered eight, so they went with Combat.
“With hindsight, especially given what Megadeth became, I’ve often thought, ‘Well, maybe I could have gotten a little more money together.’ But really, at that time, seven thousand dollars was absolutely the most we had ever offered anybody.
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“Most of the stuff we were doing involved spending $1,600 to maybe $3,500, at the high end, to make a full record.
“Seven grand was a lot of money. I remember Dave Mustaine writing me a really long, heartfelt letter saying how he really wanted to be on Metal Blade, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”