Megadeth a recent appearance on Trunk Nation, Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine discussed the band’s 1999 studio album “Risk,” describing it as a personal “capitulation” to guitarist Marty Friedman‘s desire to make alternative music.
Dave said :
“The ‘Risk’ record had great players on it. You had Marty Friedman playing guitar on it. That was me, personally, capitulating to Marty’s desires to be more of an alternative band, and we kept slowing down and slowing down and slowing down.
“If that record would have been called The Dave Mustaine Project and not Megadeth, I think it would have been successful.
“People wanted a Megadeth record. They didn’t wanna see Dave bending over backwards to keep Marty Friedman happy, ’cause Marty wanted us to sound like f*c*ing Dishwalla.”
Mustaine pointed out he still doesn’t regret making the album, saying:
“I don’t regret anything that I’ve released. I think that the record came out at a time when, like I said, I was trying really hard to keep the band together. Marty and Nick [Menza, drums] were… everybody was just fighting all the time, and no one was happy.
“Just think about it: okay, on the surface, what would Dave Mustaine have to do in order to have his management and his band convince him to do a song like ‘Crush ‘Em’? Which I don’t regret at all, but the type of song that it is, it’s not our style of music. It’s very kind of like…
“God, I don’t even know how to say it… To me, it sounds like an electronic song; that’s the purpose of it, but somebody who didn’t really know all of the crazy keyboard sh*t behind it.
“That period for us was… I just wanted Marty to be happy, wanted him to stay in the band. I wanted Nick to be happy, wanted him to play. And it just seemed like a Chinese finger puzzle.
“Every time I would move, it would just… it was the wrong thing. And after a while, I just figured, ‘I don’t need this sh*t.’ And Marty went this way, Nick went that way, and we just all kind of broke up.”
About a month ago, Marty discussed his 2000 departure from Megadeth with Loudwire:
On [1999’s] ‘Risk,’ it [Wikipedia] says that you heavily encouraged Dave Mustaine to ‘indulge in his pop sensibilities’ for the record…
“That, and heavier stuff too. I wanted it to be like, either/or and both, I didn’t want it to be down the middle…”
Like you’re talking about Japanese music, almost…
“Yeah, for example, a band like X-Japan, that I was into at the time – they have these ultra, ultra heavy-metal… kind of like New British Wave of British Heavy Metal songs on 10. And then they have these Barry Manilow ballads. It’s those contrasts that really appeal to me.
“And in Megadeth, I thought with a name like Megadeth, we should be f*c*ing heavy as f*ck! And then we could afford to have something that’s like, not a poppy ballad, but kind of a ballad that works.
“Like, I have a lot of respect for Metallica, and they did a ballad and it sounded like them. And I was, ‘Why can’t we do something like that?’.
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“I always wanted to do really, really heavy stuff and something that also appealed to people who don’t like their tempos that fast. There’s room for everything.
“Actually, all of us at the time cooperated the best as we could. There was no fighting about anything as far as I remember.