During an appearance on Appetite for Distortion, Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine talked about his friendship with GN’R’s Slash, performing on the Experience Hendrix tour, and more.
You’re good friends with Slash, is it true that he once tried out for Megadeth because of the friendship and idolizing his work?
“Yes, we’re most definitely friends. He didn’t try out, but he had an invitation. He and David Ellefson had played together several times, so that was fun.
“And he liked playing with Dave, and he liked the idea of playing with me, and I thought it was a great idea too.
“That’s probably where we became such great friends. Although we don’t see each other a lot, whenever we see each other it’s, ‘Hey, what’s up, man?’
“And there’s, I think, a deep, deep, deep mutual respect for each other.”
In his book, Slash wrote about living in the same neighbourhood as Mustaine.
“I crashed wherever I could, and did whatever came to mind, and there was a point in there when I hooked up with Dave Mustaine of Megadeth.
“We became friends; he was strung out on smack and crack and he lived in the same neighbourhood, so we hung out and wrote songs. He was a true, complete f*c*ing maniac and a genius riff writer.
“We’d hang out, smoke crack, and come up with MAJOR heavy metal riffs, just f*c*ing dark and heavy as hell.
“Sometimes Dave Ellefson would join us; we got along great, we wrote some great sh*t. It got to the point, in our dr*g-fueled creative zone, that we started seriously entertaining the idea of me joining Megadeth.
“Guns was in a holding pattern, after all, and I was high enough to consider all kinds of bad decisions.
“Dave Mustaine is still one of the most genius musicians I have ever jammed with, but still, in my heart of hearts, I knew I couldn’t leave Guns.”