Megadeth

A band that should not be neglected in the metal industry.

-It was formed in 1983 by Dave Mustaine and David Ellefson.

-It has released 11 studio albums, each one of them with a unique taste.

-Known as a heavy metal band, it also incorporates many other characteristics such as speed metal and thrash metal. Being one of the pioneers of thrash metal,
they are also amongst the big four of thrash with Anthrax, Slayer and Metallica.

-Dave was a 17 year old drug dealer, who was introduced to metal by a certain client of his
who lacked money, and repaid Mustaine with heavy metal records such as Iron Maiden , Black Sabbath etc…
He then bought a guitar, and later joined in with Metallica.

-He was known for his drinking and drug abuse, which affected his behavior
especially towards his band mates: he once spilled beer on Ron McGovney’s (Metallica’s first bassist) bass pickups
and engaged in a huge fight with Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield, which forced Metallica
to fire him after writing their first album Kill’ Em All.

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-Angered by the past events he had only one goal in life: Forming a better band than Metallica.Therefore Megadeth was conceived.

-In 1985, Combat Records gave Megadeth 8000$ to record their first album.
Unfortunately, the band spent half of the budget on booze and drugs. Even though the sound quality
of their debut album wasn’t that good, “Killing is my business… and business is good!” achieved major success.

-In 1986, Megadeth released “Peace sells…But who’s buying” which also achieved major success.

-In 1988, the recording of their their third album “So far so good… so what” took time
because of Dave Mustaine’s continuous battle with drugs.

Dave wrote the song : “In my darkest hour” as a tribute to Cliff Burton. He states that he wrote the song in one night , although its lyrics
have nothing to do with Cliff.

-In 1990, Marty Friedman and Nick Menza joined the band. Megadeth released their fourth album “Rust in Peace”.
This was the first album in which all the members were sober 🙂
The band started to change their style, as they became less thrashy, less speedy,
more heavy and more progressive, as seen in their hit song “Hangar 18”, where both guitarists
exchange solos each one at a time.

-In 1992, they released “Countdown to Extinction” which was depraved of all thrash elements
and had a widely known heavy metal sound. Dave had to spend 7 weeks in rehab due to his substance abuse.

-In 1994, the band became more and more commercial after releasing “Youthanasia” which had more vocal melodies.

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-In 1997,they released “Cryptic Writings”.

-In 1999, they released “Risk“; it was a failure. The album incorporated more disco and dance influences than metal!
Not satisfied with the results Marty Friedman quit the band…

-In 2001, they released “The world needs a hero”: an album which tried to get the band on track.

-The band broke up in 2002 after Dave suffered an injury in his left arm.

-They came back with the album “The system has failed” in 2004 and in 2006 they released their 11th studio album “United Abominations”.

Dave Mustaine is a newly converted christian, he refused to share the stage
with some of the bands he considered satanists such as Rotting Christ.