Bruce Dickinson Gave Dave Mustaine Advice on Fighting Cancer

Today in “Historic Phone Calls You Wish You Could Have Listened in On”…

When Megadeth mastermind Dave Mustaine was diagnosed with throat cancer last year, he knew he was about to embark on a long and treacherous road to recovery. So he decided to seek out advice from another metal legend who survived a similar ordeal: Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson, who was diagnosed with tongue cancer in 2015.

Mustaine tells Forbes:

“After I was diagnosed with it, I thought, ‘I want to call Bruce,’ it’s not like I have a whole Rolodex of rock friends that sing heavy metal music that have throat cancer, [laughs] so my choices were limited.

“I was pretty proud of Bruce after speaking with him. Although we’re not super close, I consider him to be someone I look up to. He basically told me the same thing I just told you: surround yourself with good, upbeat, positive people, places and things and try not to cause any unnecessary stress on yourself. 

“When you’re a frontman in one of the biggest bands in the galaxy, you don’t really have to tolerate the frontman of the other bands very much, but he’s always been super kind to me and very, I don’t want to say ‘gentlemanly,’ because I don’t want anyone to think that he’s not a bad motherfucker!”

Not gonna lie: I’m pretty jelly that Mustaine was able to do this. I recently had a very unpleasant and intense case of diarrhea and the most famous person I was able to get on the phone for guidance was Tracii Guns. Not nearly as cool.