Dave Mustaine Says He Gets Along with Lars and James These Days: “It Comes and Goes”
The beef between Megadeth mastermind Dave Mustaine and his former bandmates (and replacement) in Metallica is well documented, frequently coming up in interviews with Mustaine as well as in conversation with Megadeth’s former bassist, David Ellefson. Yesterday, Consequence posted a new interview with the musician and he said that his relationship with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and frontman James Hetfield is better now than it’s been before.
“It took a while for James and Lars and I to kind of come around and become friends again. But I would say we’re probably better off now than we’ve been for a long time. And it comes and goes.”
Mustaine elaborated on the topic, suggesting that his removal from the band wasn’t unlike a breakup or the dissolution of a marriage, amplified by others adding additional, “salacious” details—never mind that Mustaine was fired from Metallica in April 1983, which is literally more than 40 years ago.
“I think the emotions between all of us, it’s probably understandable for a lot of people who break up with someone, it’s like a marriage and you part ways and sometimes you try and justify in your head the decision that you make. And sometimes the facts are all you need, and other times you feel compelled to kinda tell the story and you don’t really need to. And then there are people who tell the story and then add little salacious facts — like a tape recorder that has a feature to add stuff that never happened. So, I just look at that whole period with Metallica as something that was really great for me. And I wish them the best.”
Naturally, Ulrich and Hetfield had no comment. Mustaine also took the opportunity to respond to criticisms of Kirk Hammett‘s guitar playing on single “Lux Aeterna” by saying that he’s sure it’s good, but he can’t confirm because he hasn’t actually listened.
“I heard that people are taking the piss out of Kirk. But Kirk’s a really good guitar player and I think that people forget real quickly he was winning every single guitar contest there was for 30 or 40 years … I have not heard their new album, but I’m sure it’s great.”
