Nearly four decades after he walked away from Megadeth, guitarist Chris Poland has no second thoughts about turning down the chance to go back.
In a new interview with “Capital Chaos TV“, Poland, who played on the band’s first two albums, 1985’s Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! and 1986’s Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?, explained why he passed on an invitation to rejoin roughly two years after his 1987 exit, and framed the decision as one that likely saved his life.
Asked whether he’s still at peace with that call or ever wonders what a reunion might have sounded like, Poland didn’t hesitate:
“No, I wouldn’t change a thing, man. I would have never made it out of that because there were still a couple of more years before those guys got that [all the substance abuse] out of their system. And I almost didn’t make it to begin with, man. And it’s like [former Megadeth bassist David] Ellefson says, ‘You hang around a barbershop long enough, you’re gonna get a haircut.’ So eventually I would’ve started using [drugs] again. So no. I have no… Nothing. I wouldn’t change a thing, man.”
Poland is preparing to lay out his account of those years in a forthcoming book, Now Leaving Metalopolis, co-written with music journalist, podcaster and author Matt Herring. He explained how the collaboration started:
”I was at a Comic Con show, and I met Matt Herring. And I was there for three days, and we spoke every day, and I became fast friends with him. And I thought about it, and I thought, ‘You know what? I think me and Matt should write a book together.'”
He’s positioning the memoir as a corrective rather than a settling of scores:
“There’s just been stuff that’s been said — and I know how things get said off the cuff, and sometimes people have one memory of an event, and there’s always a second side. So it’s just my side of the story. There’s no sour grapes or anything. Hopefully there’s more laughable stories than sad stories.”
Part of what Poland wants to address is the lasting damage he believes Dave Mustaine did to his reputation. During a May 2025 appearance on “The David Ellefson Show,” hosted by ex-Megadeth bassist David Ellefson and co-host Joshua Toomey, Poland pointed to one lingering regret:
”I have no regrets about everything that’s happened — except one. I regret that Mustaine for years would go on stage and call me a liar. I never really thought much about it, but then I did the math and I realized that’s why things were so hard for me to try and get deals. I walked into Carvin [guitars] one day and I thought, ‘You know what? These guitars aren’t bad. I wanna talk to their A&R guy.’ So I spoke to the guy and he goes, ‘Dude, we don’t use people like you on our roster.’ So, I was, like, ‘Oh, okay.’ So I have a feeling that Dave‘s anger with me about what it was really was like dragging around a f**king 50-pound ball all the time — back then.”
Ellefson suggested the pattern wasn’t unique to Poland:
“Well, look, he did it to [another former Megadeth guitarist] Jeff Young. There was some derogatory comment [Dave made] that kept [Jeff] from getting work for a long time. I could say the same was attempted at me. Fortunately, I just kept moving. I just kept going and was, like, ‘All right, I’m just gonna ignore that comment and keep moving.'”
The bassist went on to describe himself as something of a peacemaker among the band’s many former members:
“It’s interesting. There’s always been a lot of these ‘former Megadeth members unite’ [situations]. And it’s not an intentional thing. It’s not. In fact, when I was going back to Megadeth [15 years ago], Jeff was really taking an issue over Dave [saying in interviews that Mustaine was] whistling or singing guitar solos to him [while Jeff was in the band] or something, and it was a public thing. And he is going, ‘Come on, we gotta unite.’ And I said, ‘Hey, Jeff. I just got home from San Diego. I literally just rejoined Megadeth.’ And this was 2010. And I remember Dave came to me about it, and I said, ‘I’ll handle it. I’ll take care of it.’ And I made it go away — as I do. Because that’s just part of — I don’t know — part of the gift I’ve been given on this planet. It’s, like, we’re gonna come to peaceful terms, we’re gonna make that go away, and we’re all gonna just move on.”
Poland added: “It’s not sour grapes or anything. It’s just it finally dawned on me just how much damage that really did.”
The friction between the two men runs back decades and has more than one side. Poland and drummer Gar Samuelson were fired from Megadeth in 1987 over substance abuse, a period during which, as widely documented, Poland sold off gear belonging to Mustaine and Ellefson to fund his addiction. In response, Mustaine wrote the song “Liar“, released on 1988’s So Far, So Good… So What!, as a pointed callout aimed at Poland, and the label stuck for years.
Poland later returned to the fold as a featured soloist on Megadeth‘s 2004 album The System Has Failed, but the relationship soured again around the same time. In 2004, following the reissue of Rust In Peace, Poland and his representatives filed a lawsuit against Mustaine over the use of three of his demos on the reissue without his permission. According to Megadeth‘s webmaster at the time, Mustaine had included the demos believing Poland would be “thankful for the promotion, the tipping of the hat, and showing the fans how Marty [Friedman]” — Megadeth‘s guitarist in some of the post-Poland years — “had actually been influenced by some of Chris‘ solo selections for those songs.”
The webmaster further claimed that Poland attempted to sue Mustaine for defamation over being called a “thief,” but that his attorney “dropped that after he found out that Chris had actually taken the band’s gear and sold it for drugs,” pointing to what the webmaster described as a confession in Megadeth‘s 2001 VH1 “Behind The Music” episode. Poland ultimately settled for $9,500, ending his professional ties with Mustaine and the band.
Now, with Now Leaving Metalopolis on the way, Poland appears ready to close the book on that history — on his own terms, and without, by his account, any lingering bitterness.
