Dave Mustaine beat stage three squamous cell carcinoma. Six years on, he is still paying for the treatment that did it, in memory, and in teeth.
The Megadeth founder set out the lasting effects in an interview with California Post promoting his memoir, “In My Darkest Hour“, which deals with the diagnosis at length.
The first problem was cognitive. Mustaine was making The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! while undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, and says much of that period is missing.
“A lot slipped through the cracks due to a phenomenon known as ‘chemo brain,'” he said. “Putting all that stuff into your system, the chemotherapy is killing you. The job of the doctors is to take you to the brink of death and bring you back.”
“A couple of things that happened because of the radiation and chemotherapy was that fog that I struggled through the first couple years,” Mustaine continued. “It was really bad. I couldn’t remember stuff I would say. We were making The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! at the same time. So it was particularly hard doing that record; trying to have an idea concept for a song and to develop it when you can’t remember what your middle name is.”
He added: “The second thing that happens that has been really awful has been what the radiation did to my teeth. My teeth have been breaking and I’m having to have them replaced. You know, they look good, but it’s the cost of of fighting a debilitating disease and winning.”
Mustaine brought in accounts from the people around him at the time, including crew members whose jobs changed considerably during his treatment.
“I wanted to have everybody that was there telling their story because you know, like the guitar tech that I had at the time that was driving me to the appointments,” he explained. “I doubt very seriously when he signed up to be my guitar tech, he thought he’d be driving me to life-saving doctor’s appointments, but that’s what happened.
“I wanted to get everybody’s emotional state around the whole thing – not only to help the patient or the reader who has somebody in their life that has been diagnosed. If they’re thinking, ‘What do I do now?’ You do everything you’re supposed to and and then some. And then after that, you keep doing everything that you’re supposed to,” Mustaine said.
The person whose words stuck was someone who had been through the same thing. Bruce Dickinson was treated for tongue cancer in 2015, and got in touch.
“Bruce had some fantastic stuff to say as a cancer survivor,” Mustaine told Metal Hammer earlier. “There’s a big difference between someone saying, ‘You’re in my thoughts and prayers’, versus somebody who goes into detail about his treatment and tells you about the outcome. I needed hope, and he gave me it.”
Dickinson‘s advice, as Mustaine recalls it, was to “surround yourself with good people” and to make sure he was “spending time with people who are upbeat and positive.”
“I’ve always looked at that stuff like one beggar giving another beggar a crust of bread. But I appreciate it, because I know how our time is measured out, and to take the time to stop and do something like that means a lot,” he added.
Mustaine announced in June 2019 that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, a squamous cell carcinoma at the back of his tongue, and cancelled the band’s touring commitments for that year. He said in early 2020 that he was clear of it.
The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, Megadeth‘s sixteenth album and the one made across that period, came out in September 2022.
“In My Darkest Hour: A Memoir“, written with Joe Layden, was published in the US on September 8 through Da Capo, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, and reaches the UK on September 24 through Constable.
Megadeth released their self-titled seventeenth and final album in January, which gave them their first US number one, and are working through a farewell tour.
