Dave Mustaine says Megadeth‘s greatest achievement was earning respect for metal guitar players.
Dave Mustaine has named the thing he considers Megadeth‘s most lasting contribution, and it has nothing to do with sales or chart positions. Asked by Poland’s “Mystic Festival” for the band’s greatest achievement, the guitarist said it was forcing the wider music world to take metal players seriously.
“Just getting respectability for metal guitar players. I think that’s really great, because when we first started out, metal guitar players were really great, but people just didn’t have any respect for them because the bands that they were in were teeny little bands. And as we went along and opened more doorways, some of the doors we had to kick in, but we opened doors for ourselves and other people,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Asked whether “Peace Sells” had been a turning point, Mustaine said it was the moment he found the voice he has used since.
He replied: “I didn’t feel that… I had not felt that for a long time. And I knew when I wrote the song that there was a part in the middle, the middle eight part, that was the first time I had come up with a part that melodic. Everything else was really aggressive, where they rip your face off kind of stuff. And ‘Peace Sells‘, the tempo was slower, the riff was slower, and the sarcasm in the lyrics, ‘What do you mean?’ You know? That was the beginning of my character really coming into focus for me as a frontman, as a singer, as a lyricist.”
The song appeared on Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? in 1986, the band’s second album.
Mustaine chose “Symphony Of Destruction” from 1992’s Countdown To Extinction, “Holy Wars… The Punishment Due” from 1990’s Rust In Peace, and “Peace Sells“.
“‘Symphony‘ [and] ‘Holy Wars‘ because of the stance in the lyrics that we need to be together. ‘Peace Sells‘ because ‘Peace Sells‘ is one of those songs that shows the wit, the sarcasm and the desire for metal fans to have a better life. When they sing, ‘I’ll be the first in line’, that means they want something better too,” he said.
Megadeth are working through a farewell that Mustaine said in November 2025 would run three to five years rather than a single lap. The European leg, “Breakout: Hibernation Of The Nations“, opens on 9 March 2027 at The O2 in Belfast and closes on 13 April at Sagres Campo Pequeno in Lisbon, with Black Label Society and Testament on every date of the 24-show run.
Megadeth, released on 23 January through Mustaine‘s Tradecraft imprint via Frontiers Label Group‘s BLKIIBLK label, is the band’s seventeenth and final studio album. It entered the Billboard 200 at number one with 73,000 equivalent album units in the week ending 29 January, according to Luminate, of which 69,000 were pure sales. It is the first chart-topper of a career spanning more than four decades.
It also went to number one in Australia and Austria, reached number two in Finland, Sweden and Belgium, topping the physical charts in Finland and Sweden, number three in the UK and Germany, number four in the Netherlands, and number five in Italy and New Zealand, the band’s best placing there.
Chris Rakestraw produced, having also worked on The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! and 2016’s Dystopia.
Megadeth are Mustaine, guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, bassist James LoMenzo and drummer Dirk Verbeuren. Mäntysaari came in during late 2023, after Kiko Loureiro stepped away from the “Crush The World” tour to be at home with his children in Finland, and has been a permanent member since.
