Dave Mustaine was asked to assemble a younger Big Four. He declined half the question and answered the rest with three bands that have been going almost as long as his own.
Speaking to Czech channel “Óčko“, the Megadeth leader said: “Well, it wouldn’t be a young generation, but I do believe that there are ways to do a new ‘Big Four’. I think that Testament, I think Overkill, I think Exodus, and maybe Trivium; I don’t know. Trivium‘s not really a thrash metal band, so I’d have to think about that. But I think those other three guys would be really great,” (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
His reasoning was personal rather than commercial.
“Overkill is really important on the East Coast metal scene. Exodus, of course, I love Exodus. And I’ve been friends with Gary [Holt] longest of all people that I’ve been friends with in the music industry. And Testament. Eric [Peterson], Alex [Skolnick], those guys are really great guitar players. And I love when we get a chance to play with the band,” he explained.
The question has more weight coming from him this year than it would have in any other. Megadeth released their final, self-titled album in January, which gave them their first US number one, and the “This Was Our Life” farewell tour has been running since the spring. One quarter of the original Big Four is closing down, and the man doing the naming is the one closing it.
All three have been asked the same question over the years, and their answers are on the record.
Gary Holt made the case for Exodus in a 2010 interview with Metal Asylum, when he was asked whether the group should be expanded to a Big Seven.
He said at the time: “Well, I think it should be the ‘Big Five’ with Exodus, because we were there at the start of thrash metal with Metallica in the real early ’80s,” he said. “Same thing with Megadeth because Mustaine was a part of Metallica‘s birth and he also created Megadeth. And Slayer are Slayer. Anthrax are also great and old friends, but if you listen to those first few records, they have definitely changed. Testament has every right to be part of the thrash metal legends, but it just came down to timing because they came later. And Overkill have been their since the beginning also. But I don’t get hung up on that s**t, because I know how it all started and I know where I was when the s**t got created. We [Exodus] certainly deserve to be part of the founding fathers, but you know who often gets excluded are the Germans — Kreator, Destruction and Sodom. Everybody looks to America and forgets those guys. Kreator, Destruction and Sodom all released records in the early ’80s.”
Asked about the subject again last year, he said he had never worried about it, and added that Exodus are better than all of them.
Alex Skolnick has been more relaxed about Testament‘s exclusion, putting it down to chronology. “All those bands, they were past their first record. They were all off and running,” he said in 2019. “At the time, the classic Testament lineup was just forming. So, I’m fine with that. They were there first, and they were doing big things. And we came along a little later. But I have no problem with those groups being classified together.”
Mustaine gave a version of this answer thirteen years ago. Asked by “Radio.com” in 2013 which band belonged in an expanded Big Five, he also picked Exodus.
“You know, people will say there’s a whole another generation, like the ‘Medium Four’, and I think there’s a lot of great bands that fit that bill, too. But I think probably Exodus, because there was nobody else at the time that had that kind of pull or that kind of importance in the metal community. Granted, it was with [late Exodus singer Paul] Baloff, and Baloff had a voice that you had to have an acquired taste for, but you know, I liked him,” he told back then.
The term covered Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, the four American thrash bands that sold the most and reached furthest into the mainstream, rather than a critical judgement about quality.
They shared a stage for the first time on June 16, 2010 at the Sonisphere festival at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw, in front of 81,000 people, and played six more Sonisphere dates that year. A further run followed in 2011, ending at Yankee Stadium in New York on September 14, fifteen years ago tomorrow. That was the last time all four appeared together.
Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax have since shared bills without Megadeth, including Soundwave in Australia in 2013 and Heavy MTL in Montreal in 2014.
Exodus rarely get folded into the conversation, but Bonded By Blood, recorded in 1984 and released in 1985, is among the most influential records the genre produced, and is routinely cited by Testament, Death Angel and Vio-lence as the reason they started.
