DAVE MUSTAINE: 'BUCKETHEAD Is Probably Twice As Good A Guitar Player As Me And SLASH Combined'

Erin Broadley of SuicideGirls.com conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine after his July 10, 2008 appearance at the Guitar Center store in Hollywood, California for a very special installment of "GC Sessions". A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

SuicideGirls.com: One thing you've said before is that when you were growing up you had people like Angus Young or Jimmy Page to look up to, but that now you don't see a lot of virtuosos in metal bands.

Mustaine: Yeah…

SuicideGirls.com: Why do you think that is?

Mustaine: I think the reason that there are no, or not as many, guitar virtuosos right now is we went through a 10 year period when LINKIN PARK had come out and bands like LIMP BIZKIT that had a lot of success that were based on urban lifestyle and, uh, that whole hip hop, yo yo yo… Dude, you don't have any soul, you've got no funk, and you're fucking white as far as I can tell, [laughs] you don't have any rhythm. I'm not a racist or anything like that, and I certainly know there's great rappers in all different walks of life, but when you take away the guitar solos… people think that's the secret… have some lines and lyrics that are cool and "I'm wearing the right hat," or "I'm wearing the right windbreaker," or "I've got the right bling on," or whatever.

I was just watching — I cant believe I'm actually saying this — but "Access Hollywood", I was watching that or "Entertainment Tonight", with whatever his name is, and I agree with what the guy says a lot of the time. He's a snotty, smarmy kind of guy but he's right most of the time. He was talking about some of the stuff that was going on 10, 15 years ago with artists and it's true. Think back when MC Hammer was around. Everybody wanted to be MC Hammer. And now everybody hates him. It's sad. For me, I wish someone would have come along and said, "Listen, people are going to take your money, they're going to befriend you…" It's like, how many times have you been the last guy in the bar? Or like when your partying with your friends and when your last doob is gone, so are they.

SuicideGirls.com: M-hmm. When the party stops, your "friends" go away.

Mustaine: That was something that I found really hard to face because in this business you rely on people and you think that you've got friends. But they're not your friends; they're just people over there doing your old lady and your drugs [laughs].

SuicideGirls.com: Right, and it's also bad when the instrument or the guitar becomes secondary to the personality or the hat. Then it's like wait, wait, wait… where did the musicianship go?

Mustaine: You become a caricature of yourself. Well, see, when I think about a guy with a hat, I think of Slash. And I think Slash is an excellent guitar player. He's one of my favorites. That's a guy that's pulled it off.

SuicideGirls.com: Yeah, Slash is amazing.

Mustaine: He's brilliant; I love him. But then you see some guy like Buckethead… Buckethead is probably twice as good a guitar player as me and Slash combined, and can stand having fried chicken rubbed up against his face all night for a couple of hours.

SuicideGirls.com: Is there anything that really excites you about metal these days?

Mustaine: Well, I'm diggin' on what's been happening with Gigantour. Gigantour's been helping a lot of the younger bands. We had a tremendous run last Gigantour with IN FLAMES and CHILDREN OF BODOM. We just had some really super exciting news yesterday about one of the bands we're going to lock up for the next Gigantour and as soon as we can tell you we will. But it's very exciting. When the call came in and I was like, "Really? Really?! They're not wanting to headline over us? Really?" These guys are music of the people of the moment. And for them to want to play with us is great.

Read the entire interview at SuicideGirls.com.

Watch fan-filmed footage from Dave Mustaine's "GC Sessions" below.