MEGADETH Mainman Discusses His Close Relationship With Fans

MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine recently spoke to The Digital Noise Network about Gigantour, returning to his roots, his split from former bandmates and the success of the group's "The System Has Failed" album. A couple of excerpts from the interview follow:

The Digital Noise Network: Dave, you're in a unique position because you seemingly put yourself close to your fans because you're always posting updates in the forums section of your web site. You let the fans pick the songs for the "Greatest Hits" album. Even Gigantour has features like the meet and greets and the guitar giveaways. What does it mean to you to have that close relationship with the fans?

Dave Mustaine: "Well, I think a lot of that comes down to being an influential and powerful person in the music industry, you would think that you should be able to meet all the people that you want to meet. Well, I haven't been able to do that because there are some ivory towers in this business still, and that's a shame. I've sold 40 million records, that should account for something. With my career with METALLICA and MEGADETH combined, 20 in each band, it's like, c'mon. There's just certain things that, they gave me a craw after awhile. Not being accessible to a degree, I think, is unacceptable because when I started there weren't as many bands out, now because of the advent of digital work stations, everybody is a guitar player, everybody is a drummer. Depending on where you're at, if you're in Nashville, everybody's a singer (laughs). For me, just thinking of some of the stuff that was there over the years, I've really taken a sideways look at what it means to be a fan. Am I gonna be one of these guys that treat my fans like they're just a meal ticket? No. I want a relationship with the fans to be a little bit deeper than that so they know. You can get something, information wise, on the 'Net about me or about tour dates or about what I'm doing in the studio. But, those guys are guessing. Or they're hear something from a source that's gonna tell them what's going on. Until they hear it from me, then it's not the truth. And if I tell them something and it's prior to it being confirmed and it has to change, then I'm gonna look stupid. I would rather some of these other online sites that are just blathering out gossip and rumors be the ones that look wrong. Because some of the dates that have come up on Gigantour, we've had to change at the last minute because of routing or conflicting tours. MÖTLEY CRÜE's out. Ozzfest. Warped. All these other bands and tours are out and we want to be on the opposite side of the country when they're coming through, so that there's no, 'oh my God, what do I do?' Not that fans that like MÖTLEY CRÜE like MEGADETH, but there's some."

The Digital Noise Network: What do you want the legacy of this band to be when it's all said and done?

Dave Mustaine: "Well, the legacy is already there. I guess it would be to just kind of improve upon it a little bit. I think that people know that we're a band that's of, and by the people and for the people. We have, to a degree, veered a little bit off the beaten path, but not too far. I'm accessible, even though I'm outspoken, I'm pretty compassionate to people. I think a lot of people are surprised that when they have issues and stuff like that, when they reach out to us, there's somebody there that's actually gonna call 'em. I remember one time there was a kid in Arizona who was suffering from kidney failure. I called his hospital and I said 'hey.' He goes, 'Hello?' I go 'Hey, it's Dave Mustaine.' He goes, 'There's some guy pretending he's Dave Mustaine.' He hung up the phone, right? Meanwhile, his best friend had gone through all this leg work to contact me to get me to call the kid at the hospital. So, I called back and I left a message on his phone and I said, 'Listen, call your friend and when you find out that your friend went through all this effort to get me to call you and you realize that you hung up on me, maybe I'll call you back. Otherwise I hope you get well soon. Take care. Goodbye.' I get a message from his friend saying, 'Oh my god, he didn't believe you.' I've got a very short list of people I want to meet still. If he called me up and said, 'Hey let's go get a coffee or something' I'd say, 'Yeah, right. 'Cause you know, there's a human element of being a little prankster that people do stuff like that."

Read Dave Mustaine's entire interview with The Digital Noise Network at this location.