MEGADETH Working On 'Dark', 'Heavy' And 'Fast' New Album

Full Metal Jackie conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine for Dean Guitars' "Live From NAMM" webcast from this year's NAMM (National Association Of Music Merchants) show, a massive music-products convention that took place January 24-27 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. You can now watch the chat below.

"We're actually in the studio right now working on a new record," Mustaine said during the chat. "We have a new label. We left Roadrunner; we completed our contract with them, which not a lot of many metal bands have the luxury to have been able to complete contracts. They usually either break up or quit or give up and stuff like that, but we were honorable and finished our contract with them and we moved on. And we've actually got a fantastic relationship with a brand new label that we're gonna be telling everybody about real soon. We have eleven songs already recorded. We wanna give them thirteen, 'cause, you know, the B-sides and Japanese releases and all that kind of crazy stuff. So we're almost done with all of that stuff. I'm excited about the music."

He continued: "[MEGADETH bassist] David Ellefson is one of those guys that's kind of the barometer of the band. You ask me, you never really know what you're gonna get, but when you ask David Ellefson, it's kind of like reading the ingredients on the back of something, 'cause he's such a straight shooter. He told some people the other day that this is music that's really similar to [MEGADETH's 1985 debut album] 'Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!', some of the stuff — really dark, really heavy and fast stuff. I mean, I don't thnk it's really as fast and heavy as 'Killing' is, to me, but Junior is a great, like I said, barometer — bad word, but he knows what's going on.

"The relationship in the band right now, we're all getting along great; everybody is having a great time. Chris Broderick, what a great guitar player. Shawn Drover is playing his butt off, and Dave and I are getting along great right now. We're excited.

"We're gonna be debuting the name of the record soon. We've been giving little clips of some of the music on our web site and on Dean's web site.

"It's just a great time to be in MEGADETH."

MEGADETH's fourteenth studio album is being recorded with producer Johnny K (full name: John Karkazis),who has previously worked with DISTURBED, SEVENDUST, MACHINE HEAD and STAIND. The CD is being laid down at Mustaine's Vic's Garage studio in San Marcos, California.

Johnny K produced MEGADETH's last album, 2011's "TH1RT3EN", which was also recorded at Vic's Garage.