The Rebuilding Of MEGADETH - In DAVE MUSTAINE's Words

MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine has posted the following message in the "Forums" section of the band's official web site:

"So, we go out on tour with Shawn [Drover, drummer] and Glen [Drover, now-former MEGADETH guitarist] and everything is documented, and we have James MacDonough [bassist] with us at the time too. Shawn ends up in the hospital the first night from vertigo and confesses that he has only played only two concerts before that night.

"Thus starts the tremendous work of rebuilding the band and earning back our credibility. James MacDonough was in the band long enough to participate in the widely acclaimed 'That One Night' live DVD from one of my favorite spots in the world; Buenos Aires, Argentina. This DVD shows what MEGADETH is in a nutshell. You can almost fast-forward to 'Symphony Of Destruction' and that is all that separates the audiences from night to night. James, and the Drovers and I, did not connect with MacDonough and he currently lives in north of the USA on the West Coast.

"Once James and MEGS parted ways, I was really excited about James Lomenzo, or 'JLo,' as he likes to be called. And you know I gave him shit about his nickname. I felt euphoric when I heard his bass line for 'Washington Is Next!' Even though I was back on top with quite possibly the best bassist yet, and a plain old pal, this was also the beginning of almost one and a half years of hell I mentioned.

"When James came in, we had different management and a different production/enginerring team as compared to things at the end. We started with Jeff Balding, a producer and engineer that I hold very, very high in my esteem and finished with Andy Sneap (which was a great thing to have had happen). And we also had a different company and finished with Mark Adelman from Azoff Music.

"Sounds exciting, right? Well, we had a lot of rats below the poop deck.

"After finishing the world tour for 'The System Has Failed', we had to deal with the sadness of having to cancel our Mexican dates, because the last time we played in Mexico City, we played with MÖTLEY CRÜE, and they got booed off stage and pelted with burning seat cushions while the audience cheered MEGADETH to come back out, and this was one of the most famous MEGADETH shows ever. We were really looking forward to coming back to Mexico City and the tour manager at the time did not have enough time scheduled for us to get to Mexico from Oregon in time.

"We soon after parted ways with this 'tour manager.'

"So, we all went our separate ways, and I still had music left over from when I went in to do my double studio record as a soloist. Remember I mentioned that the first record of this supposed double-studio record was what made up 'The System Has Failed' and I had the second half of this record already written. So when we started the pre-production, we were way farther along than we should have been, but there were numerous problems that interrupted the making of the record, doing concerts, having bizarre interruptions, and so on. I also made a promise to my family that I would be home for two months last summer when the kids got out of school. I did this because the record was supposed to be done by then, but numerous inconveniences and interruptions like I forementioned ended up moving our release date back several months and in order to keep my word and my integrity, I had to sit home for the two months I mentioned which were the first two months of the campaign: IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WORSE TIMING."