Mustaine's Metallica Feud

There was a really interesting interview on Blabbermouth the other day with Dave Mustaine. He was lead guitarist of Metallica from 1981 to 1983 when he was kicked out of the band. He went on to a successful career with Megadeth as a skilled front man but they never reached the heights that Metallica achieved. Well there has clearly been a bit of a feud raging over the years and the outspoken Lars Ulrich has sparred with Mustaine in the press. The whole thing came to a head with the Some Kind of Monster documentary when they met up and talked about what had happened with disastrous results.

Mustaine says he has never seen it and doesn’t want to. He claims he only agreed to do the filming on the condition that he would get to review and approve it before it went out. After the meeting, which he had hoped would lead to reconciliation broke down, he refused permission for Metallica to use the footage and they went ahead and did it anyway. It was actually filmed on his 40th birthday and he was clearly tired and emotional. He claims they edited it to make him look bad and that Ulrich walked off crying.

After the film came out he refused to talk to Metallica again and the arguments continued to surface in the press. Naturally anything he says is going to be blown out of proportion because people know the rift exists in order to make a better story for the media. They were all very young when they fell out and it is sad to see that there is still bad feeling there. Mustaine recently refused his invitation from Ulrich to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame event. He was invited to watch not to appear on stage with the rest of the band as a former member. However he says he would happily take part in a gig with Metallica on the bill.

I saw Megadeth and Metallica on the same bill back in 1993 and they both played an awesome set. The whole argument has obviously been blown right up by fans and media but when you have two outspoken guys like Mustaine and Ulrich and both of them are easy to upset I guess offhand comments are bound to escalate. There is also no denying a good feud is entertaining to watch.

Let’s take a look at some of the most inflammatory things Mustaine has said over the years.

On Kirk Hammett "at least I got to bang his girlfriend before he took my job — how do I taste, Kirk?".

On Some Kind of Monster "after seeing Some Kind of Monster I'm about as good as friends with Metallica as they are with each other".

On Lars Ulrich "a treacherous little man and that’s why he can’t stay married. That’s why everybody in the band can’t stand him."

Mustaine has had other public feuds most notably with former members of Megadeth and with Slayer. He has a reputation for being easy to wind up and interviewers frequently take advantage of this to get a snappy comment. Truthfully though he doesn’t do himself any favours. Even in the recent Blabbermouth interview he starts by saying he doesn’t want to talk about Metallica because he always gets misquoted and then ends up talking about them.