Mustaine: The Man, the Myth, The Survivor

August 20, 2010

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I must admit it was with mass trepidation and fanboy excitement that I ran through Dave Mustaine’s bio Mustaine in two days. If you go back as far as I do with Dave (in a manner of speaking) you are anxious to see what makes him tick and what made his career the very epitome of the phrase “highs and lows”. He does not disappoint.

As long as I’ve been a Megadeth fan, and that goes back to 1984, I’ve always figured there was a one-layered Dave Mustaine: an egotistical narcissist who has control and self-esteem issues so deeply rooted that he has to poke fun at and ridicule pretty much everyone and everything in his path. I tend to recall that vee-jay Rikki Rachtman was one of his favorite targets back in the MTV Headbanger’s Ball days. What you come away with  after  ingesting this 345-page diary is a

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multilayered Dave: a man that has spent the better part of his adult life chasing the grand machine that is Metallica, actually allowing this resentment to dictate his life’s work to an all-too large, self-destructive degree. What you come away with at novel’s end is a Dave that you can still find unwilling to relinquish supremacy to anyone or anything, yet he is so surprisingly forthcoming and candid that you can’t help but like the guy. As well he should be liked; despite his quirkiness and general disdainful attitudes over the years, Dave Mustaine is a talented man with vision and luck to carry his extreme luggage.

From his very humble beginnings growing up as a poor, virtually fatherless kid who lived on the run from his father (literally fleeing with his family during the night from home to home like Jews from Nazi soldiers) to his teenage years as a drug-peddling miscreant, we might identify with him on some levels. His teenage angst led him towards a path most of us held only as fantasy in front of mirrors or in various go-nowhere garage bands. He is the true picture of triumph over adversity. In Mustaine we see Dave admit his shortcomings with splashes of humor and nerve-pinching honesty; I found it particularly illuminating to hear him admit his inferiority complex to former Megadeth guitarist Marty Freidman, feeling that he was, in essence, being shown up nightly by his second banana. His rampant drug use and drinking are also covered here without all of the ‘poor-me’ rhetoric usually found in self-serving anecdotal bios. Mustaine offers a rare glimpse into the psyche of a guy always ready to fight and run his mouth. He truly is a man with depth, yet personal baggage galore. The story of his departure from Metallica in his words is a wince-worthy one; it renders the event, all too often the butt of childish giggling and in-jokes among Metallica members and fans, a much harsher reality from a young man’s eyes forced to travel back home across the U.S., penniless and broken-hearted. He readily admits his shortcomings as a human being and a bit of a drunken mess, but his hurt still bleeds from the words some twenty-six years later.   

His once-rocky marriage to wife Pam, his pride in his kids, Justis and Electra, his ‘dead-arm’ episode that rendered Megadeth virtually dead at the peak of his career, are all addressed with insight and honesty. You still get the sense that Dave is not necessarily backing down from his volatile younger persona one iota, but you also read the words of a man pushing fifty and realize that he has survived what most others have succumbed to with far less road wear. He is, of sorts, the miracle walking and he knows this.

His road to Christianity is also revealed completely void of preaching or proselytizing. He admits to being ‘saved’ yet doesn’t find fault with others whose path doesn’t follow suit. He seems to be a man that has found peace, a serenity sorely missing in his life that was there for the taking when he was finally ready. I honestly find his candor refreshing and filled with the typical Dave exuberance and quick wit. He is always ready to argue a point and address an issue, particularly his widely-reported refusal to share the stage with Rotting Christ and Dissection due to a conflict with his religious beliefs. Mustaine also talks about the cyberspace ‘war’ with Dissection’s late frontman Jon Nodtveidt, where the latter called Dave an enemy and basically threatened to kill him for his conversion to Christ, musing that he’d ‘be waiting’ for him in France. What impresses me most is Dave’s complete honesty in relating that he was, in fact, concerned about the threats after finding out about Nodtveidt’s murder conviction. He doesn’t ‘pose’ and throw out the familiar bad-ass façade; in fact his admission endears him all the more. The story has a much unexpected ending that you’ll just have to pick up your copy and read.

There is so much heaviness going on in these pages that it’s something of a burden to carry along with Dave, but you do it without regret or cynicism after the first couple of chapters. Everything about Dave Mustaine is human; he is often hubristic, always engaging, for better or worse and, not surprisingly, quite funny. He touches every topic from personal politics to A.A. meetings; drug relapses to love letters from metal queen Doro Pesch that one band member took umbrage with, everything is exposed with captivating openness that more than once makes you laugh out loud. When you read the book and see just what makes a band tick you finally get that it isn’t all flash-and-cash; it’s quite literally a painful process that has high prices to be paid throughout and at journey’s end. When Dave quite astutely offers that anyone who wants to have a normal life of monogamy and clean living needs to quit the business immediately and not look back you tend to believe every word.

I suppose it’s silly to say I’m proud of Dave Mustaine. I’ve been in front of him a dozen times since 1985, even got busted taping the Clash of the Titans tour in ’91 and had him send me back to the show with my recorder (minus batteries) and an autograph on the back of a Marty Freidman solo CD (??), but I never really ‘met’ him. He’s been called every adjective in the egoist’s dictionary over the years, some of which might be accurate and some second-hand conjecture. Either way, Mustaine is a must-read for the metalhead who wants to understand a bit of life on the road without all of the self-serving salaciousness and ‘jive’ associated with such epic tales.

(Hey Dave, let go of the ghost, brother…you accomplished so much without them!)          

CHRIS

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