Dave Mustaine claims Metallica used his riffs for hit songs without creditting him
Megadeath co-founder and guitarist Dave Mustaine has claimed in a new interview that his penmanship can be attributed to a lot of the music that “made” Metallica.
Mustaine joined Metallica in 1981 after responding to an ad placed by drummer Lars Ulrich in a local newspaper. No honeymoon period meant his stint with the band was doomed. At the time, Mustaine was consumed by drug and alcohol addiction, which made it difficult for his bandmates to be around him.
However, Mustaine has insisted it wasn’t a problem that he faced alone. Mustaine told ‘The Shawn Ryan Show’: “We all drank. That’s why they called it Alcoholica. I mean, they didn’t call it Dave-Alcoholica. We all drank. And they continued to drink like that even after I was gone. But that was, I think, the beginning of the end.”
Mustaine left the band with a tape of his riffs. When he was kicked out without warning, the guitarist warned the group, “‘Do not use my music.’ And of course they used it.”
He now alleges that Metallica tracks such as ‘Ride The Lightning’, ‘The Call Of Ktulu’, ‘Phantom Lord’, ‘Metal Militia’, ‘Jump In The Fire’, and ‘The Four Horsemen’ all contain his riffs.
Mustaine was replaced by guitarist Kirk Hammett, who has been a member ever since. The Megadeth co-founder acknowledged this in the interview, sharing, “I wrote a lot of their music that made them, and all the solos on that first record were mine – the best Kirk could do was try and copy them.”
Writing previously of Mustaine’s ability to make magic with his guitar, Far Out praised the musician: “Mustaine became the ultimate innovator in the field, popularising certain aspects of guitar playing, like the ‘spider chord’, and introducing new ways of achieving certain progressions and sounds in metal. His intuitive approach to music creation and unrelenting dedication to constant improvement have earned him various titles over the years, including the greatest metal guitarist of all time.”
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