“I started writing two-and-a-half years ago. So it’s not a reflection of Kiko leaving Megadeth, but of Kiko thinking about leaving Megadeth”: Kiko Loureiro on making his first new solo material since quitting one of metal’s biggest bands

Kiko Loureiro.

It took Kiko Loureiro a year to make the decision to leave Megadeth in 2023, but the deciding factors were simple enough. “My kids are more important,” he tells Guitar World. “Me being home is more important. Do I need to deny the family thing to feel like a rock star every night?”

After handpicking replacement Teemu Mantysaari, Loureiro laid low for a while. But he’s returned with seventh solo record, Theory of Mind, which demonstrates his genre-bending ways.