Dave Mustaine has opened up about how he has been affected by the loss of fellow icons and friends. Speaking in the new issue of Metal Hammer, the Megadeth frontman admits metal is undergoing "a changing of the guard."
“All of our elder statesmen have satisfied their role as models," he explains. Some of the people we lost have really affected me. Lemmy, Dio, Ozzy… you hear about them going and you think, ‘No!’ That’s the way of the world now, though.”
Last year, Mustaine announced plans to retire Megadeth after the release of their upcoming, self-titled 17th studio album and a final world tour.
In his review of the album, writer Dom Lawson wrote that, "Always the most technically superior members of thrash metal’s Big 4, Megadeth have spent four decades raising standards. Every last second of their 17th studio album exudes the same precision and pugnacious versatility that made early classics like Rust In Peace and Countdown To Extinction so devastating."
Megadeth is set for release on January 23 and the band's farewell tour starts in Canada on February 15, before moving to South America in April and European festivals including Poland's Mystic Festival over the summer.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mustaine admits he isn't sure what he'll do once Megadeth actually do retire.
“Well, there’s so much still going on now that I don’t really want to think about that too much,” Mustaine says when we broach the topic of life after ’Deth. “I can’t really conceive of an end right now.”
After a little bit of prodding, he elaborates. “I don’t think there is going to be a morning after,” he says. “I think for all of us, we’re always going to be in Megadeth. We’re always going to be brothers now and best friends, and we’re always going to be responsible for making some of the most fun music that bassists and guitarists and drummers will ever want to play.”
Read all about Megadeth's big farewell in Metal Hammer's new issue, out now
