![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Megadeth-Nov-2011.jpg\" "\\"Megadeth-Nov-2011\\"")
MEGADETH<\/h1>\nMEGADETH<\/h1>\nAfter three decades of metal, Dave Mustaine and company still won\u2019t be stopped\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Just a few months ago, Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine wasn\u2019t sure he\u2019d ever play guitar again. He experienced crushing neck and back pain when the band entered the studio to record its new Th1rt3en<\/em> album in May, but soldiered through. While touring as part of the traveling Mayhem Festival this summer, he could barely stand onstage and at one point was nearly paralyzed\u2014but still decided the show must go on. \u201cAt the end of the festival, we could only play half-sets,\u201d says Mustaine, who has dealt with nerve-damage problems off and on for almost a decade. \u201cIt was unbearable to endure the pain, but I wasn\u2019t gonna cancel.\u201d<\/p>\n Mustaine eventually limped into the Watkins Spine Institute in Marina del Rey, Calif., for successful neck and spinal surgery. Still, unable to pen new music for Th1rt3en<\/em>, he resurrected unrecorded songs from the early 1990s. \u201cThe studio for me is a place to create, but I knew my neck was really bad,\u201d says Mustaine. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what was gonna happen, so I went into this saying, \u2018OK, this is it. I\u2019m going to grab all my best stuff and put it on this record.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The California native\u2019s health woes come on the heels of last year\u2019s autobiography Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir<\/em>, in which he wrote about his consuming obsession with making Megadeth a success. His efforts have paid off\u2014the band has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide over 28 years\u2014but he paid a heavy price. A blackout drunk by 16, he moved to hard drugs and made more than a dozen rehab attempts before getting sober for \u00a0good in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n In recent years Mustaine has mended bridges with former adversaries\u2014most notably his onetime bandmates in Metallica, who ejected him from the group in 1983. \u201cAt the time my judgment was being clouded by alcohol,\u201d Mustaine says of his early Metallica days. \u201cWe\u2019d always been friends. That\u2019s what made it so difficult, because when you like somebody and you\u2019re forced to part ways, you\u2019re either justified doing it or you try and cover up why you got the boot. Now there\u2019s no animosity.\u201d Mustaine\u2019s personal life is also settled\u2014he and wife Pamela are raising two teenagers. \u201cI was talking to my son Justis, and one place I haven\u2019t played is in Africa,\u201d he says. \u201cI said, \u2018Would you be willing to do a safari with your old dad?\u2019 He said, \u2018Yeah, for sure, dude.\u2019 I am so happy right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013Steven Rosen<\/p>\n MEGADETH After three decades of metal, Dave Mustaine and company still won\u2019t be stopped\u00a0 Just a few months ago, Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine wasn\u2019t sure he\u2019d ever play guitar again. He experienced crushing neck and back pain when the band entered the studio to record its new Th1rt3en album in May, but soldiered through. While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[3133,2864,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4991"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4995,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4991\/revisions\/4995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"