Megadeth have been associated with Arizona so much that when their website around Youthanasia launched in 1994 (one of the first bands to ever have a website), it was called Megadeth, Arizona. Yet frontman Dave Mustaine recently relocated to Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville that’s certainly not a hotbed of metal. However, Mustaine isn’t doing it for himself – he’s doing it for his daughter Electra. In an interview with Rolling Stone India, he says that her career as an aspiring country singer was the impetus:
The reason we moved out here was because I’ve made four records out here and all those times I was recording, I did live here. It really was comfortable to be here. The last time we were here, Electra was only two years old. We didn’t know that she had the gift and once she started singing — I heard her sing one time and I was really convinced. I don’t profess to be a singer first and foremost — I’m a guitar player that sings more than a singer who plays guitar. But with her, she really is. That’s her strong point. For her, this is music city. It’s all about country. It’s where she’s flourishing.
I could do my job from anywhere — Megadeth is that successful. I can do stuff on the net from a desert island if I wanted to. But I think for her, to be here right now and work with other songwriters builds her name. She just goes in and meets people and doesn’t tell them who her dad is [laughs].
Elsewhere in the interview, Mustaine talks about the band’s forthcoming album, comparing it to Peace Sells:
It’s definitely a lot more old-school. You know, when you come from a metal background and you’re playing really aggressive stuff, you learn about how to write stuff that’s melodic. That’s something to be looked at as an accomplishment, not something to be ashamed of… I think that back in the Nineties when Def Leppard and Nirvana became super successful, Megadeth and pretty much every other band was told ‘You need to change or you’re done’. Look at the radio in the States — there’s hardly any rock radio left and not even any playing metal.
The album will be released early next year, and if you listen to Chris Adler, a tour with Lamb of God might be in the works.
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