Dave Mustaine: 'Everybody makes fun of the drums' in Metallica
Dave Mustaine recently perked the ears of metal heads when he revealed that he and his former Metallica band mate, James Hetfield, were at one point planning a “project” together.
But, he continued, things got derailed after Mustaine offended Hetfield with a comment about publishing royalties.
Now, Mustaine has expanded on his initial, somewhat cryptic comments in a new interview with Songfacts. In the process, he also confirmed that the project that led to the dispute about publishing royalties was the much-discussed reissue of Metallica's 1982 demo, No Life 'Til Leather, which was supposed to have happened in the mid-2010s.
"The last time we talked it didn't end very well because we have some memory of a couple of things that took place when I was in the band," Mustaine said of his last conversation with Hetfield. "I remember it one way and he is saying that it happened another. But it's about somebody else — it's not even him. He's talking to me on behalf of 'you know who" [likely a reference to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich].
Mustaine continued, "They wanted to release No Life 'Til Leather — 27 songs, posters, flyers, pictures, everything. I said I would love to do this thing, and James said, 'Look, we fucked up. The last three things we've done failed abysmally.' He said it was Lulu [Metallica's 2011 collaboration with Lou Reed], something called Orion [the Orion Music + More festival], and there was one other thing... I think it was a film about a fan or something [the 2013 film Metallica: Through The Never]. I don't know. I don't see them as a failure.
"But I had said, 'Yeah, I'd be interested.' And he said, 'We'd like to get everything right with all the history, the publishing and stuff.' And I said, 'Good.' Because part of the reason why we haven't been able to really reconcile is because I had songs that when I left I didn't want them to record, and they went ahead and recorded them but they didn't pay me what my share of the songs were.
"James and I wrote 'Metal Militia' and 'Phantom Lord' — every note. And somehow, on the [Kill 'Em All] record it says Lars gets 10 per cent. And on 'Metal Militia' that Kirk gets some of it, and he wasn't even in the band [at the time it was written].
"So I've come to terms with it, and when he said, 'We'd like to get this right,' I said, 'Great. Let's do it. I have no problem.' And when I said, 'This is what it is,' he said, 'No. It's kind of what it was, and that's how it is.' And I thought to myself, you know what? When you guys did that to me before, it was not cool. I said, 'Don't use my stuff' and you did it, and then didn't give me my fair share. So why would I want to willingly enter into something like that? I wouldn't. So that's where we stand right now.”
Mustaine concluded, "I would love to work with James. I'd like to work with Lars again, too, but I think the real talent in Metallica has always been around the guitar — everybody makes fun of the drums.
"Lars is a really great song arranger. And believe it or not, I watched him on a piece-of-shit acoustic guitar write the opening riff to 'Master of Puppets.' You know what that was? It was a guy with a guitar that doesn't know how to play, and he's going [mimics playing a chromatic run] on the neck. It wasn't anything really mind-blowing by any means. The way James played it made it mind-blowing."
