Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has revealed the physical toll of receiving a lengthy bout of chemotherapy for stage-three squamous cell carcinoma in his new memoir, In My Darkest Hour.
Mustaine received his throat cancer diagnosis in the summer of 2019, and in an interview with California Post, he says that he struggled while working on material for their 2022 album The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! due to radiation-related cognitive impairment.
"A lot slipped through the cracks due to a phenomenon known as 'chemo brain'," says Mustaine recalling that period of his life. "Putting all that stuff into your system, the chemotherapy is killing you. The job of the doctors is to take you to the brink of death and bring you back.
"A couple of things that happened because of the radiation and chemotherapy was that fog that I struggled through the first couple years," he adds. "It was really bad. I couldn't remember stuff I would say. We were making The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! at the same time. So it was particularly hard doing that record; trying to have an idea concept for a song and to develop it when you can't remember what your middle name is.
"The second thing that happens that has been really awful has been what the radiation did to my teeth. My teeth have been breaking and I'm having to have them replaced. You know, they look good, but it's the cost of of fighting a debilitating disease and winning."
The Megadeth founder also said it was important for his family and friends to share their perspectives from his period of treatment in the book, so that it may help others in the same situation.
"I wanted to have everybody that was there telling their story because you know, like the guitar tech that I had at the time that was driving me to the appointments," he explains. "I doubt very seriously when he signed up to be my guitar tech, he thought he'd be driving me to life-saving doctor's appointments, but that's what happened.
"I wanted to get everybody's emotional state around the whole thing – not only to help the patient or the reader who has somebody in their life that has been diagnosed. If they're thinking, 'What do I do now?' You do everything you're supposed to and and then some. And then after that, you keep doing everything that you're supposed to."
In My Darkest Hour: A Memoir by Dave Mustaine with Joe Layden, will be released in the UK through Constable on September 24.
