"If there was another way around this, I would swallow my pride and say, 'I was able to find some miracle cure.'" Heavy metal legend and Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine on why now is the right time to say goodbye

(Image credit: Jason Kempin/Getty Images for ABA)

Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has opened up on his decision to call time on his four-plus decade career in heavy metal, and how it feels knowing that his band could be the first of thrash metal's hallowed Big 4 to call it quits for good.

Speaking to Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation, Mustaine acknowledges that with Slayer returning to do more shows and Metallica and Anthrax still very much active, Megadeth could yet be the first Big 4 band to actually retire.

"I think a lot of us were eaten alive by the intensity of the music and what it caused us to do with our skeletal systems and our nervous systems," he says of he and his thrash peers. "I know I exchanged my nervous system for fame and my skeletal system playing, you know, slinging that heavy guitar every night for years and years and years.

"And then headbanging on top of it, and then looking to the left constantly for, you know, what is it, 40 plus years? Looking to the left, so your body's predisposed to look left and down. You know, it creates musculoskeletal issues, you know. And I believe that's what happened to Malcolm and Angus [Young, of AC/DC]. I know that's what was going on with the guys in Slayer and Metallica. "

Mustaine - who has confirmed that despite this year's self-titled album being Megadeth's last, the band will continue for a few more years of touring - also discusses the medical issues with his hands that have forced his imminent retirement. The guitarist recently revealed a diagnosis of Dupuytren's contracture, which causes contraction in the hand muscles, making playing guitar a potentially painful experience.

"It's not that I don't want to stay," he insists. "It's that my hands are betraying me. You know, if there was another way around this, I would swallow my pride and say, 'You know, I was able to find some miracle cure', something like that, where I could play left-handed or something, you know. But I'm cool with going out right now where we're at. This is just wonderful."

Megadeth will tour the world for the next couple of years at least, giving fans plenty of opportunities to catch them one final time. Their seventeenth and final album Megadeth is out now.

Merlin was promoted to Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has written for Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N' Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site.

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