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Book Review "Mustaine": Autobiography of Dave Mustaine full with amazing stories

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"Mustaine: A heavy metal memoir" is the autobiographical account of Dave Mustaine. Mustaine is the co-founder, lead and rhythm guitarist, primary songwriter of American heavy metal band Megadeth. Before the formation of Megadeth, he was the lead guitarist of Metallica, one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time.


Cover of Mustaine
Cover of "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir"

It seemed to me that the contents of the book can be categorised into three parts: the childhood of Dave Mustaine, his stint in Metallica during its formation period, and his life with Megadeth. At the very beginning of the book, Dave Mustaine tells how he accidentally injured the nerve of his left arm which threatened his career as a musician. I must say the beginning felt quite interesting to me. Then Mustaine recalls his childhood, how he grew up from moving one place to another, how being a Jehovah's Witness traumatised his childhood. He talks about his brief practice of witchcraft, how he started doing drugs, how he became a drug dealer to manage money for food and drugs in chapters regarding his childhood. He also tells about his music taste during his childhood, the reason behind his likeness for guitar and the formation and dismantling of his first band "Panic".

Then comes the Metallica part. Mustaine worked as the lead guitarist for Metallica during its formation time. Mustaine recalls how Metallica was created, how "No Life 'til Leather" demo was recorded, how the tension between him and Ron McGovney grew, how James and Lars had secretly selected Cliff Burton as Mcgovney's replacement (ironically Kirk Hammett was selected in the same manner to replace Mustaine). He also expressed how he loved and cared about his bandmates in these chapters. Mustaine wrote how he was kicked out of the band without any warning or second chance. He had to take a four days bus journey to go to his mother's house without a penny in his pocket.

The rest of the book is mainly focused on Megadeth and Dave Mustaine's drug addiction. Mustaine formed Megadeth to kick Metallica's ass. Being unable to find a desired vocalist for Megadeth, Mustaine himself took singing lessons on the advice of David Ellefson, the bassist and co-founder of Megadeth. In this segment, the reasons behind Megadeth's several line-up changes, the audition of band members, the recording process of their albums, Megadeth's tour in various countries, the dismantlement of the band after Mustaine's arm injury, and the reborn of Megadeth are depicted. How drugs affected Mustaine and his band is also written in this part.

I am a fan of Megadeth and Dave Mustaine. I found the book quite interesting. I first saw the name of Mustaine and Megadeth on Mark Manson's "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck", a book full of f-bombs and maybe some motivation. In that book, Mustaine was portrayed as a pissed off guy who is not satisfied with the great things he achieved with his own band just because he was kicked from Metallica. When I started reading this book, I thought there would be lots of ranting over his dismissal from Metallica. But I was wrong. After reading the epilogue, I felt Dave Mustaine is indeed a matured person. The book is well written and full of exciting stories. There are also a lot of photographs of Mustaine and his bandmates and others which were good to see. After reading this book, whenever I listen to some of the greatest hits of Megadeth, the first thing that comes to my mind is the story behind the song. Now I know the stories behind Megadeth hits like "Tornado Of Souls", "Skin O' My Teeth", "Holy Wars". 

I didn't like the cover of the book. I don't know why the designer used a still photo of Mustaine's face and simply wrote "Mustaine" on top of that photo. The book was published in 2010. After that, a lot of things happened with Mustaine and Megadeth. Dave Mustaine performed with Metallica on "The Big Four" tour, he defeated cancer, Chris Boderick and Shawn Drover left Megadeth, Kiko Loureiro joined as the guitarist, Dave Ellefson rejoined, Megadeth own first Grammy Award for 'Dystopia" etc. There should be another part of Mustaine's biography. I would love to read that. 


At a glance:

Name of the book: "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir"

Writer: Dave Mustaine and Joe Layden

Publisher: HarperCollins e-books


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