Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine says the band are gearing up to release a series of new songs in sync with their live return in the New Year.
While the band’s plans to record the follow-up to 2016’s “Dystopia” this year were sidelined as Mustaine underwent treatment for throat cancer, the rocker tells Rolling Stone that they had composed “nine really crushing songs”, and aim to issue a few of them ahead of a European tour with Five Finger Death Punch that will open in Helsinki, Finland on January 20.
“All we need to do is get in the studio and capture them,” says Mustaine. “We’ve got scratch drum tracks. We just have to get Dirk [Verbeuren, drums] to play through the songs once or twice and then it’s up to me and David [Ellefson, bass] and Kiko [Loureiro, lead guitar] to finish.”
The guitarist doesn’t have finished names for the songs yet, just working titles — “The Dogs of Chernobyl” has a feel similar to “Dystopia”, while he says “Faster Than Anything Else” and “Rattlehead, Part Two” speak for themselves.
The exact number of songs Megadeth will release as “early offerings,” as he called them, is still up in the air: “It might be two, it might be four,” adds Mustaine.
After a challenging year dealing with health issues, he is looking forward to returning to live duty.
“I’m so excited,” Mustaine says. “I can’t wait to fire up my guitars.”
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