Goldmine magazine recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH frontman Dave Mustaine. In the interview Mustaine talks about the 25th Anniversary release of Peace Sells …. Excerpts from the interview are below:

Goldmine: Robbie Robertson (THE BAND) told us that Deluxe Edition sets will become the new model for the music industry.

Dave Mustaine: “I think you need good material in the first place, because if material doesn’t stand the test of time … you know, if it sucked when you put it out, it’s gonna suck now (laughs). Not everyone has a closet full of classics to draw from. I was very blessed that I was one of those guys who was successful. There were literally hundreds of alley ways in Hollywood that were littered with guitar players that would come out here from some place in the midwest to try and make it. That’s how I discovered my bass player (David Ellefson). He came out here to go to the world famous (Guitar) Institute of technology and I told him 'If you go there, you will never play a concert in your life, because you’re gonna end up some kind of geek that sits around and does Jaco Pastorius scales and stuff like that. And you’ll end up playing Billy Sheehan...' — who is a great player but I think Bill would have given up on some of those pyrotechnics to have been in a band. I think he’s one of those guys that really would have liked to been in a band. He seemed to me like a frustrated lead guitar player that played bass. I remember a couple times talking to our bassist David Ellefson and saying, 'You know, let’s do a part like Billy Sheehan would do right here.' And that was in a song called 'Take No Prisoners'. So he actually did make an impression on us but for me a lot of the music that came out of that period, you could really tell the guys that were artists versus the guys that were bands because bands had that kind of gang mentality. We all hung out together. We were a band.”

Goldmine: You still won’t play songs like 'The Conjuring' (off of Peace Sells …) since you’ve become born again?

Mustaine: “Well, it’s not that I wouldn’t play that song. It’s what the subject matter’s about. I’ve been struggling with that. For example, 'Anarchy In The U.K.' (off of 1988?s So Far, So Good…So What!) is a song I really don’t like playing because it starts off and says 'I am an Antichrist.' Well, I’m not an antichrist. Not only am I not it, I don’t want to be it. I won’t even be one of them. And as far as 'The Conjuring' … it actually has the components of a hex in it and when I wrote the song it was cool and it was vogue to be into black magic and the dark side and stuff like that — so it was really cool to have lines from a hex in it. But looking back now — being a dad, being a responsible person, being a musician who has influenced a lot of lives very positively — I look at it and think 'I don’t know if I would play that live.' Same thing with 'Bad Omen' (off of Peace Sells …). 'Bad Omen' is about a Satanic orgy and that was based on a book that we were supposed to read when I was in junior high school in the Los Angeles school district. The Orange County school district, if you could believe that.”

Read the entire interview here.

Megadeth are currently recording their 13th album with Johnny K, who has worked with the likes of DISTURBED, 3 DOORS DOWN and FINGER ELEVEN. The album is expected to surface in the fall via Roadrunner Records.

When asked about the new material, Megadeth mainman Dave Mustaine told BraveWords.com: "I’ve never set out to do a record and wanted it to be like, ‘it needs to be fast’ or ‘it needs to be faster than the last record’ or ‘it can’t be fast. It needs to be slow and heavy’ or ‘you’ve never done a concept record – what the hell is wrong with you? Why not do that?’ For me, music is music. It’s like when you put seeds into the ground. You never really know what’s going to break the surface. I still love the serendipity of making a song and not knowing what’s going to happen. You know Shawn Drover, a fellow countryman of yours and amazing drummer who is mind-blowingly good, just left today. We just finished the last track.”

Read the entire interview here.

A snippet of the new Megadeth song, 'Never Dead', is featured in the trailer below for the new NeverDead fantasy action game: