MEGADETH guitarist Chris Broderick is featured in a new interview with Ultimate-Guitar.com. An excerpt is available below:

UG: Megadeth has certainly covered some broad ground musically. Do you feel the latest record gravitates to any particular era of the band?

Chris: "I think it borrows something from a lot of those different elements. There are some songs on there that hearken back to Peace Sells… and Rust In Peace. There is some stuff that is a little more like Countdown To Extinction. I’ve been likening it to a very diverse CD. It’s not one of those ones that you’ll put it on and every song sounds like the last one. It’s got everything from anthems to more radio friendly stuff to hard-hitting thrash and some cool, dark-sounding stuff."

UG: Considering your eclectic musical background, how did you approach the songwriting on this album with Dave?

Broderick: "We all submitted riffs and we all submitted ideas. At the end of the day, you need to make it sound like Megadeth. I think everything we used on the CD was pretty much written by Dave. Then we came in and we added our elements over the top of his riffs. So whether it was harmony guitars or melodies or counterlines, we were always constructing in that sense."

UG: If we rewind the clock a bit, how rigorous was the audition process to get into Megadeth? And did you have to learn every song within a pretty short period of time?

Broderick: "It was really more of the latter. The first thing is they called me and they asked me if I was interested. Of course, I was very interested. We scheduled a meeting between Dave, myself, and actually James LoMenzo was there at the time. We all sat down and talked about what each other expected and what would happen and how things would occur. At that point it was really like, 'Let’s get to work.' Less than a month away they had a European tour coming up, and I had to learn 22 songs. So I wanted to be ready for that! I just started knocking the songs out as fast as I could, just getting them down. That’s where we really started working together. There was no question in my mind whether or not I had the gig. I just saw the work that had to be done, and that’s the way I pursued it. Things fell into place from there."

Click this location for the complete interview.

Megadeth's thirteenth album, titled TH1RT3EN, will be released November 1st via Roadrunner Records in North America. TH1RT3EN will be released in Japan on October 26th with a bonus track (to be revealed). Release dates for other territories will be announced soon.

TH1RT3EN follows up 2009's Endgame, which was one of the most celebrated albums of the pioneering band's storied career. Anticipation is high and fans are anxious for a taste of new music from the legends, who have sold over 25 million albums globally throughout the course of their career, and they will get it imminently.

Dave Mustaine is incredibly proud of the music put forth on the new recording, saying, "This record is the culmination of my work over the 13 records I recorded. There are moments on TH1RT3EN that capture my every emotion, and other moments where I am releasing feelings I never knew existed! My proudest moments of my musical career are captured on TH1RT3EN.”

TH1RT3EN also marks the recorded return of bassist Dave Ellefson who was part of the band's classic lineup from 1983 to 2002. In a move that delighted the band's legion of diehards, Ellefson returned to performing live with Megadeth in early 2010 and has remained a fixture on the stage ever since. This is the first time Ellefson has played on a Megadeth record since 2002's Rude Awakening.

The title has several levels of meaning, which leader and guitar deity Dave Mustaine, who first picked up an axe at the age of 13, revealed in a recent chat with RollingStone.com, saying, "I was born on September 13th; this is my thirteenth record. It just seemed like it was the right thing to do to call it TH1RT3EN."

The band is spending its summer dominating and decimating the main stage of the fourth annual Rock Star Energy Drink Mayhem Festival alongside GODSMACK and DISTURBED. The band will cap off a busy and headline-making summer by performing as part of The Big Four once again, this time in New York at Yankee Stadium alongside METALLICA, SLAYER and ANTHRAX. The only previous Big Four show in the US took place in April in Southern California.

The band also recorded an original track, 'Never Dead', specifically for the NeverDead action-adventure video game franchise. 'Never Dead' will appear on TH1RT3EN. Additionally, 'Sudden Death' was recorded for Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock and will appear on the album.

Dave Mustaine recently told Artisan News that he was so busy completing TH1RT3EN that now that he's done he doesn't know what to do with himself. He also questions the album's November 1st release date. Check out the video report below: