Peter Hodgson at iheartguitarblog.com recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH guitarist Chris Broderick, discussing what it was like working with frontman Dave Mustaine on the new album, Th1rt3en. An excerpt is available below:

PH: Do you have any favourite guitar moments on the album?

Broderick: "For me I’m a guitar noodler so I would say it’s 'Sudden Death' and the solos at the end there. They’re very challenging to play but I had enough time on that song to really think about what I wanted to do and how I wanted the colour to come out harmonically. The rhythm behind the solos is so open: every two measures it just ascends to the next chromatic half-step up, and since it’s not a very big chord, it’s a single note pretty much, the tonality is wide open for every note. So I tried to really exploit that at the end of the song."

PH: What’s it like to work with Dave Mustaine as a rhythm guitar player? I know that there have been times in the past where he played all the heavy rhythm guitar stuff on some albums.

Broderick: "Right. And that’s probably where him and I get together and play the most. The way that he feels the rhythm, the actual pulse of the song, is different to most people. And that’s where you really hear Dave’s personality coming through the guitar. He’ll rush it sometimes, he’ll pull back sometimes, so you’ve got to kind of be able to get tight with him while he’s doing that. We spent a lot of time playing rhythm together to work on that idea."

PH: Those little grace notes and slides he does in there, there aren’t that many rhythm guitar players who include that much detail.

Broderick: "You’re absolutely right. The little things that if you don’t listen really carefully you might miss."

PH: I imagine that must have been nerve-wracking when you first joined the band.

Broderick: "The funny thing is that Dave was pretty relaxed in the beginning, which was awesome. He allowed me to come in and work really hard to get the songs down and we had less than a month before the first tour, so I started working on the songs and getting them down as quickly as I could. And I think it was after I started to feel comfortable with it that we actually got into the minuteness of how he actually phrases the rhythm and rushes the beat or falls behind it, or the inflections he puts on the dynamics and stuff like that. So it was after I’d been in the band for probably four months that we started working together on the really little nuances."

Click here for the complete interview.

Go to this location for BW&BK;'s review of Th1rt3en. An excerpt is available below:

"Although lead-off track 'Sudden Death' (please Dave give us another crushing opener like 'Into the Lungs Of Hell' or 'Holy Wars...') and the punched up 'Whose Life (Is It Anyways?)' are standard fare, 'Public Enemy No. 1' contains that patented Mustaine harmonic snarl wrapped around a killer chorus. Good stuff and wise choice for first video (see below). 'We The People' is reminiscent of the classic 'Captive Honour' with sample drum-roll/spoken-word intro, and Mustaine politicking about America's woes. The social commentary ensues with 'Guns, Drugs, & Money', the band obviously flagging a major US problem, an issue with serious repercussions to Canada as well. 'Never Dead' (an earlier released track from the Konami video game of the same name), 'Fast Lane' and 'Wrecker' add a bit of excitement to the mix with a hearty dose of speed metal and plenty o' Mustaine/Broderick noodling. The tracks reinforce drummer Shawn Drover's poignant presence in the mix as he currently sits as the band's longest employed skinsman. 'Black Swan', 'New World Order' and 'Deadly Nightshade' (ALICE IN CHAINS influence on the lead?) may be a brooding bruisers, but the formula is becoming a little tiring and in need of a booster cable. The lead intro to 'Millennium Of The Blind' could have been yanked off a MAIDEN album, but emerges as a mellow affair with more valid social commentary. Of course Mustaine still doesn't have much faith in society and tirelessly reiterates: 'blind follow, blind lead'. The title track 'Th1rt3en' closes off the album with an acoustic flair, more self-reflection, deeper melancholy - "thirteen times and it's been lucky for me." But man, this should be a stormer, not a downer. That's why your name is Megadeth."

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