Megadeth leader, Dave Mustaine spoke with Heavy Consequence during a break in touring, as he discussed his Gibson guitar line, his first notable guitar, his musical influences, the current Megadeth lineup, and his recent reunion with former Megadeth bandmate Marty Friedman in Japan. An excerpt from the interview follows...

Heavy Consequence: As a young guitar player starting out, who were some of acts that influenced and inspired you?

Dave Mustaine: "Well, as far as really great guitar players at the time, everybody was kind of gravitating towards just a few bands. The lesser bands really didn’t get the time of day. So, of course the bands on everyone’s lips were KISS and Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. A lot of people were talking about Aerosmith, as well. And I had just kinda stumbled onto AC/DC. And from there, it was pretty much off to the races – the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the British Invasion, both of those musical eras had really affected me. The rhythm playing and the songwriting from the British Invasion – the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Who… surprisingly more of the Who than I even realized until later on in life.

"And then the New Wave of British Heavy Metal for the soloing and the riff playing – because Americans play a lot of chords, and the people that are in the modern riff era are more of the speed and thrash metal players. And of course that includes death, black, all these other offshoots of metal. But unlike the rock and heavy metal bands in the States, where they do a lot of chords and sweep picking and stuff like that, the British metal players relied more on riffs, I believe."

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