Dave Mustaine – Mustaine

It took a long time for me to choke down the entirety of this book. Its a “poor me” story from his childhood on up, and I just couldn’t bring myself to care, or take him completely seriously.

Even though he would say he is writing the truth (as he sees it), I know that this is his book and so the story can be written as he sees fit, whether it’s truth or not. The whole Metallica story, from his perspective, is boring. Dude needs to let go. A lot of his bad interactions with bandmates are just not interesting, as they all stem from arrested development and immaturity. As much as he was screwed over by Metallica, he certainly did much the same thing to several past band members. Finding G-d because his religious wife and her church were forcing his hand, that’s weak. Hey, he may be a committed Christian these days, I don’t knock him. There’s just something about his “seeing the light” that smacks of a convict finding g-d during their bid so that their sentence can be reduced.

But here’s the real killer. Same thing as when I read Nikki Sixx’ book, it’s true for me that stories about junkies are only interesting to other junkies. Take out the band’s idiocy with addictions and you’d be left with about half the book. I just couldn’t care, because they chose it. He’s apparently clear-eyed about all the goings-on, with all the usual rock and roll problems and constant upheaval within the band, but I can’t help but think that Megadeth would have been ten times as huge as they are if they’d been able to avoid acting like morons.

Add to all of this my general indifference to the actual music of Megadeth (while still acknowledging that some tracks are excellent, the whole ouevre is unable to speak to me), and my review of this book is that it’s great for fans, if they choose to be fed his line, but I really wish I had those hours of my life back.