“After I left Metallica, the world wanted to know what I was gonna do, because I was this huge component of Metallica’s success.”

Dave Mustaine recalled how his departure from Metallica led to him founding Megadeth, arguing that he was a “huge” component of Lars Ulrich & Co’s early success.

The Megadeth v Metallica was perceived by some parties as one of the most heated band feuds in all of metaldom for a while, but Dave Mustaine seems to have softened up towards his former band lately, at least to a degree.

He recently noted how he doesn’t have a problem with listening to Metallica when it comes up on the radio as it used to, and admitted that he may have poked too much fun at his successor Kirk Hammett at times. However, he still maintains that he played quite a prominent role early in Metallica’s career.

In a recent discussion posted on Twitter Spaces’ “RattleheadsNFT”, Dave was asked how Megadeth was discovered by a record label, to which he replied (transcription via Blabbermouth):

“Well, Megadeth had a little bit of a following before we got discovered by the record company. So it’s kind of unfair. But the way that it started was I had a band that I was in called Panic.

“I lived in Huntington Beach. And there were a lot of bands playing backyard beer keg parties, and I thought that that was pretty fun, to go to the parties and pick up on girls.

“And I started seeing how easy it was for guitar players to have people freak out over them, pay attention to them, treat ’em with respect and stuff, and I know I wanted that.

“So Panic was formed. That band was short-lived, and I ended up joining Metallica and was in that band for about two years and then Megadeth happened.”

Mustaine added:

“After I left Metallica, the world wanted to know what I was gonna do, because I was this huge component of Metallica’s success. I’m here, and then I’m gone. And people that went to go see them after I was no longer in the band and didn’t know that there was a lineup change said that there was something very, very, very wrong with the band that they heard on tape versus the band that they were watching. And that’s when people started to look for me. And the rest is history.

“Now, I think that the band did great. I think they were fine. In fact, I believe that Kirk did a good job playing my parts. Coming into a band and having to play somebody else’s stuff isn’t always fun, but I think he was a gentleman and did a good job.”

While speaking to Guitar World in a recent interview, Dave regretted teasing Kirk the way he used to do, especially since there was never a feud between the two of them:

“Jokes aside, I’ve always kind of poked fun at Kirk. And unfairly so, as he never did anything to me. Whenever I felt singled out, picked on, or antagonized by James [Hetfield] or Lars [Ulrich], it was really easy to pick on Kirk. But the truth is Kirk did me an honor by trying to play my solos on those early songs the way he did…

“I thought it was honorable that Kirk took my solos and did his best to play them as I did. That couldn’t have been easy.”