“As far as I’m concerned, personally, Dave Mustaine is the godfather of thrash metal.”

While talking to Exodus singer Steve Souza, the band’s former guitarist Rick Hunolt looked back on the early days of thrash metal. In particular, he reflected on how Kirk Hammett, the original Exodus guitarist, left to join Metallica and replace Dave Mustaine. Asked about why he thinks they chose him, Rick said (via Blabbermouth):

“This is why I think James chose Kirk. It’s because Dave and [Kirk’s] styles back then were similar — pentatonic, bluesy. James didn’t want no effects on his shit. He wanted Kirk to play dry — no echo; just a real dry Marshall tone. Wah-wah [pedal] is cool, I guess. But he had a similar style to Dave. Individually, personality-wise, [they were] completely two different human beings.

“Back in the day, when you went to go see Metallica, the reason why you went to go see Metallica is because we wanted to go see Dave — that’s it. Dave played lead guitar. He spoke in between songs. James sang — that’s all he did. He didn’t play rhythm guitar. It was the Dave Mustaine show. Period. That’s it. And he was funny as shit — drunk. Oh, God, he was awesome. Dave was, like, the king back then.

“How you get kicked out of your own band, I don’t know. I don’t wanna talk about that… But as far as I’m concerned, personally, Dave Mustaine is the godfather of thrash metal.”