DAVE MUSTAINE says he loves JAMES HETFIELD and LARS ULRICH: “We're constantly working on improving our relationship”

In a new interview with SPIN.com, Dave Mustaine spoke about his decision to include his version of “Ride The Lightning”, the title track of METALLICA‘s 1984 album for which he got a co-writing credit following his 1983 departure from the band, on the final MEGADETH album, simply titled “Megadeth”. Dave said: “It was to complete the circle and pay respect to my partners, (METALLICA guitarist/vocalist) James (Hetfield) and (METALLICA drummer) Lars (Ulrich), and make clear that, to anybody that has any doubts, I believe that James is an exceptional guitar player, and that Lars is an exceptional songwriter. I’ve always thought that. It wasn’t doing a cover song, because I wrote it with James and it was our creation.”

He continued: “One thing I’ve always believed is when you do a song from someone else — even if it’s your band from an earlier time period — do it as good or better. We were thinking of songs we were going to do, and our management said, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Ride The Lightning’?’ At first, I thought people will think that’s kind of strange for me to do that. We talked about it a little bit, and it just became clearer that it was a good idea. We sped it up just a teeny bit, and we made sure that we beefed up a couple of the parts.”

After the interviewer noted that “it sounds like” he is “in a pretty comfortable place with METALLICA these days,” Mustaine said: “James and I were talking about something, and I said, ‘Well, there’s your version, there’s my version, and then there’s the truth. I believe that the truth is the only one that’s accurate, because I don’t really remember everything.’ And he had said, ‘We don’t remember stuff and we’d like to go over it.’

“We’re constantly working on improving our relationship, me and James and Lars. I really do love those guys. That’s why we fought so much — it was that I missed them. And the idea of leaving the band, it was just hard to fathom.

“You try and put things into perspective as you get a little bit older. I think about where I am at in my journey: I’m on the backside of the mountain, and I want to make sure that every day counts and that the people that I encounter, that I’m not obnoxious to them if they don’t deserve it. If they deserve it, man, you got it coming, and here it comes.”

Last month, Mustaine told Guitar World magazine about his decision to include his version of “Ride The Lightning” on “Megadeth”: “The main reason I chose to do this was to close the circle and pay my respects to my partners. I thought this was a really great way to do that.

“Whenever we select any other band’s music to go on our albums, sometimes there’s a lot of thought behind it and sometimes there’s not. This was one of the ones that we thought long and hard about, because all I wanted to do was play the song I wrote with the guys in METALLICA,” Mustaine explained. “I wanted to pay my respects to James Hetfield, who I think is an amazing guitar player, and Lars Ulrich, who was an excellent songwriter. I remember when I was there and we were putting these songs together, Lars didn’t just sit there; he was very instrumental in making these songs.

“Of course, when we got into making demos of these songs, it was fun to do the recordings, but we were never really able to do a full-on produced version of ‘Ride The Lightning’ [while I was in METALLICA], and I would have loved to have heard that.

“I gotta tell you — listening back to James‘s original vocal performance, it was really tremendous,” Dave added.

“Anyway, there’s no big strategy; I have respect for the guys, and I just wanted to show that. And it’s a hell of a song.”

As anticipation continues to build for MEGADETH‘s final studio album, the metal titans have released the LP’s latest single, “Puppet Parade”. It marks the fourth single from MEGADETH‘s upcoming self-titled album, due on January 23, 2026. The follow-up to “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!” will be released via MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine‘s Tradecraft imprint on Frontiers Label Group‘s new BLKIIBLK label.

Watch “Puppet Parade” below.