DAVE MUSTAINE: “TEEMU MÄNTYSAARI is the right guitarist for MEGADETH”

In a new interview with Brazil’s A Rádio Rock, MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine spoke about the band’s new guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari. The 37-year-old Finnish musician stepped in last September for MEGADETH‘s longtime axeman Kiko Loureiro, who announced earlier that month that he would sit out the next leg of MEGADETH‘s “Crush The World” tour in order to stay home with his children back in Finland. It was later revealed that Mäntysaari would continue to play guitar for MEGADETH for the foreseeable future, with Loureiro seemingly having no plans to return.

Asked by A Rádio Rock what he looks forward to in this next chapter of MEGADETH, Mustaine said: “Well, I’m expecting us to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Kiko had recommended Teemu, and Teemu is an exceptional guitar player. Kiko was at the top of his game when this happened, so we were obviously disappointed, but it is what it is. If Kiko would have said, ‘I don’t know anybody, and you’re on your own,’ that would have been a lot harder. But Teemu is the right guy for MEGADETH. And Kiko knows that Teemu is the right guy for me. So, he actually did us a really big favor, and I love him and I wish him the best with everything that he does.”

Mustaine went on to say that “Teemu is gonna make a lot of people happy” on MEGADETH‘s upcoming South American tour “because we’re gonna be playing some songs that we haven’t played for a long time. When he came in, I figured instead of just saying, ‘Well, you’ve gotta learn these 30 songs here,’ I asked him to learn a couple more. I mean, what’s the difference when you’re learning 30 songs? What’s 33, right? Well, if he learned three and I said he’s gotta learn 30, that’s different. But I asked him to do some other songs that Dirk (Verbeuren, MEGADETH drummer) and James (Lomenzo, MEGADETH bassist) have been asking me to play for a very long time, and we’re adding them now, which is great.”

Asked how he thinks the dynamics in the studio will change and how the MEGADETH sound will evolve now that Teemu has joined the band, Mustaine said: “I think it’s gonna probably sound similar to the last record. We had a really successful search during the last record to find our muse, our mojo and find where our roots were, because during that time (in MEGADETH‘s early years), there was so much music that we listened to and there was so much drugs, alcohol. And so a lot of that stuff, anyone you’re talking to, you can get a completely different story about what songs influenced MEGADETH. I know what influenced me. And I’m excited about going back and listening to that stuff. But the same thing to me, I hear some of those bands that I used to like when I was in my 20s and I think those guys are shit. It kind of shows you the head space I was in at the time, if I was being goofy and just joking around. There was one band I liked called THE MENTORS, but they were a comedy band. Now I would never think of having a comedy band go out on tour with me, but at the time it was fun. It was fun to listen to.”