The Fast and the Furious

On this summer’s Gigantour, a clutch of the world’s most progressive and aggressive bands hit the road for an evening of rip-roaring heavy metal and hot guitar playing. Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine joins Dream Theater’s John Petrucci and Nevermore’s Jeff Loomis to discuss.

by Richard Bienstock

Dave Mustaine is no stranger to big-ticket heavy metal tours. As the leader of Megadeth for the past 20 years, he’s done them all: from Monsters of Rock to Clash of the Titans to Ozzfest. In the process, Mustaine and his bandmates have shared stages with just about every other high-profile metal act. On rare occasions, they’ve even found themselves standing toe to toe with a variety of highly acclaimed, but decidedly less distortion-crazed, performers.

“We once played a festival in Finland where the lineup was Oasis, R.E.M., Sheryl Crow, Bo Diddley and Megadeth,” says Mustaine. “Now, you tell me who sticks out on that one?” He laughs before providing his own answer: “You can probably flip a coin between us and Bo.”

It is clear, however, that Dave Mustaine can find good in a bad situation. Take Gigantour, the new, six-week summer festival jaunt that debuts July 22: Mustaine conceived the tour after a January 2002 injury resulted in severe nerve damage to his left arm. Convinced his guitar-playing days were over, he disbanded Megadeth and contemplated how to satisfy his music jones. “One avenue I thought I’d like to explore,” he says, “was to put together a music festival and perhaps act as its emcee.”

Now fully recovered, Mustaine will instead headline the tour with the reconstructed Megadeth. In addition, he’s assembled a rock-solid tour lineup following the lesson he learned in Finland. “That show taught me that putting disparate acts together on one stage draws in a lot of different types of people.”

To that end, Gigantour’s main stage will feature Nevermore, Dillinger Escape Plan, Fear Factory and coheadliners Dream Theater. A second stage will include, among others, Symphony X and Dry Kill Logic. To a Sheryl Crow or R.E.M. fan, this may not seem the most diverse of lineups; all the bands employ heaping amounts of volume and aggression. However, their differences – Nevermore’s power thrash, Dillinger’s cut-and-paste freak-core, Fear Factory’s bowel-shaking cyber metal, Dream Theater’s regal prog-rock – are glaringly obvious to fans of heavy metal and hot-shit guitar playing.

“This tour is, first and foremost, about musicianship,” says Mustaine. “On most of the rock packages that are out there, the guys in the bands are afraid to play guitar solos. Part of that has to do with the fact that they can’t.”

That is certainly not the case with Dream Theater’s John Petrucci and Nevermore’s Jeff Loomis, both of whom join Mustaine on this day at Guitar World’s offices. Petrucci is undeniably one of rock music’s most gifted and respected musicians. His consistently dazzling and adventurous playing is the epitome of “progressive,” whether it’s on behalf of Dream Theater, who have just released their ninth studio album, Octavarium (Atlantic), or on his solo releases, improvisational duet recordings with keyboardist Jordan Rudess and side projects like the all-instrumental prog supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment.

Jeff Loomis, though less recognized, is no less a talent. He arrived on the metal scene in the early Nineties with underground thrash legends Sanctuary during the Seattle act’s final days. After the band dissolved, Loomis formed Nevermore with ex-Sanctuary vocalist Warrel Dane and bassist Jim Sheppard. Over the course of 10 years and six albums, including their latest, This Godless Endeavor (Century Media), the band has been refining a dense and muscular sound that’s equal parts thrash and power metal and shot through with Loomis’ searing lead work. His dizzying, hyperaggressive soloing style is quite possibly unmatched in modern metal for sheer speed and technical virtuosity.

On the eve of the Gigantour kickoff, Guitar World sat down with Mustaine, Petrucci and Loomis to discuss the inner workings of this summer’s newest festival. Mustaine also saw in the meeting an opportunity to hit up his tour mates for some free guitar lessons, his guitar-hero status be damned. “When I was starting out, there weren’t a lot of guys who could play like I did,” he says. “I made a name for myself because I was doing something different. But if I had to come into the music business now, with guys like these out there, I probably wouldn’t have made as big an impact. They’re monsters, and I look forward to watching them play each night.”

Guitar World: Dave, sitting here across from John Petrucci and Jeff Loomis, aren’t you inclined to think, Shit, how am I gonna follow these guys every night?

Dave Mustaine: Absolutely. But that’s one of the things that will make this tour exciting, not only for me but for the fans as well. And to tell you the truth, I’m hoping that John will take me under his wing a little bit and help me out with a few things...

John Petrucci: [laughs]

DM: You can laugh about it, but the point is, I know I have some weaknesses as a guitarist, and John’s a much better player than I am. Now, I’m not saying I want to pay him 25 bucks an hour to give me lessons in the back of the bus or any crap like that. But if you share a mutual respect with somebody, and you can recognize that there are certain things they have to offer that will improve your own performance, it makes sense to take advantage of that. So it’ll be great if we can hang out – and I don’t only mean John and Jeff, but all the guys on the tour – as guitar players and say to each other, “Hey check this lick out,” or, “Hey, do you know how to play the solo in ‘Purple Haze’?” [laughs]

JP: I’m totally down with that. I’m very selfish when it comes to wanting to get as much as I can out of other guitar players. I always pick people’s brains, because you can learn something from everybody. I look forward to jamming with all these guys.

Jeff Loomis: A tour like this is the perfect place to soak up more knowledge. There are so many great players, and everybody’s going to have the chance to sit down and show each other different things. That’s how you grow as a musician.

DM: To my own detriment I haven’t really done much of that over my career. I’ve worked with so many great players and I never asked any of them to show me anything – which is crazy! I mean, how can you be in a band with someone like [ex-Megadeth guitarist] Chris Poland and not learn something? I think that you have to be a certain type of person to really be teachable. And up until I injured my arm a few years ago, I wasn’t that type of person. But once I was faced with having to relearn how to play my instrument, I finally was in a place where my mind was open. Now I’m able to go back and correct things that I was doing wrong all those years. I’ve realized that there’s always room for improvement.

GW: So at the end of the summer, you’ll walk away from Gigantour a better guitar player. What will fans walk away with?

DM: When people leave at the end of the night, I want them to say, “Nothing compares to that. That was the coolest show.” Because in addition to the bands, we’re looking at having contests where a fan wins a guitar and gets to hang backstage for the day; or maybe having local bands battle for a second-stage slot when the tour comes to their town. I want to create a festival atmosphere, but with everything related to the music. On a lot of these summer tours, people come up with such cornball stuff: Let’s have bungee jumping! Or nostril piercing! What the hell does that have to do with anything? I remember when Megadeth played with AC/DC at the Milton Keynes Bowl in the U.K.: Before the show, I looked around at all the booths that were set up. The majority of the stuff was forged metal jewelry and bongs. And I’m thinking to myself, That’s the last thing I wanna do: go see AC/DC and have to carry around a three-foot bong!

GW: There’s tons of already well-established summer rock packages out there. What’s so different about Gigantour?

DM: The level of musicianship onstage cannot be found anywhere else. Another thing is that festivals nowadays are so overpriced. It’s hard to be a young music fan and not get completely raked over the coals when you go to a show. By the time you pay for the ticket, the ticket agency fee, parking, beverages and souvenirs, you’re out a couple hundred bucks before the concert has even started. We’re giving people a full day of music on two stages, and at a very low price. I wanted to give something back to the music community by partnering with likeminded bands that play for the love of music rather than a paycheck.

GW: What specifically were you looking for in the bands you asked to join you on the tour?

DM: A lot of it was just the character of the bands themselves: what they’re about and how they approach their talent. Does their passion lie in their music or in trying to get laid after the show? When they’re onstage are they all about giving the best possible performance? Or are they thinking about the chick in the front row, or the guy who’s gonna meet them after the concert with dope, or who’s going to be first to take a Jägermeister IV in their jugular later that night? And I didn’t just want to find 10 little Megadeth offshoot bands. If we went out on that kind of bill we would just be preaching to the choir. I wanted to diversify the lineup. We got Fear Factory and Nevermore to sign on, and they both represent a real primal and aggressive approach to metal. And I think Dream Theater, Symphony X and, to an extent, Dillinger Escape Plan are technical bands that bring a progressive, virtuoso style of playing to the mix.

GW: Dream Theater are certainly the least overtly “metal” band on the bill. Any concerns, John?

JP: Not really, although we probably are the only band with a keyboard player. But a lot of what we do is pretty aggressive. I mean, we’ve done shows with bands like Slayer and Pantera, so I don’t see this as a problem. The power and the conviction of our music speak for themselves. That said, we probably won’t play some of our more “sensitive” material this time around.

GW: Dave, you’ve known Nevermore singer Warrel Dane and bassist Jim Sheppard since their days in Sanctuary. You even produced the band’s 1987 debut, Refuge Denied. Is this the first time you’ll be sharing a bill with them?

DM: Jeez, if you go back a long time, I believe Megadeth toured Europe with Sanctuary and Flotsam and Jetsam. Although I think we shared more on the bus than we did onstage!

GW: Jeff, before you joined Sanctuary, didn’t you audition for Megadeth?

JL: I did. It was in 1988, after they dismissed Jeff Young. I was 16 years old, and a mutual friend had told me that Megadeth were looking for a new guy. I think I did “Wake Up Dead,” “The Conjuring,” “Peace Sells” and “In My Darkest Hour” with them. It was kind of intimidating, because I was being filmed through the whole process. I also remember that Dave didn’t sing when we played the songs, which made it tough for me because I had been basing a lot of stuff I was doing on following his vocals. It was a really cool experience, even though I didn’t get the gig.

GW: Did you think you nailed it?

JL: Actually, Dave was really honest with me. He said, “Dude, you’re too young and you don’t have enough skill yet.” And he was right – I didn’t. I was able to play the songs, but it wasn’t quite there. The funny thing is, soon after that, I went to see Cacophony [the late-Eighties shred duo that featured Jason Becker and Marty Friedman] play at a club in Chicago, and I mentioned to Marty that I had auditioned for Megadeth. His eyes lit up and he was like, “Oh, really?” And a month later he was in the band!

GW: Maybe this summer you’ll get another stab at playing alongside Dave. Any chance we’ll see a 10-guitarist jam session at the end of the shows?

DM: Like the Prince’s Trust concerts [the Prince of Wales’ all-star rock concerts for charity]? I don’t know about that. I’m open to anything, but my main concern is just to create an atmosphere where every band feels like it can help make the tour better as a whole. Everybody on the tour is getting involved to a certain degree. For example, [Dream Theater drummer] Mike Portnoy thought Symphony X would be a great addition to the bill, and now they’re on there. As far as having all 10 bands onstage at the same time – [laughs] I doubt it, but I won’t rule anything out.

GW: The name of the tour comes from the late-Sixties cartoon Gigantor. Did you just think it sounded totally metal, or is there a deeper significance?

DM: Well, we could have called it Attack of the Gargantuans or something, but that’s not exactly a great name for a festival. But I guess the cartoon does connect to what we’re doing to a certain degree. The premise of the show was this kid trying to triumph over evil with the help of a huge robot, and if you look at the idea behind Gigantour, [the analogy] makes sense. The music industry right now is on its ass. It’s so sad: record sales are down, concert attendance is down and there’s no real camaraderie among bands anymore.

But when I started, if you had a friendship with a band, you were blood brothers. Being on tour together, for example, you would try to figure how many guys you could split that one joint with, or how many guys you could split that bottle of Jack Daniel’s with. And if somebody came on the bus, she wasn’t anybody’s – she was everybody’s. There was a greater sense of existing on your own terms, outside of the corporate structure. With Gigantour, I thought it would be great to create something where the music industry wouldn’t dictate whether or not it’s successful. This tour is about how we feel about one another as musicians and how our fans feel about us as bands.

But it’s not like I’m saying I’m the little kid with the robot and I’m gonna kick everyone’s ass. I just want Gigantour to be something where, at the end of the day, we can say, “Hey, remember guys like us? We play music and we listen to music simply because we love music.”