Megadeth - Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying · Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums Podcast

Neil0:03 I sneak in my own house. It's 4 in the morning.

Chris0:08 I had too much to drink. Riffology, take two.

Neil0:16 We're back again. And. And it's complicated because we did already record this bit and it didn't record. So we didn't actually record it. The universe needed a second version.

Chris0:26 It needed a second run. Yeah. Yeah. And we started it.

Neil0:29 We did.

Chris0:29 And we got about four minutes of really like, okay. Content.

Neil0:33 What you missed is. I was whinging that it's too warm here in the UK. Which it is. It's 30 degrees.

Chris0:39 Yeah.

Neil0:39 Which is too warm.

Chris0:40 Yeah.

Neil0:40 And everyone in America is going, what?

Chris0:42 What?

Neil0:42 What? It's not that warm. And it's. It feels different.

Chris0:46 Yeah.

Neil0:46 Come here. Come here to South Derbyshire.

Chris0:49 Yeah.

Neil0:49 And. And we'll show you.

Chris0:51 Sit in this exact studio.

Neil0:52 Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know because we had the

Chris0:54 fan on before and the fan was oscillating.

Neil0:57 Oscillating. Yeah.

Chris0:58 Yeah. It was doing his business and we were all right. But in order to record we have to turn the fan off because otherwise you get in the background, which wouldn't be great as a listening experience. But what that means is now the week we're going to steadily get hotter and warmer.

Neil1:12 To be clear, by fan. Chris is not. Doesn't mean someone who listens to the show. This is a dalmatic Climatic.

Chris1:21 Climatic.

Neil1:22 I think this is. I think I bought this off of Amazon.

Chris1:27 Did you?

Neil1:27 Yeah, ages ago. Ages ago.

Chris1:29 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:30 And it was dead. This used to. This used to sit at the end of my bed.

Chris1:33 Yeah. But that's where it's sitting in my house. Yeah. I've taken it. So I've stole it from the library where we recorded the studio and I've taken it home.

Neil1:39 Yeah.

Chris1:40 So you got now at the foot of our bed. And then I bring it back for

Neil1:42 this purpose for you need to. It's lovely. It's quite quiet as well.

Chris1:45 Yeah.

Neil1:47 It will walk.

Chris1:47 And it's got a night. So you didn't even know about nighttime.

Neil1:49 I didn't know about.

Chris1:50 It's got a nighttime mode.

Neil1:51 I'm sure it had a remote control.

Chris1:53 Do they?

Neil1:54 Yeah. I don't know where that is. Obviously.

Chris1:57 I've got.

Neil1:57 We've got a draw of remote controls. The cough. And I have no idea what that is. We've got room. We've got a Sony remote control for something. I don't think I've owned anything made by Sony for, like 25 years. Whatever it controls. I don't think I have.

Chris2:11 So what do you Keep what? What do you. Why'd you keep it?

Neil2:14 It's like, I don't. You know when you like, oh, well, I might need that.

Chris2:19 Yeah, yeah.

Neil2:19 Is that. You like cables? Have you got you out of a cable drawer?

Chris2:22 Yeah. Yeah. And then you have a sort, don't you? You have a sort through the cable drawer. Charge away.

Neil2:26 Yeah.

Chris2:27 Take things to the tip.

Neil2:28 Yeah.

Chris2:28 And then the next day, it's like, oh, where's the thing?

Neil2:30 It's like, oh, it's usually my cousin. My cousin arrives and is like, oh, have you got one of these cables from, like, 1967?

Chris2:36 And I'm like, I did yesterday.

Neil2:37 And then you go in your box and it's like, oh, it's in here somewhere. I have to go and dig for it. But anyway, we. We're Rufology.

Chris2:43 Yes. You and Neil.

Neil2:45 Yeah. You're Chris.

Chris2:45 Yeah. It's your birthday. I didn't get that last night.

Neil2:47 We didn't. It is my birthday.

Chris2:49 Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. So I bought the Bongo Cokes tonight because it's your bir.

Neil2:55 And the three pastels. Yeah.

Chris2:56 But we're probably gonna get through both cans of Coke again in one night.

Neil2:59 Yeah.

Chris2:59 Yeah.

Neil2:59 And so it is my birthday. I'm at that age where I don't want anyone to know. No, I know it sounds a bit sad. My. My youngest is my Barnaby. He's 11, and he's, like, so excited it's my birthday. And it's. It's a bit like he's. I have to pretend that I'm excited, but it's just, like one year closer to death, isn't it? Do you know what I mean? It's just like, so.

Chris3:22 Yeah. Because. Well, even when we're on the way. Because we're on the way because I picked you up.

Neil3:26 Yeah.

Chris3:26 And. And we were in the car and you even dropped it in.

Neil3:29 Yeah.

Chris3:30 Like, just as a postscript into the conversation. It's my birthday.

Neil3:34 I'm probably the age. I just don't care. Just. Just leave me alone. Don't care. There's things I want to do, nine of which include the birth. I don't want a birthday thing. I don't.

Chris3:44 Just got to get some. We've got. What you got to do is to lay out the free pastels and then have a little tiny candle in each one.

Neil3:52 You know, I'd be curious, actually. For others. I bet there's lots of Gen X's and millennials. Yeah. To the show. I mean, we're all about the same Age.

Chris4:00 Yeah. I'm not into it and it's like

Neil4:01 I just, I just, I want to, like. I just don't know. I want to get on with the things I want to get on with.

Chris4:06 Yeah.

Neil4:07 And I, I. It's not that I've not got time for it. I just don't see the point.

Chris4:11 You've got more important things to do.

Neil4:13 Yeah.

Chris4:13 Like you're like the door. See, we can do this now because I already know the future. Because we've already done this before in the past.

Neil4:19 Yeah.

Chris4:19 Because we now talk about the car.

Neil4:21 Oh well, let's move on to that. Swiftly old Porsche has started to make funny noises. Cuz I left it in the sunshine for a few hours and now one of the door cards rattles a bit. Now old cars rattle anyway. But it's now rattling more than it used to rattle. But in. As I was dropping, I was dropping. Oh. Lizzy went out on a. A works do so. And I knew I'd got to give one of her friends a lift and I knew she hadn't cleaned our other car.

Chris4:51 Yes.

Neil4:52 So I had to take mine and I knew they would both hate it when. When they get in.

Chris4:55 Like. Yeah.

Neil4:55 If you ever. If you want like drunken ladies in the back of a 911 is really funny. So anyway, I turn up there in my. In my old car and, and I've got this album on. I'm listening to Peace Else on my door cards rattling. And it hits me as. As I'm kind of heading off to. To. To pick them up. Just how bad it sounds. Good. Like particularly compared to Ride the Lightning.

Chris5:22 Yeah.

Neil5:22 Like last week in, like, Particularly in the Car because I've been listening to At Home and I. I love this album. I think it's phenomenal. One of the first albums that really lyrically bit me. Really kind of. I think Dave Mustaine doesn't get enough credit for some of his. Especially on like on Peace Hours, the track.

Chris5:39 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil5:41 I don't know, there's just a lot of like clever and simple lyric ideas and songwriters. But it didn't sound great. It was a. Not. It wasn't a. Well, I guess it was like a super unpleasant experience. Right. But it was like a. I don't know, like it, it sounded like a cheap car stereo and it's. And it's not normally sounds or it doesn't sound great sounds. All right.

Chris6:05 Yeah.

Neil6:07 And then it sent me off down this rabbit hole of, of this album and the production and, and the fact that it was actually done twice. Yeah, so it was. They went into the studio and it got recorded and it was all done on Combat Record. So they go into the studio, it all gets recorded. Randy Burns does the. Randy Burns is the kind of engineer and all gets done and it. And is. Is kind of great towards the end of this. So the. The album's recorded but it's not released.

Chris6:39 Yeah, yeah.

Neil6:39 Atlantic then buy the album off of Combat Records.

Chris6:44 Yeah.

Neil6:45 So then they get all of the tapes sent over and they're like, this sounds shocking. We need to change it. So then they get a guy called Paulani in who from what I can tell, hadn't got like a particularly, you know, renowned metal background and then produced it or remixed it.

Chris7:04 Yeah, yeah.

Neil7:05 And it's funny because in the 2004 remasters, I think, of this re release of this album, the Rand. The original Randy Burns mixes are on there.

Chris7:18 Yeah.

Neil7:20 And again it's. It's just weird. It's like the. The Paulani's mix is quite dry sounding. Vocals are really far forward. The like the lead guitars feel a little bit clipped, but it's cleaner. It's a cleaner, tighter mix. And then Randy's is more like organic sounding for me. There's like no more. There's more bleed through and noise. You know what I mean? That kind of, I suppose stuff that you would. You would clean up on a modern album but. But was often. Yeah, visible on some of. Some of these. So.

Chris7:52 And I was thinking about when you. On the original run, when we spoke about these things, we were talking about the technology that was available at. So they used Rockman amps, which were very popular at the time.

Neil8:04 I think probably the biggest technical advance that we had was some of the amplifiers we were using at the time because we had discovered Rockmans which were made by Tom Schultz from Boston in between him trying to duck out on a crap record deal.

Chris8:21 I guess

Neil8:24 those things, you can tell it's all over the record. And the funniest thing is those things are so obsolete in the.

Chris8:30 And.

Neil8:30 And I mean, granted they sounded good at the time. It's kind of like, you know, make do with what you got.

Chris8:35 They probably didn't have much in the ways of like outboard and reverb processing and that sort of thing when it came to mixing and. And you know, quite limited choices in. In the studio they were in and that kind of thing. So a lot of even like the reverbs would have been, you know, mics in the room and they would have had a big. A big drum room. And mics at one end. And they'd just kind of fed that reverb sound into the. Into the mix. So they've probably not got as many options or choices to kind of make. Make a great sound. So y stuff sometimes and then re record it.

Neil9:05 Put speakers out into the large room

Chris9:06 and re record it just to get that room sound that the grinder had.

Neil9:10 I think we did that for solos here and there.

Chris9:12 And the grinder was huge. So we had drum mics that went all the way to the back of the.

Neil9:19 It was a wood roof.

Chris9:20 Kind of looked like an airplane hangar. So a lot of the reverbs are

Neil9:25 natural because it was a big building. I think a lot of these thrash bands at the time were really heavily influenced by punk.

Chris9:33 Yeah. So when it went down that route when it. Yeah. Okay.

Neil9:36 And so it's a boned. You. You got a lot of bands that were like metallic. Metallica stuff was similar. Where it's kind of, you know, to be cool. It had to be. Can't sound. You can't sound like Aerosmith.

Chris9:47 Yes.

Neil9:47 Right. You can't. It can't be like big and. And he's got. It's got to be dry and gnarly and nasty.

Chris9:54 So that would have been like classic kind of big gated snares and.

Neil9:57 Yeah.

Chris9:59 Kind of, you know.

Neil9:59 Well, yeah, there's that. But then there like having like a. I don't know, like an audible bass guitar.

Chris10:06 Yeah.

Neil10:07 That kind of rumbling bass that runs through these things and like pulled vocals to the front. Yeah. Where the vocals are kind of front and center. You kind of didn't get that. But it's funny with like the Randy Burns mix of We're Gonna Play in. In a Little While of. Of Peace Els the vocal. If you go back and listen to the version on Apple Music, for example, their vocals are pulled really forward.

Chris10:34 Yeah.

Neil10:35 From Paul. And then in Randy's mix, they're pushed.

Chris10:38 Yeah.

Neil10:39 But they're not buried. But they're.

Chris10:41 Yeah, yeah.

Neil10:42 You're not as forward. I like. Dave Mustaine claims that he prefers the Randy Burns versions of this. And he thinks that Paul's version. It was too polished.

Chris10:53 Yeah.

Neil10:54 Which is fascinating considering where the band would go production wise.

Chris10:57 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why?

Neil11:06 I mean, I don't believe in God Talk to him every day what do you mean? I don't support your system I go to court when I have to what do you mean? I can't get to work on time Nothing better to do what do I mean? I don't Pay my bills. What do you think? I'm broke. But it better work this time. What do you mean I hurt your feelings? I didn't know you had any feelings. What if me, I ain't kind. Just not your kind. What I mean, I could be the President of the United States of America. Tell you something, it's still we the people, right? If there's a new way I feel first in line. We better work this time. Sam. Put a price on peace. Now, Sam, When you get into, like, Risk and. Yeah. You know. Well, everything onwards after that, you know, the Megadeth production, it. It just got. It's really absolutely polished. It just got to a point where it was like perfectly polished.

Chris15:08 Right.

Neil15:09 Their production would go. So it's interesting to hear Dave reflect on that, that this album, at the

Chris15:15 same time, you know, the band weren't functional. No, they were all kind of into. Into heroin and it's.

Neil15:22 They were a mess at this. They were an absolute man. They always were for a long time, but they. The lineup. I think by the time they recorded this album, I think the band was like his 20th lineup. Yeah, since Dave started, it was absolutely crazy.

Chris15:36 Yeah.

Neil15:37 I think Dave Ellefson remained for a large part of that. He was kind of. It was. It was your Dave and Dave, essentially, and then rotating, you know, drummers and leads come through. Well, the first time that I met Dave Mustaine, the song Devil's island was one of the first songs. When he picked up the guitar and we sat down in his apartment and he started playing it and it was. Just blew me away. I mean, I'd never heard anyone play guitar like that.

Chris16:07 That.

Neil16:08 And I was. I was 18 years old at the time. I was very much immersed as a fan and as a musician in this new movement of music that was happening. But Dave was really a leader of a whole new generation of. Of heavy metal. Then Gar Samuelson came into the group. Then he started playing drum. And it was the most mind blowing thing I've ever seen because he had this particular style. He would go to boom, but boom. And he would cross his hands like this. It was his own signature move. Ask Chris R Jr to tell you about that. And he would. He'd like kind of fall asleep while he's playing the drums and you'd think, God, he's gonna fall down. And then he'd do this mind boggling all over the place. Just a fantastic jazz drum. He was influenced by, I think he said, Billy Cobham and a couple other jazz guys, of course, Gar had joined the band, and he was like, you know, you should join this band with me, because this is happening, this is different.

Chris17:08 I listened to it and I was like, you know what? I do like it. And they do need a second guitar

Neil17:12 player because it was three piece. So Dave and Dave were running a

Chris17:19 rehearsal studio at the time. So I just went down and rented a room when I knew they were going to be there. And I brought all my gear down, I turned it up to 10, and I just played guitar in that room for like an hour straight as loud as I could. And so Dave walks in, he goes, hey, man, you want to join Megadeth?

Neil17:36 And I was like, sure. Gar's style really took Dave's ideas. It added to his ideas. For me, it made it very fluid and very even, that much more exciting because it was fast. And Gar stepped right into that because Gar was totally all about Lenny White

Chris17:55 and Billy Cox, Tony Williams.

Neil17:58 And so it was easy for Garrett to. To, you know, kind of take Dave's

Chris18:04 style and

Neil18:07 fuse his style with it

Chris18:08 and make Megadeth sound like it did.

Neil18:10 So when Chris came in to Megadeth, he was kind of the missing link. We were kind of like this three legged dog, you know, me and Dave and Gar. And when Chris came in, all of a sudden there was the missing component that sort of helped. Helped bring Gar into the fold of what Dave and I were doing, because Dave and I were pretty tried and true hard rock metal type of musicians. And then to have this jazz component brought in wasn't really completed until Chris came in. This guy is amazing because he's a jazz player, and he had stuck his hand through a window and did something really weird with his finger where he has to bar it so it goes stiff. And then the end of it kind of goes like that. The way that he played was incredible. He broke, apparently severed the tendon on his first finger. So he had. And I guess when it healed, his fingers, like, literally bent out so he can get a longer stretch on his hand. It created a different style for me. But when I see people that can bend their finger when they play, I wish I could. Sam,

Chris20:24 You freak.

Neil20:25 You're a Devil Silence Final stop for me Devil silence.

Chris20:36 Devil silence. Is watching me Just take my last.

Neil21:58 Final judgment Sam

Chris22:33 all the way to

Neil22:33 Feverless Stay away from me when she died kept me she hurt me my sleep Walked all that bitch Way near

Chris22:41 A devil's eye Always have to stay

Neil22:46 Devil's Island.

Chris22:52 Devil's island.

Neil22:58 Devil silence.

Chris23:03 Devil

Neil23:06 here I am. Sad. Actual title for the record came from. I was living in a studio at the time, and I was dating a girl and sleeping around with a couple other girls who would feed me and give me money for food that I'd share with the rest of the band. And little did I know at the time that it would turn out to give us all of this inspiration in really, really weird ways. Because I would sit there when she would go to work and I would go digging through all her cabinets and stuff, and I found this Reader's Digest, and it had a quote by somebody like some. I think some old dinosaur like Joan Baez or something about Peace would sell, but no one would buy it, you know, And I thought, all right, cut out all of the English major stuff and make it so some blockhead like me could understand Peace sells, but who's buying, huh? You know, that kind of thing. And I went, God, that's great. And I remember writing the riff for that song just. It just came so quick. They record this album and then I think, like, less than a year later, like, everybody apart from Dave and Dave gone.

Chris25:16 Yeah.

Neil25:16 And there's. There's stories of, you know, selling amps and equipment to buy heroin.

Chris25:23 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil25:24 You know, it was. They were super dysfunctional. I mean, the UK press were. They were. Were totally open about what was happening. Everyone knew how bad, yeah, Megadeth were and what was happening with them. And they were. It was all heroin and they were just absolutely dysfunctional.

Chris25:42 So I. I was in a studio once and, you know, we had a few beers.

Neil25:46 Yeah.

Chris25:47 And I couldn't record.

Neil25:49 It's mad, isn't it, man?

Chris25:51 I was in. I was, like, quite incapable of being able to track guitar, so. How on earth. Earth? Well, these guys, you know, there is a.

Neil25:58 There's a. A Duff McKagan's biography. I forget what it's called now, but. But there's a. His. His. He's doing a couple that.

Chris26:10 Out of it. They can't even remember recording this.

Neil26:12 Well, so his book, right. So he's done. He's done a number of books, but he does one of them, which is about Memoirs of Guns N Roses, essentially. And it's funny because he. The way he explains it is like, you know, he said being an addict is very different to, like, being high. So that. Like, the first. So you. The first time you. You get high, like, it's euphoria and you feel invincible and, you know, all of these different things. And. But he said that that wears off fairly quickly and you get to a point where you need it to be functional now. So turning up to the studio sober, when you're an addict. Yeah, you're dysfunctional. You, you cannot function while you're there. It's a. Whether that's drinks. That was heroin for a long time. And then we basically replaced, we got clean with alcohol, so we replaced heroin with alcohol. And he said we, we were, we've, we were in a good state. We felt we were in a good state as a band, but, you know, Duff and Slash would get up in the hotel in the morning at like, you know, 8:00am, drink vodka or whatever, then go to the gym.

Chris27:27 Yeah.

Neil27:28 And train.

Chris27:28 Yeah.

Neil27:30 Go to the studio. Or if they were out on tour, they go out and tour and then drink more.

Chris27:34 Yeah.

Neil27:35 And then, and then kind of come back again. Right. And you sleep and do it again. But, but it's, it's fascinating listening to him saying that. Those, the drugs, because we were addicts without them, we were dysfunctional. Well, you've got to go through rehab and you've got to. And you can't, like, rehab quickly. You can't just like, like detox quickly. So you get yourself in this position where you just can't. You know, you're, it's like you're gig, gig, gig, and then you get a day off and gig and you get a day off. So this is, there's no scope. You can't, yeah. Like, detox for it. And it just gets worse and worse and worse. So, so it's funny, like, they're not, you know, the way he explains it was like you needed whatever you were addicted to to lift you to normal.

Chris28:25 Yeah, yeah.

Neil28:26 What a normal person would, would feel like, say. Yeah, but, yeah, I know what you mean. I, I, I mean, I can't even cope when I'm a bit tired. Do you know what I mean? I can almost feel like my, I get to a point where my brain's

Chris28:40 like, oh, no, that's it.

Neil28:41 Yeah, yeah. No analytical stuff for you anymore. You just. And it's like, it's like a mighty bouche scene where your brain just kind of flits off into the distance and you just left, like, with your own thoughts. The intelligent, the intelligent bitch is gone. Yeah, it's like, see. Yeah, but, but it is. Yeah, I think, think. Yeah, the, the, I mean, Dave is notoriously difficult to work with anyway. The, the addiction with heroin and with alcohol, I mean, can't have helped. No, that and the pressure that, that Dave has always put on the band, you know, that the. You know, we. We. We did ride the lightning last week and we talked about that relationship with Dave Mustaine and Metallica.

Chris29:25 Yeah.

Neil29:26 And he quite clearly did not get over that. You know, I mean, he didn't get over that. That sacking, if you like, from. From the band, from. From Metallica.

Chris29:37 Well, it was. It was not. It was the early 2000s where they did the documentary, wasn't it?

Neil29:40 Yeah.

Chris29:41 Where, you know, there was still a huge upset about it, like, you know, 20, 25 years later, which is. It's crazy. You know, that's obviously really played on

Neil29:52 him, you know, I think it did. I think. I think absolutely that. That.

Chris29:57 I think that the other bit as well is like you. You watching the guys who you were in the band with become the biggest band in the world. I mean, that must be all like, mega death on the little band, you know. But. But. But Metallica.

Neil30:09 But it's changed, though, because it's. It's when this came out.

Chris30:14 Yeah.

Neil30:14 So when Peace Els came out, I mean, arguably, Metallica was still a bigger band, right? They were. They were a bigger band, but Megadeth were massive still. This was huge. This was. This was.

Chris30:27 Yeah. It wasn'90s, wasn't it, where, you know, we had Sunny Woof.

Neil30:31 Yeah. Black Album took off.

Chris30:34 Yeah.

Neil30:34 But Metallica weren't like. If you. If you look at those. So what, you had the Black Album.

Chris30:40 Yeah.

Neil30:40 Then you had Load and Reload, and then Metallica just kind of disappeared into this void of irrelevance. No one cared. Right. It was. I mean, you. You kind of into, you know, new metal and. And, yeah, of course, all of that kind of stuff that happened through the new millennial millennium. We. I don't know, like, I think Chris has just given me a lovely, like, lukewarm kind of. These were ice cold when we brought them in. But there was a whole bunch of other music that was happening in that time that I can almost taste that it was nice. Which kind of almost made Metallica irrelevant that time. They did some anger. They did a whole bunch of faffing about.

Chris31:25 Is that one of the weird snare?

Neil31:27 Yeah, yeah. But then something weird happened where Metallica, bit like Nirvana just became cool with the younger generation. It was like, these are cool. I was. Leo sent me a. A link to. This is a couple of lads, a couple of British lads just going back, listening to, like, classic rock. And what they mean by that is. Is these. These album. They were listening to Bleach.

Chris31:57 Yes.

Neil31:58 And I was blown away by, like, oh, God, the drumming's amazing.

Chris32:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil32:03 But it's funny that there, like, there was a period of time for 10, 15 years, maybe at least 10 years where Metallica were just totally pass. No one listened to them. They weren't cool. People weren't going around wearing Metallica T shirts.

Chris32:18 Yeah, yeah. Whereas more recently, that's happened with Oasis.

Neil32:21 Oasis where? Where.

Chris32:23 Yeah, there's a point in time where if I did. If I did. Because I actually quite like playing Oasis songs. If I play, you know, like an acoustic set somewhere, whatever.

Neil32:30 What's your favorite song?

Chris32:31 Oh, I like Stand By Me. I like playing that one.

Neil32:34 I like Don't Look Back In Anger.

Chris32:35 Yeah, that's good as well. And Slide Away. They're the ones I like playing quite a lot. But there's a point in time where, you know, there'd be kind of, like, if you kicked in, like, with Wonderwall or something like that, there'd kind of be a bit of a audible groaning. Oh, God, no ways. You know, there'd be a bit of that.

Neil32:53 Yeah, yeah.

Chris32:53 All of a sudden, like, literally, you know, since I've obviously done the most recent stint last year.

Neil32:58 Yeah.

Chris32:59 And then the buzz leading up to that, like, Oasis are really cool again. Like, people wanna. They want to sing along to Champagne Soup and Over the End of the Night and that sort of thing. So it's. It definitely. You know, that definitely happens. There's a period of time where you have the lull and then suddenly, like, these guys are. You know, these guys are legendary all of a sudden.

Neil33:20 Yeah. I suppose there's. There is definitely something to that. But do you know what's funny about it, though? Like, Megadeth have never had the same.

Chris33:28 Just thinking the same. Yeah.

Neil33:31 Megadeth were never cool enough to be uncool.

Chris33:33 Yeah.

Neil33:33 Do you know what I mean? They were always that kind of underground. They always remained.

Chris33:38 Yeah.

Neil33:38 And even when they did, like. I think even when they did Risk.

Chris33:41 Yes.

Neil33:42 Which is quite poppy. It's quite a. It's quite a mainstream record. It never. It still never had the same. You know, didn't catch the same way as the Black Album did. Just didn't.

Chris33:57 Yeah.

Neil33:57 I think he was missing those like Nothing else matters and.

Chris34:00 Yeah.

Neil34:00 And then to Sandman and. Yeah. These kind of things. For whatever reason

Chris34:05 it had, it had great songs in it, but not singles in the site to capture the kind of b. Yeah.

Neil34:10 I'm trying to think what it is. Maybe it's funny for me, I was thinking maybe it's an attitude thing. Like maybe like.

Chris34:15 Yeah, yeah.

Neil34:15 Metallica were more, you know, I mean, not too. They're edgy, but not too edgy. Do you know what I mean? It's like not. Not like Slayer singing about like, you know, angel of Death or. Yeah, you know what I mean? They're edgy. But if you look at the Metallica song content, none of it's right. None of it's cringey. If you go back and listen to it, none of it's cringy or.

Chris34:37 Yeah.

Neil34:39 You know, but. Whereas some of the Megadeths, I mean, they did that cover of Nancy sinatra' these Boots Are Made for Walking on.

Chris34:49 Right.

Neil34:49 On. Kill them all. Not kill them all on. On. On the first record, which was bizarre. Like, Dave changed the lyrics.

Chris34:59 Yeah.

Neil35:01 Oh, God, yeah. That was a bit weird, actually.

Chris35:03 Yeah.

Neil35:04 And then. And then it's funny. Then it got re recorded again.

Chris35:06 Yeah.

Neil35:06 Where he put the original lyrics back on there and it just. So. I don't know, like, Megadeth have done some weird stuff.

Chris35:12 Choices.

Neil35:13 Yeah. And some of. I think some of the. The. Yeah, they're definitely more edgy. They're more. They're more punk rock than Metallica ever with. Metallica were always a bit safe, you know, I mean, a bit safe enough for your mainstream friends.

Chris35:25 Yes.

Neil35:25 To go in. Yeah. Like, it's funny, isn't it? Because like, Margot Robbie, she's a massive metal head.

Chris35:34 Yeah.

Neil35:34 And she loves Slipknot.

Chris35:36 Yeah.

Neil35:37 And I. I saw her being interviewed Feud and somebody was going on about, oh, yeah, I'm a big metal head. I like Metallica. And she kind of screwed her face up a little bit. Do you know what I mean? And it's like you could see what she was. She was just like, really? Yeah, yeah. But it was funny. Like, you. You like. I don't know, your main. Your mainstream friends have probably got the Black Album.

Chris35:58 Yeah.

Neil35:59 Probably not got a Megadeth album.

Chris36:00 No. Yeah.

Neil36:01 Do you see what I mean? I don't know why. Because I think Risk is probably to know it's cool. It's really cool record. Very easily consumable. But yeah, they never quite got that same like commercial success, if you like, from them. So.

Chris37:57 One out, A. Couple. Think about my last words might be

Neil38:43 what I just said.

Chris39:38 Wow.

Neil39:49 Sam. Yeah.

Chris40:19 Yeah.

Neil40:21 Next to die.

Chris40:24 Yeah. Next I die.

Neil40:28 You. You turn the die you got you. You turn to die. You.

Chris40:42 God. The.

Neil41:00 It was our second record for Capitol Records and we had toured, God, five

Chris41:07 or six times before we even made that record. So we were ready when we went

Neil41:11 in the studio, we knew what people liked about it.

Chris41:14 Playing in front of an audience, you know, we could see their reaction. So have you ever seen them live? Have you ever seen Megadeth in the flesh?

Neil41:23 Yes, I have seen them live. I've seen them a couple of times, actually, over the years. I saw them way back in the day. They did a. A tour, the Big Four. So Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax.

Chris41:42 And were they sort of friends?

Neil41:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back then.

Chris41:46 Yeah.

Neil41:46 It's funny, isn't it? Because obviously Dave and.

Chris41:48 Because he got booted, didn't he? But then obviously Megadeth, so. But they were. They were kind of on the road.

Neil41:53 Yeah.

Chris41:53 Doing that sort of thing. And were they all. Were they all Bay Area?

Neil41:59 Well, it's a really good question. I think so, yeah. Have to go and look where they were there. They. They certainly all knew it. Got it got that tour. That big tour came from the fact that they. None of them could sell an arena. So you have to bear in mind people, you. It's easy to think, oh, Metallica can sell arenas easily. And Megadeth could eventually, but.

Chris42:19 But not at the time. Not.

Neil42:20 But not then when they did it. None of them could. So they. They went out and talked together.

Chris42:23 So Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax. Yeah.

Neil42:27 They were the big four. Thrash metal bands by album sales, in order. Like Metallica, it was. Was Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax with her.

Chris42:38 Yeah.

Neil42:39 The runt of the litter, if you like. And there's always. There's always arguments about the Big four.

Chris42:43 Yeah.

Neil42:43 Whether. Whether, like, Testament should have been in there rather than Anthrax or Exodus should have been in there rather than Anthrax. And then, I don't know.

Chris42:51 It's funny, are they geographically the same area?

Neil42:54 I think so, yeah. They. They, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's too late. I got my brains misfiring, but I can't remember where everybody's from. They certainly all knew each other really well and there was a lot of, like, prior to this. There was a lot of mingling, like.

Chris43:09 Yeah. Different stuff.

Neil43:10 Yeah. Like Kirk Hammett used to be in Exodus.

Chris43:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil43:13 Obviously Dave used to be in. Used to be in Metallica. A lot of people don't know that Kerry King from Slayer was in this early version of Megadeth. I don't think he played on any records, but he was certainly on the light. He did, like, all in the sort

Chris43:34 of late teens, early 20s to mid 20s. So they were almost like they're almost finding their band, weren't they? They were like they were all just finding where they fit and who they fit with and that sort of movement and that swapping around and was just maybe, maybe a part of that part again.

Neil43:49 It's tempting to think back, look back and think, oh, it was this big thing and it just wasn't right.

Chris43:53 Yeah, yeah.

Neil43:53 Nobody was really. It was a big thing for me and my mates because we loved this, this. We absolutely adored this music and um. I mean no one knew it but I mean it wasn't like, I don't know like you, you. You wouldn't. Like most record stores, you just wouldn't find that. You wouldn't find a copy of like Kill Em all or something or I mean Ride the Lightning eventually and, and this album and you know, Raining Blood and stuff like that. They would catch on.

Chris44:24 Yeah, yeah.

Neil44:25 But like in 86 when they were released, I don't remember remember like I remember these getting quite big. Probably 88.

Chris44:34 Yeah.

Neil44:35 It was a couple of years later where it start this things this. It felt like this scene has started and yeah. You know, it was like the anti hair metal. It was like this scene that existed underground from the. The Bon Jovi's and the. And the. And the Skid rows and the Cinderellas and. Because all that stuff was big in the charts. Yeah. Like when this, this I think this year was it slippery when wet 86.

Chris45:00 Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comment?

Neil45:04 Which cinder? It was Cinderella, I think. It's a long cold winter, I think or so. But. But there was a lot of that stuff in, in the charts that was what you have to. But that's not the mate that was. I mean that was pretty mainstream.

Chris45:15 Yeah, yeah.

Neil45:16 But your mainstream stuff would still have been what, like Michael Jackson?

Chris45:20 Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil45:22 A queen.

Chris45:23 Yeah.

Neil45:24 You know what I mean? I mean Aerosmith, I suppose, but you know, so the rock stuff was still a little bit underground. Yeah, but the threshold was kind of underground that. And around this time like just this would have been that era where Michael

Chris45:38 Jackson was king of the world at this point, wasn't he? Pretty much.

Neil45:40 I can't. Which album did he do? Was it like bad? Bad? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. Do you know, that's another funny thing that I am photographing the kids prom this Thursday.

Chris45:50 Oh wow.

Neil45:51 And I'm obviously not looking forward to that at all. That's going to be like. But they're all. I was looking at their songs.

Chris45:58 Yeah.

Neil46:00 They're nearly all asking For Michael Jackson song.

Chris46:03 Really?

Neil46:03 I don't know quite what's happened there, but the tons of them are asking for. For that. Weird, isn't it?

Chris46:09 They are really good songs.

Neil46:11 Yeah. I've got the documentary, the Michael Jackson documentary. I've not watched it yet. I need to go and settle down and watch that. But it's funny.

Chris46:21 I think it's funny how extraordinarily talented man he was.

Neil46:25 It's like there are some songs that don't age.

Chris46:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil46:31 Like. Like Barney's song choice for the prom is Queens Don't Stop Me Now.

Chris46:36 Yeah.

Neil46:37 But you go back and listen to Queen Don't Stop Me Now. Yeah, it's massive. It's just like. It just hasn't aged. I don't know, I mean, I'm a bit biased probably, but it doesn't feel like it's aged to me. And like, you say those, those Michael Jackson songs, haven't they? Yeah, they still hold up, don't they?

Chris46:53 I had a weird one with. When I was working in music, I might have told you this story before, but during that kind of like. Like early 2000s, I worked in. In music retail in town for a bit. I didn't really work.

Neil47:05 I. I went.

Chris47:06 I went to. You can imagine, you know me, I went to the shop and, yeah, did some stuff.

Neil47:13 Switch the lights on.

Chris47:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stood around for a bit, chatted, everyone had a nice time, then came home again. Oh, God, where was I going with that? Oh, yeah. But the pe. One of the people that I was working with, you know, was like a real kind of like music official. Official, that word that I can't say because I'm too tired. Yeah, that one, he was one of them. Yeah. And he, you know, we're talking about, like, the Beatles and stuff like that. I was like, I kind of like the Beatles, but I think. I think I kind of prefer Queen.

Neil47:46 Yeah.

Chris47:46 And he looked at me as if. As if I'd done a poo on his. On his carpet or something like that. Like, he looked. He looked me. So what? They're not even the same universe as artists. Queen are like Queen because, you know, Queen are a big cheesy band. They're not proper music. They just do cheesy songs. And the. And the Beatles are proper music. And you know, really, like. Like we had that thing. It's funny enough, it's really weird because a few years later we chatted again, like, yeah, you know, maybe 10, 15 years later, they went, no, no, I got you. You weren't wrong. I kind of, I didn't get it at the time, you know, but I, I think the Queen of Mesmerizing is a band.

Neil48:25 I think they're abs.

Chris48:26 Absolutely. Like something else, you know, but, but, but they're so. There'll never be another one like that. There were, they were four misfits just like shoved in a room together.

Neil48:40 Funny, isn't it? Like, like, I think, like, you like Young Blood. Yeah, I think really clearly influenced by Freddy Mercury. Like, absolutely influenced by Mercury. And I think that the, I mean, you've talked about this before loads as we've done the show, but like, you are sub. You, you are that summary of your influences, like whether you like it or not, the good and bad influences.

Chris49:09 Yeah.

Neil49:10 And it's, it's funny, like you said. I, I, I can't really see today, like Queen, a Queen working. No, no, but you can be damn sure the influences of Queen are working and who, like, almost whoever anybody doing gu there are of an age where the Queen will have, will have influenced them.

Chris49:31 You have that kind of theatrical, kind of pop version of that with like. Is it Mika? Was it Micah Mika, that artist that came out? Yeah, did like, he had a very sort of Freddy vibe to him, but it was very popular. But then, you know, you've only got to listen to some of what the Struts have been putting out, you know, and there's really, really clearly a Queen sort of like, like genius melodies in

Neil49:55 those Struts records they get. They're just phenomenal, I think, but like, yeah, absolutely super clearly influenced by, I think just influenced by pop music in general. You can feel it and hear it in, across their, their, their music. If they, if only they'd done something old enough for us to cover, that would be really cool, I think. But one day, if we're still doing Riffology, that point in time, we could, we could do a Struts record. I think that would be a good laugh. But yeah, but it is, yeah, it's, it's funny. I think, like, the influences of these albums.

Chris50:29 Yeah.

Neil50:30 And Peace Elves is a really, for me, is a really good example of that because it's not just the influence like that came that it influenced. Like, it really stood. This album really stands out for me because it doesn't sound like any of its contemporaries in the same way that Ride the Lightning didn't, or in the same way that if you look at, at a Testament record, an Exodus record, Anthrax record, and you compare that against Ride the Lightning Ride The Lightning was bringing in these layers and we talked about this in the last year, but they're bringing these layers of music theory. Brings in, you know, these progressions and stuff that the metal bands weren't doing. Metal bands were. Were following Tony Iommi and what Black Sabbath were doing downtune. You know, it was all down tuned. It was super heavy. Chuggy and then Ride the Lightning wasn't right. The Lightning was, you know, almost classical chord progression, music theory and melody in there.

Chris51:28 And that's interesting because funny enough, Megadeth are kind of like in for me. Smack bang in the middle of it.

Neil51:34 Well, they. I think Megadeth were influenced massively by Chris Poland.

Chris51:40 Yeah.

Neil51:41 And Gar bringing jazz influences into the band. So the drumming a bit like out there.

Chris51:47 Yeah.

Neil51:47 And. And Chris Poland's guitar work is like quite jazzy in places. So it's funny for me, it brings in this.

Chris51:57 It has. It has both chug and melody.

Neil51:59 Yeah. It doesn't sound like a metal. It's not. It doesn't sound like a matter. Doesn't sound like any other metal album.

Chris52:05 Yes.

Neil52:06 And it's funny because, like, the next album that came after was different crew of people.

Chris52:09 Yeah.

Neil52:11 Still got Dave Mustaine in there. Still got the, you know, guitar wizardry, but doesn't sound sound, you know, like. So far so good. So what.

Chris52:20 Yeah, yeah.

Neil52:22 Slightly slower, slightly more commercial, I would say. Zero jazz influence of on that record.

Chris52:31 No jazz.

Neil52:32 We've gone far more mainstream hard rock. Like where. Like. Like when Metallica. Without the direction that Metallica would head off into. But it's funny, like the. This one. This one's got that odity.

Chris52:48 Yeah.

Neil52:49 To it where it just doesn't. I mean, it's. It's. It's. I think it's a great record. Full of big riffs.

Chris52:53 Yeah.

Neil52:54 It's heavy works.

Chris52:55 Insane.

Neil52:56 It is. It's like.

Chris52:57 It's artwork is unreal.

Neil52:58 Savage. It's got this kind of like. Like face ripping kind of quality to it. It's kind of quite. It's funny because, like, Slayer would be faster. Faster solos faster, you know, and probably. Probably more wheel twiddly. But I think these are better. The solos here are better. Like, Metallica would be quite. You know. I don't know that the Metallica ones would be. I'll say, more melodic. That's not what I mean. I think the Metallica solos would certainly. From Lightning onwards, the. The solos really fit the song.

Chris53:37 Yeah.

Neil53:37 They. They felt like they were part of the song. Song. Slayer solos felt like someone was trying to like, just melt your face off with, like, you. That was it. Like, here's that bit in the middle, I think, with Megadeath, where the solos are still like.

Chris53:53 Yeah, but.

Neil53:54 But there's some.

Chris53:56 So who would be doing that guitar? Would that be Dave Mustaine in the main doing?

Neil54:00 You'd be a mixture. I think Chris Poland would have done it. A chunk of it, Yeah. A lot of it. But it's. But there's. They do lots of. I think I'm.

Chris54:09 They sort of take into it. There's not like a set role.

Neil54:12 I mean, Dave's kind of really like the rhythm master, but pretty sure he's still. I'm sure when I've seen them live, he still does.

Chris54:18 Yeah, a bit. Because when I. If I ever played the sort of league guitar. Yeah, I've got. I've got a very kind of like, busy left hand.

Neil54:25 Yeah.

Chris54:26 So I'll do kind of like hammer ons and pull offs and bends and a lot of the left in the work. Boomer bends, which are back in fashion, by the way, which is very cool.

Neil54:35 I like that. Solos and boomer bend bring in my back.

Chris54:38 So I. I quite enjoy doing. Doing that. And my right hand, although. Although my right hand's good with chords and rhythm and.

Neil54:45 Yeah.

Chris54:45 You know, kind of. That sort of stuff. But when I'm playing sort of lead work.

Neil54:48 Yeah.

Chris54:48 My right hand's not very accurate, actually, so I tend to do a lot of the work with the left hand.

Neil54:53 Yeah.

Chris54:53 And then the right hand just kind of creates the drama, if that makes sense.

Neil54:55 Right, right, right, right, right.

Chris54:57 So. So the right hand would obviously be doing the pick and you'd got to do squeals and that sort of thing. So. But when you've got. When you've got, you know, this record in particular, when I was listening to this, this. The right hand is unreal. Like, the accuracy and the precision of what the right hand is doing on this guitar work is amazing. So he's. So whoever's doing it is doing all the kind of like clever, you know, pull offs and stuff like that.

Neil55:20 Yeah.

Chris55:21 But what you've got alongside that is this really kind of like attacking, percussive kind of right hand work with a plectrum. And what that leads to is effectively Bill and Ted.

Neil55:30 Yeah.

Chris55:30 You know that kind of like Wild Stallions kind of.

Neil55:32 Because it feels like. It feels like the plectrum's really getting dug into the strings, isn't it? It's kind of not a gentle.

Chris55:39 No, I love Doing guitar nerd stuff. That's. That's great. Don't do that very often. That's brilliant. But I, you know, I, I've. It's really. I. I find it really interesting because I always think about how I play,

Neil55:51 how I play that. Yeah.

Chris55:52 And. And, you know, you listen to that and going. Yeah. Actually, my right hand. I wouldn't. I wouldn't have that level of accuracy to be able to do anything like that. Yeah.

Neil55:59 Well, I mean, James Hetfield, if you look, if you ever watch James play that down, picking.

Chris56:04 Yeah.

Neil56:05 The speed. I mean, he's funny because even he. There's songs that he won't play now. If you hear him in interviews now, there's like, there's stuff that, like, he said. It's funny because when, like, back then, I didn't think that was fast.

Chris56:17 Yes.

Neil56:18 I didn't think what I was doing was pretty. He said, that's how I played. Like, I only like, you know, and I'm not a virtuoso guitar. I'm not Joe Satriani. I don't have like 18 different styles.

Chris56:27 Right.

Neil56:28 I do this, you know, that's what I do. Yeah.

Chris56:31 The thing, I always remember that they had. And I think Megadeth had this. But also it's like a few others where they had the, like, the little kind of wrist supports they used to wear. Yeah, yeah.

Neil56:40 Like sports wrists loads. All the thrash bands had those. Yeah, they all had the. The wrist. The wrist sweat.

Chris56:46 The wristband.

Neil56:47 Sweat bands on your wrist.

Chris56:48 So I used to. I. I was like, oh, that was cool. I'm gonna give that a go. And I put one on. Like, it's in the way. I can't use it. So. Totally impractical. I don't know how they did it.

Neil56:57 I. Yeah, it. The. This, the this. The speed of the playing back then was just extraordinary. I. I think it's interesting. Everybody slowed down.

Chris57:06 Yeah.

Neil57:07 Like, everybody.

Chris57:09 And then grunge.

Neil57:11 They slowed down into the 90s. Then you got grunge and then the extreme bands. Because then if you think about it, you ended up like, where we got to in like mid 2000s and 2010s, death core would come through, which would be just really, you know, I've got to tell you.

Chris57:25 I mean, me and Dan Baker, who still hasn't been on.

Neil57:28 You got a death core band.

Chris57:29 Yeah, no, we went to download on the Sunday.

Neil57:33 Yeah.

Chris57:34 I want to hang out for a bit.

Neil57:35 Yeah.

Chris57:35 And I don't know who it was, but we were in the. In this. In the Sort of VIP section.

Neil57:39 Yeah.

Chris57:40 On the nice comfy sofas, obviously.

Neil57:41 Yeah.

Chris57:42 Which we waited for. We actually like proper vultures. Proper, like, really looking going, oh, we could sit on the bench. But you know.

Neil57:48 Oh, yeah. You think he's old now. That's just. We did.

Chris57:52 I had the moment. I was going, I would love a blanket. Oh, God. If they. Honestly, if they had a pile of blankets.

Neil58:01 Yeah.

Chris58:01 That would have been absolute perfection. Whoever was doing the dj.

Neil58:05 Yeah.

Chris58:05 Was incredible.

Neil58:07 Oh, really.

Chris58:07 Like, loads of. Loads of amazing Death Core. Like every song I was on. Shazam. Go. What's this?

Neil58:13 Just merging stuff in.

Chris58:14 Just incredible. I mean. Well, yeah.

Neil58:16 Bring Me the Horizon. The back.

Chris58:18 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil58:18 With a Death Core album. Like, the last few of them have been a bit more poppy.

Chris58:22 Yes.

Neil58:23 Which been my. Actually, it's funny because my kids, like.

Chris58:25 Yeah, it's a gateway is. Brings them in.

Neil58:27 But then I was kind of going back. This is. This, like. This is my Bring Me the Horizon. And they're like, oh, I don't like that very much.

Chris58:31 Yes.

Neil58:32 But the last few, they're kind of quite liked.

Chris58:34 Yeah, yeah.

Neil58:35 That they've done. And it'll be interesting.

Chris58:37 Brian Adams, Bring Me here at the Horizon.

Neil58:39 Well, I don't know. Like, it's just. Do you know what I mean? It's just more accessible. It's more like. And it's funny, like, for me, that it was. What drew me in to Bring Me the Horizon was kind of that savagery, you know, the kind of same.

Chris58:54 But they weren't really singing, like a bunch of others.

Neil58:57 I kind of liked a bit of.

Chris59:00 Yes. So it was that sort of stuff.

Neil59:02 Yeah, it was. Because, like, Dylan just finished and then, you know, there's a bunch of other bands that kind of filled. That filled that gap. And like. Because, I don't know, like, for me, I almost medicate with music, you know, I mean, it's like if I'm having. I mean, if I'm. If I'm in. If it's nice out and I'm having a nice time, then, you know, I might go and spin. Like, pretty Reckless. The. Pretty reckless. They've got a new album out and I'm loving. Phenomenal. Like, Taylor Momson's voice. Absolutely exquisite. Phenomenal. That band. Do not get the credit. I remember.

Chris59:33 But you had a. You had a Golf. I remember that. Yeah, you had a Golf and you put it on in the Golf.

Neil59:38 Yeah.

Chris59:39 And we were driving back from somewhere.

Neil59:40 Yeah.

Chris59:40 We were going down the A50 from Stoke, but back this way, we were

Neil59:44 doing, like, 500 miles an hour, I think. So that Golf. That Golf was very. Just only had two speeds, like slot. It stopped or like 100 miles an hour.

Chris59:52 But yeah, we, we. And. And you were like. You just kind of got into them or just come through and. Yeah, and you were like this. You got to listen to this.

Neil1:00:01 I am amazed. But. But like. But. And that will cheer me up. It's really cool. Brilliant. Like hard rock music. And then there are other times where I just think. Think, you know what? I'm pretty pissed off at the world, so I might reach for something that's a little bit harder and a little bit, you know, more. More. More edgy and a bit shouty.

Chris1:00:17 Yeah.

Neil1:00:17 And that's where the kind of the death core stuff fits.

Chris1:00:19 Yeah, I've got a proper thing for that stuff.

Neil1:00:22 Have you?

Chris1:00:23 Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:00:23 It was funny because when we first started to do the Doghouse, you weren't. That was not a big thing for you. You were just like, I'm not really sure I get this. So.

Chris1:00:29 Yeah.

Neil1:00:29 And then, like, it's kind of built. It's an acquired taste.

Chris1:00:32 Yeah. Well, there's the odd normal gene track and then there's like Kublai Khan kicked in and then. And a few others. And then. And then suddenly I say, this guy was playing just banger after the Caveman.

Neil1:00:42 Is that. It's the Caveman, like riffs, you know, when they kind of go all like. And everyone's. Oh, my God. But yeah, it's. It's funny. But I mean, again, I mean, tying all of that stuff back here, you can bet all of those people were influenced by these albums. All of this stuff from this area, this kind of mid-80s.

Chris1:01:03 Yeah.

Neil1:01:03 Even if they weren't born.

Chris1:01:04 Yeah.

Neil1:01:05 But they would have gone back in

Chris1:01:06 the diet somewhere because, like, there's a

Neil1:01:08 lot of people around this area that went back to. I mean, I was influenced heavily by Black Sabbath.

Chris1:01:13 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:01:14 I wasn't. I mean, I was born in 74.

Chris1:01:16 Yeah.

Neil1:01:17 Yeah. I wasn't listening to no. No Black Sabbath when I was like six or. Yeah. I mean, it just wasn't listening to that. But it, but it was. It was listening. To be fair, Black Sabbath, for me, would probably been listening to Lars Oric interviews.

Chris1:01:33 Okay.

Neil1:01:33 Ye was interviewed. He was.

Chris1:01:36 Yeah. Influenced by that.

Neil1:01:37 Influenced by Black Sabbath. And that would have been like, oh, that's got to be interesting there. And then you would go and, you know, have a. Like, for me, it would have been like the. Those early bands would have been like, Judas Priest.

Chris1:01:46 Yeah.

Neil1:01:46 And stuff like that.

Chris1:01:47 There's a. There's a video that I must send you, if you've not watched it already. It's the guy from Slipknot. The new. The new. The new person. I can't remember his name, but he's playing War Pigs on the drums. It's one of the best. One of the best drum takes I've ever seen in my life.

Neil1:02:01 Really?

Chris1:02:02 Yeah, like. Like, absolutely. He push it. Because the thing with Sabbath is obviously when there were no clicks. Right. So. So. So the music gets pushed and pulled.

Neil1:02:11 Yeah.

Chris1:02:11 Tempo wise. And it's kind of never. It's never quite straight to click or, you know, there's bits that slow down, bits that speed up. But within bars.

Neil1:02:18 Yeah.

Chris1:02:18 So not. Just. Not like. Not. Not like a gradual slowdown.

Neil1:02:21 Yeah.

Chris1:02:21 But within the feel of, you know, the kind of the moment in the song.

Neil1:02:26 Yeah.

Chris1:02:26 He kind of feels like it wasn't just. Just sit back a bit and then drive him with something else. And he is absolutely locked in. He's got the feel how for the. For the duration of the whole thing.

Neil1:02:37 I think. Think I have to be. I think that is definitely.

Chris1:02:41 Eloy.

Neil1:02:41 That's his name. I think that's something that's missing from. From all of the modern. I mean, the new Pretty Reckless album. Right. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. But my God, it's perfect.

Chris1:02:52 Yeah.

Neil1:02:52 I mean, absolutely, utterly perfect. There is not a beat, a bar, a vocal that's not exactly where it's supposed to be. And I don't know, there's something like, for me, where bands like that. I'd love to see them go in and do something live and do it. I mean, they're brilliant. Live. Pretty reckless. And I don't mean like, I want a live album, but I can't. I want it to feel a bit more. Right. Rock and roll. Do you know, it needs to.

Chris1:03:23 It's funny you just say that because, you know, we're doing some recording a minute. We're riding all over. We're playing with. You know, we're sat in the room together playing.

Neil1:03:30 Yeah.

Chris1:03:31 Like so, you know, with. With the drums. We've never done it. We've always done. We. We played guy guitars in this.

Neil1:03:38 The early stuff. You done like that.

Chris1:03:40 Sorry. Yeah, it was. But. But that was really, like. Everything's bleeding through and it's really hard. Right, right. But. But yeah, in terms of, like more recently, it's been, you know. You know, us kind of sat in the control room playing the guide and then the other person, like drummer in The. In the. In the separate rooms. Yeah. And then you layer the bass, then you lay the guitar, then you lay the. The instruments and you do the vocals. And one thing we've been doing is even. Even while tracking the drums, we've been in the room together playing the song songs. And then when we've been doing the bass and the guitars sort of, you know, separately, we're sat. Playing together.

Neil1:04:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris1:04:12 You know, and it changes it to see how.

Neil1:04:15 I think. I mean, you've talked about this before, but it's about the performance.

Chris1:04:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the chemistry and the relationship between the.

Neil1:04:23 Because you do.

Chris1:04:24 You kind of move with each other dynamically or.

Neil1:04:26 Yeah, but I think it's funny because. And I'm not. I'm not saying that makes it better.

Chris1:04:31 Yeah.

Neil1:04:31 But. But it changes. It changes it.

Chris1:04:34 So you can play the notes exactly the same. Yeah. But it feel different feel.

Neil1:04:38 And I think. Yeah, I think you absolutely nailed it. It's. It is. It's weird. And I. You know, and I think that that comes across in loads of albums. Like.

Chris1:04:49 Like,

Neil1:04:51 I think Dave. If you think. Did Dave Mustaine on these albums, like, they're nearly always the best. The best material for Megadeth is when he's got yet another new lineup.

Chris1:05:05 Yeah.

Neil1:05:06 And they've not all fallen out yet.

Chris1:05:07 Yeah. So they'.

Neil1:05:09 Studio. They're all fairly happy. They go off and do, like, something cool and then, you know, an album or two years later, Dave's pissed off with everybody and fires them.

Chris1:05:18 Yeah.

Neil1:05:19 And. But. But I think it's that kind. I don't know if this. For me, there's just something about that where, you know, they're all. All firing well. It's all good. Everyone's happy. They all kind of come in and get on with it.

Chris1:05:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:05:32 But, yeah, I. I mean, bringing back. Going back to this record particularly, you know, I think Dave is filled with rage still.

Chris1:05:42 Yeah.

Neil1:05:43 About Metallica.

Chris1:05:44 Yeah.

Neil1:05:46 You know, miss Misfiring dysfunctional band with. With addiction.

Chris1:05:51 Yeah.

Neil1:05:53 Trying to prove himself constantly. And I think it kind of could. That. That venom comes out in this album for me. There's. There's an angle, you know, there's. There's no, like, prettiness here. There's no optimism. You know, this. This is a cynical look at the world.

Chris1:06:13 Yeah.

Neil1:06:13 You know, where I think Slayer do, like, a. A dark look at the world right there. Because Raining Blood would come out.

Chris1:06:21 Yeah.

Neil1:06:23 The same time. And then, you know, then we'll go into, like, Seasons and South of Heaven from Slayer. But they. Those albums are dark. Like, they're. They. They are, yeah. They're. They're a very. They're not. It's not like a pessimistic or cynical view. They're just looking at really dark subject matter. This is funny for me. This. This is. Dave Mustaine's really cynical.

Chris1:06:47 Yeah.

Neil1:06:48 Look at the world.

Chris1:06:48 Yeah.

Neil1:06:49 You know. You know, and if you think, like, what Metallica were doing, they. They weren't. They were looking at, you know, concepts and. And topic. But they weren't as dark as Slayer were. They weren't cynical. They were more quite intelligent. There were. You know, there were. There were. There were. There were topics and things that they would talk about that I would. You would. Bit more highbrow, if you like.

Chris1:07:15 So.

Neil1:07:16 Yeah, it's funny, I think. I think this. That. That this album ended up having that snarl and venom.

Chris1:07:21 Yeah.

Neil1:07:22 To it, which made it stand out for me. It's got that jazz undertone to it. It's got, like, the sort of super cool drumming through the drumming. It's not metal drumming anywhere through the sounds. Super cool. There's crazy leads. And then you've got Dave with this kind of cynical, venomous look at the world.

Chris1:07:40 Yeah. I think I'm just. I'm trying to kind of take what you're saying and put it into some sort of. Sort of, like, frame of reference. And I think it's about a lack of confidence in other people.

Neil1:07:53 Okay.

Chris1:07:54 Like, a lack of confidence that other people will do the right thing.

Neil1:07:57 Right. Or will.

Chris1:07:58 Or will act in a. In a particular way, you know, like.

Neil1:08:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris1:08:03 But who would buy it?

Neil1:08:04 Yeah, yeah.

Chris1:08:05 It's not. So I've, you know, really low confidence in humankind, you know?

Neil1:08:09 Yeah. Yeah. There's a mass. You can hear him talk when he talks in. In this. In this period.

Chris1:08:14 Yeah.

Neil1:08:15 They're just incredibly cynical. Just like about. About politics, about the world. There's a lot of weird stuff going on in the world. I mean, this was Chernobyl.

Chris1:08:22 Yeah.

Neil1:08:24 This was the Challenger disaster.

Chris1:08:26 Yeah.

Neil1:08:26 Which I still think is. Well. And my kids still don't believe me. That period of time, we got junior school children to drop them in front of a TV and then force them to watch a bunch of people blow themselves up and then sent them back into English class.

Chris1:08:40 Like.

Neil1:08:41 They're like, no, they wouldn't do that. Absolutely did. What did they do when they all died? This just went, oh, dear.

Chris1:08:48 Oh, dear.

Neil1:08:48 Yeah.

Chris1:08:49 Oh, yeah. This way.

Neil1:08:50 Sandra, switch the TV off. And that's it. That's it. That was. No kind of. You know, there's nothing. Just send them home.

Chris1:09:01 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:09:01 You know what I mean? And it's just like my kids are like, no. Yeah, that's. That's the way it was. So there's a lot to be cynical about. You had. He was the U. S. President in this period. But I'm sure it was a. They all are. I'm sure it was. It was almost certainly doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing. And there was almost certainly the Reagan thing.

Chris1:09:22 Was that before?

Neil1:09:22 Oh, yeah, it was. It was Iraq. And then you had. There was. Oh, yeah. So I don't know. I. I just think it's had PMRC as well, this. This era who were like, anti. They were really worried about. Yeah, they were really worried about Satanism in music.

Chris1:09:45 Yeah.

Neil1:09:46 Which is interesting. So I don't. I don't think Megadeth ever. Really. Really. A little bit.

Chris1:09:51 Yeah.

Neil1:09:52 But I don't think they ever. I remember Devil's island being picked up.

Chris1:09:56 Yeah.

Neil1:09:57 And Dave Mustaine. This was part of the PM and Dave Mustaine saying that it was to do with the French prison, isn't it? Yeah, it's nothing to do with the devil. It's. It was called Devil's island by the French.

Chris1:10:09 It's not lit. It's not literal.

Neil1:10:10 It's not like, you know, it was. But. Yeah, it was. But yeah. I don't think they ever kind of went down that path the same as. As the same as Slayer did. But yeah, it's. It's. It's funny one for me. It's. But it's. It's. Yeah. I mean, it. A lot of albums at. At this point in time, don't. They haven't. They haven't aged well. Like. Like, if you go and pick a Motley Crue record.

Chris1:10:37 Yeah.

Neil1:10:38 From the early 80s, you, like. Shout at the Devil. Even Ghost Girls. Girls. A lot of that stuff is actually. It's brilliant music, but it's so like.

Chris1:10:48 Of the time.

Neil1:10:49 Yeah, it's. It's a difficult. It's like you. You'd have a hard time playing that at your. At your wedding disco, even if you're big. Big fans of it.

Chris1:10:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:11:00 You. You. You get some weird. You know what I mean?

Chris1:11:04 Yeah.

Neil1:11:04 So. I don't know. But. So, yeah, I. I think actually this is.

Chris1:11:11 This.

Neil1:11:12 This has aged reasonably well. It's funny. I'm not. I don't know. The production didn't sound great in. In my car, but I quite like it with Headphones on. I quite like it at home sound that you. You were playing clips of it in here in the studio and it sounds. Sounds fine. It's. It's a product of its time.

Chris1:11:32 Yeah.

Neil1:11:33 But yeah, I didn't gel with it in. Maybe it was my flapping door cards that were. That were not great and the squid they were squealing from. From the drunken ladies in the. In the back. That was hard to. Hard to deal with. But yeah, no, I don't know. It's a product of its time and I think I'd rather this with its kind of harsh production if you like. And like zero dynamic range.

Chris1:12:03 Yeah.

Neil1:12:05 Compared to like the modern equivalent. That kind of slab of.

Chris1:12:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:12:10 You know, super loud.

Chris1:12:11 Yeah.

Neil1:12:12 No, no nuance and everything being to click and everything being perfect. I don't know. I think I'd prefer my rock and metal here like this. A little bit more analog, a little bit more, I don't know, authentic. Let's say maybe.

Chris1:14:05 Hey.

Neil1:14:06 Oh I feel so good. Something's not right. Something's coming over here.

Chris1:14:18 What the is this. Question is Slaughters my emotions My hammers

Neil1:15:50 are copies of Bloody Steel I green why you haven't made that idea? A plate full of wood string I

Chris1:16:36 cut them to shreds Stake out the

Neil1:16:38 yogurt to cut off the head it

Chris1:16:40 means that the question I saw under my feet. Black Friday

Neil1:18:12 baby down the wall Black

Chris1:18:15 Friday

Neil1:18:17 they on the wall Black Friday. Spin the down on the wall Black

Chris1:18:31 Friday

Neil1:18:33 Spin the camera on the wall Black Friday See me down on the wall Black Friday. We recorded the drums within a couple days. I think it took me like a day and a half to record to re record. All the bass guitar, the rhythm guitar tracks were done pretty quickly. Solos were again pretty quickly. Right after that. Dave was always real quick singing in the studio. So I mean that, that within a month that album was done from. From start to finish.

Chris1:19:15 We made a mistake last week.

Neil1:19:18 Didn't do any facts for.

Chris1:19:19 Right.

Neil1:19:20 The lightning.

Chris1:19:21 Yeah.

Neil1:19:22 Do you know I can't spell. Ride the lightning. You know. There are some words. There are some words. I said lightning lighted. There are some words I find really difficult to spell. Yeah. Like. Because my brain. My brain's got this like thing inside where it thinks it knows how to spell. Spell it.

Chris1:19:36 Yeah.

Neil1:19:37 And I kind of know it's not the right way to spell it. But then I can't think of the right word. Aeroplane lightning is one of them.

Chris1:19:44 Yeah.

Neil1:19:45 They literally visualized them. Metallica album cover.

Chris1:19:49 Yeah. With the wrong Spelling right with the right.

Neil1:19:51 I literally have to visualize it. Oh, I visualize it and now I know how to spell it. And then I think, ah, that's how to spell it. And then I'm good.

Chris1:19:57 Yeah.

Neil1:19:58 So maybe they should do more of that at school. I don't know how I got there. So we're going to do facts. Facts about Peace Cells. But think by Megadeth, can we? Before we do facts. Yeah, I really like the, the concept of this.

Chris1:20:17 Yeah.

Neil1:20:17 I, I. There's just something that I really love about this and it is part of that Dave Mustaine cynical look at the world. Yeah, I really love the, that. I mean, he did do this with. Rust. In Peace.

Chris1:20:32 In peace. Yeah.

Neil1:20:33 And I really love that. But I, I don't know, he, he has these, has this ability to take a cool idea and then boil it down into like a sound bite, an album title sound bite. So I was. And it was for me, like Megadeth. For me. It was, it was this track. It was, it was Peace Cells. But who's buying first hearing that, that bass kind of thumping along and then the track just absolutely. That cynical, you know? You know, it better work this time.

Chris1:21:08 And, you know, it always feels like it's a commentary.

Neil1:21:12 Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't sing, does he? Really kind of snarls almost. And again, I think that that's again, something that really turned me onto it. You know the other thing that turned me on massively to this album. Album cover.

Chris1:21:24 Yeah. Okay.

Neil1:21:25 It's got big rattle head on. It's the face. So it had the Vic Rattle head was around previously now, but the, the album art was kind of lost for that and it was replaced at the last minute by capital M. It was mocked. It was horrific. This for me was the first real proper Vic Rattle head.

Chris1:21:48 Cool. Yeah.

Neil1:21:49 Cover. And then that would obviously go on and, you know, be, be really, really cool.

Chris1:21:53 So. Yeah.

Neil1:21:53 And I remember that I had a T shirt and I liked it a lot. And you knew it was good because it had a parental advisory sticker on it. And that was how you knew an album was good back in the day. Release date 25th of September 1986. Other Interesting Facts for this album which are not in the fact sheet, but I'm going to tell you anyway, so. So back in the, the mid-90s, we all MP3 sized all of our music. So one of the things I did was I took this compact and I stuck it in my computer and I ripped it to MP3. It's very difficult to create A folder with psels, dot, dot, dot, space. But who apostrophe s buying question mark? Computers hated all of that stuff, so you had to have it with the wrong number of dots and question marks and apostrophes.

Chris1:22:48 Right.

Neil1:22:48 And I remember that really upset me.

Chris1:22:50 Yeah.

Neil1:22:53 It was released on Capitol Records. It was originally on. On Combat and then Capital bought it. Produced by Dave Mustaine and Randy Burns would later get mixed by Paul Lany because Capital thought it sounded horrible and they wanted to remix it. It's worth. If you can find the remix. I don't know what's on Apple music for this one, but if you can find the original Randy Burns mix and compare them, it's. I. I think it's really interesting. You can kind of back to it, back a little bit.

Chris1:23:24 And some of. Some of the. The interview stuff that we've taken from was from an interview around when they did a. A 5.1 dobly dobbly remix where all the. All the band members were quite effusive about that, you know, about how. How. How much better it sounded. So there's obviously, you know, different versions of this knocking about.

Neil1:23:48 There are as yet interesting. Eight tracks, 36 minutes, which is the correct amount of time and tracks for a thrash album didn't peak on the chart. And it's easy. People forget how insignificant this stuff was at the time. If you were in the scene and you loved it, then you. You were. Obviously, this would have been your thing. Not that many people were like, the hair was massive at this point in time. You know, Bon Jovi was massive. Cinderella were massive.

Chris1:24:19 Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:24:20 You know, there. There were these enormous bands. Motley Crue were on the ascendancy and becoming huge. This stuff just wasn't yet. It was, you know, it was. If you were in the scene, I could say it was. It was. It was pretty awesome. But this would go on to sell roughly 2 million copies worldwide. Singles Wake Up Dead and Peter Sells, other albums released in the same year. Master of Puppets, Slayer did Raining Blood, Dark angel did Darkness Descends, Creator's Pleasure to Kill. I think that was one of my favorites at this point in time. Creator's Pleasure to kill Possessed to Beyond the Gate Sodom did Obsessed By Cruelty, Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet, Cinderella. It was Night Songs from Cinderella that were out a bit in the. In, in. In this. This period of time. This album, to me, didn't fit anywhere. It didn't fit with, like. It's funny, isn't it? Like it didn't. Didn't fit in any of the Hair stuff.

Chris1:25:28 Yeah.

Neil1:25:29 It wasn't as fast as Slayer. It wasn't as melodic as Metallica. It's kind of a bit jazzy, a bit technical. It was almost like what would become speed metal.

Chris1:25:42 Almost.

Neil1:25:42 Right. It was. It was its own thing, I think, which. Yeah, I don't know, I just think is a really interesting. Yeah, interesting look back because I think Metallic by Metallica forged their. The. All these bands came from what was thrash.

Chris1:25:59 Yeah.

Neil1:25:59 And then forged almost like that, they came their own thing.

Chris1:26:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:26:04 The band was Dave Mustaine, David Ellefson, who wrote that beginning bass line on PSALs. Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson on drums. Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson knew each other. Other. And they were. They. They were from the jazz world. They weren't metal. Metal players. Which is, which is interesting. You had other members of staff as well played like Casey McMackin did backing vocals. He was a. One of the recording engineers.

Chris1:26:38 Yeah.

Neil1:26:39 So you had like people doing all kinds of stuff in there. Album art was done by Edward J. Repka, who would go on to do tons of it. He was 23 when he got this commission and then would go on to do all kinds of cool stuff, which I think is. Is really cool. Let me go down to my list of did you knows things you might not know. Dave Mustaine got the phrase for the album title from a Reader's Digest article headed Peace would sell, but no one would buy it. And he kind of condensed it and crushed it down. Combat Records financed the album of $25,000. In. In today's money, that would be about $70,000. Now it's funny because I had. I was. I heard a podcast the other day and someone was saying that if you. If you were to go into an actual performance, professional recording studio, you need a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars to go and cut an album. But you can't like the tight. The time it takes to go and put a band and stick them in there and do a. A full on, you know, Abbey Road style stuff is, you know, if you were to do that today, you need a massive amount of cash. Already talked about this, but the album was mixed twice. Randy Burns did the original and then capital bought it and hired Paul Lani with Stan Katayama, who did assistance to. To remix the whole record. That's the one that's on the shelves. That's the one that's there. The Randy Burns ones are still around. Bad Omen was played at Megadeth's debut gig. Yeah, that Ruth is in. In Berkeley. So some of these tracks had been around.

Chris1:28:29 Yeah.

Neil1:28:30 For quite a while. Again, talk about this. The album's additional engineer also sings backing vocals on Two Tricks. So two tracks. Good Morning, Black Friday and My Last words. So Casey McMakin played on. On some of those. Dave Ellefson's opening bass line for P Cells was used as the introduction to MTV news bulletins. For the best part of two. Two decades, Mustaine has said that the band never received any royalties.

Chris1:29:06 Oh, wow. Wow.

Neil1:29:09 This album has a track called My Last Words, which is Lars Ulrich's favorite.

Chris1:29:15 Yeah.

Neil1:29:16 Favorite Megadeth song, which he. During a Reddit ame, he confirmed that Dave Mustaine refused to play the. The conjuring live for 17 years following his Christian conversion, finally relenting at a single show in the Czech Republic in 2018. Quite a few artists have become like, born again Christians. Dorothy is. It's funny, she. I was listening to her the other day and she was essentially saying that. That like, she's an addict. She. She's a alcoholic, essentially. And she was saying that, like, without that grounding in Christian, she. She doesn't think she'd still be alive.

Chris1:30:01 Yeah.

Neil1:30:01 And it's. It's funny like. Like, you know, I mean, I'm not a religious person, but I. And I hear often people be like, anti religious and I kind of think if. Like, if. If believing in something, even though I don't believe in it, that that keeps Dorothy grounded and that allows her to get on with her life.

Chris1:30:19 Yeah.

Neil1:30:21 Do you know what I mean?

Chris1:30:21 Yeah.

Neil1:30:22 That's a really cool thing, I think, is where it strays into, you know, I believe believe in. In. In. In my God. That means I'm going to kill you. Yeah, that's less.

Chris1:30:30 A little bit problematic.

Neil1:30:31 Yeah. I don't like that quite as much.

Chris1:30:33 So it's interesting how many metal bands are Christian. Christian in nature. Yeah. I remember we talked about that download thing earlier.

Neil1:30:41 Yeah.

Chris1:30:42 A lot of the songs when I started searching for them.

Neil1:30:45 Yeah.

Chris1:30:45 A lot of those Death Corps bands were Christian.

Neil1:30:47 Yeah. Yeah, that seems. Yeah, it seems. It seems quite a big. Quite a big deal actually, for that. For that scene as well. Oh, Pantera's dimebag Daryl yes once cornered Dave Ellifson at the end of a night out to tell him twice that the album. This album, Peace Elsa changed his life.

Chris1:31:08 I like the way you put it in the blog where it says, and. And because they'd be drinking, he thought I was just drunk. As he held him, he's like, no, no, I'm telling you, that album changed my life.

Neil1:31:18 It's. It's. It's funny, isn't it, that, like, Pantera weren't part of the scene. They came along a little later. They were kind of the new Kids on the Block almost. And they were phenomenal. They were, you know, like, they just. They just kind of came from nowhere and were like a force of nature, Southern style. Yeah. But the bit I love about it is the fact that they were fans of this era. And then again, there's some lovely stuff I've read over the years. Years of the. The Pantera boys. They talk about this time. I mean, this is going back a long time, but it was like the reverence they had of the bands they were playing with.

Chris1:31:52 Yeah.

Neil1:31:53 I don't know. I just think it's brilliant. And then. And then you also had. Obviously they would go out on tour with. With these bands, but then you had like, Charlie. Like Charlie Benante is now in Pantera from Anthrax. And he listened to Charlie talking the reverence and the kind of like he has for Pantera and what they did. And I. I love that kind of love that goes around between the bands. I think it's really cool. Oh, the P Cells video, Megadeth's first ever video was directed by the maker of the decline of Western civilization. That was a Penelope, Penelope Spheris. She later included the band in its sequel, the Metal Years, and directed their video for no more Mr. Nice Guy. I really like that as well. No more Mr. Nice Guy. The deluxe 2011 reissue of Peacells in 2011 shifted fewer than 2,000 copies in its opening week. Now, I think that was in that period of time where Metallica were insignificant. Yeah, just nobody care. Like 20, 20, 10, 20. Nobody cared about metal bands. No one cared about what happened in the 80s. There was no. No resurgence of that stuff. It was. I don't know that that. That period of time would have been about Stone Sour. Yeah, there was a bunch of other bands, you know what I mean? It was more about that stuff, if you were into that scene, than. Than the, like, kind of Metallica and Megadeth and stuff. In 2017, the Rolling Stone placed P Cell's album at number eight on its 100 Greatest Metal Al. All Time. The highest position of any Megadeth record, I think is interesting. That's interesting. I don't think this is the best. I don't. This is the best Mega Death record. I. I like. I. I think they would go on to. I kind of Feel like mega Death. Yeah. So I think Metallica of this era was their best work.

Chris1:34:00 Yeah.

Neil1:34:00 I abs like, you know, I think it's like. I think like, Lightning and Puppets are just extraordinary. I think Megadeth would go on to do better albums, I think, as they toned down. Like, it's funny, you know, we talked with Lightning where Fleming Rasmussen, the producer, was saying that the band's vision was bigger than their technical ability. So, like, Lightning had more of a straight metal feel and then Puppets got a little bit more Exhaust. Exotic.

Chris1:34:29 Yeah.

Neil1:34:30 Here you'd got jazz musicians.

Chris1:34:31 Yeah.

Neil1:34:32 So the technical ability and Dave was obviously a very technical player that I think their technical ability here was better, bigger and broader than their vision. And I think the vision would come along with other albums, you know, with. With Rust and with.

Chris1:34:46 You know.

Neil1:34:47 So. I don't know. It's a funny way. I'm not sure. Yeah, but it's super influential, you know, I think it's that era of. Done. The stuff they did here was massively influential across the. The. The. The world. But. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know whether I'd have put this at number eight or not, or whether I'd have put Rust at eight or. I don't know. But when. Again, like, my. This is not a Megadeth album. I reach for that often. But listening to it this week, totally fallen back in love with it again and just remember, remembered how awesome it was and then I kind of went down on like, a proper kind of binge of, like, so far so good. So what? And Rust, which we've covered before in the past, but I think this and. And so far so good. I'd forgotten how great those records were. Like, so far so good. So what? It. It's quite melodic. It's a radically different record. You know, it sounds really, really cool. But anyway, that's it for facts.

Chris1:35:53 Cool.

Neil1:35:53 Do you know what do pop punk next?

Chris1:35:55 Doing pop punk?

Neil1:35:56 Yeah, I do. I'd do pop punk. There's stuff that I really want to do. Oh, I've got loads of Zebra Head I want to do.

Chris1:36:05 Yeah.

Neil1:36:06 Blink 182.

Chris1:36:07 Yeah.

Neil1:36:08 Oh, go. I mean, you know, Load. This is your thing, you know, this kind of stuff.

Chris1:36:12 I've said it a few times, but that Jimmy World one for me. Jimmy World a little bit later. But what. What an album that is.

Neil1:36:19 Being American 2001.

Chris1:36:21 Yeah.

Neil1:36:21 Or older we've got.

Chris1:36:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:36:24 Well, so should we play some songs and then we'll come back and talk about what we're going to do next.

Chris1:40:08 And a mayor of the state do that.

Neil1:40:13 It's going to be good. I like the COVID It's really funny. I shot, I shot Blink 182 on.

Chris1:40:19 With the camera.

Neil1:40:20 With a camera. Yeah. I, I can't remember which album they were touring with, but they. I shot Frank Turner quite a few times. I quite like Frank Turner. It's quite, it's funny. He's, like, quite folky on record.

Chris1:40:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:40:31 His live show is quite hardcore. It's like a hardcore puncture. It's quite right. I don't know. People flinging themselves off and the band are a little bit more raucous. It's a bit quite cool. And anyway, I shot Frank Turner a few times and Frank Turner was out on Tour with Blink 182 and his PR agent messaged and said, hey, do you want to come and. Come and do it? So, yeah. And it was the first, like, big arena thing that I'd ever done and it was just really cool. It was, it was such a cool thing to, to go and do and, and, yeah. I don't know. They were, they were great. They were, they were really, really cool band, but I'm kind of. I'm feeling. There's a massive punk, a pop punk resurgence.

Chris1:41:10 Yeah.

Neil1:41:10 I'm feeling it in my bones and I want to be part of it. So I'm gonna, We're gonna do. It's just, just. I don't know, like, if you don't like pop punk, I just avoid the show for a bit because I want to do this. I want to do Zebra Head. I want to do, like you said, Jimmy's World. I want to do 41. Yeah. America, offspring. Yeah.

Chris1:41:34 We went for American Idioper. That's, that's illegal at the minute, isn't it?

Neil1:41:37 Yeah. 2004.

Chris1:41:38 Yeah. So we've got a couple of years away before we can do that one.

Neil1:41:40 It's a bit sad in it. Yeah. But this. I don't know that I, I, I, I just think there's, there's a rich vein here.

Chris1:41:46 Yeah.

Neil1:41:47 And I am in a position where I need cheering up and I just. You can't not be.

Chris1:41:52 Yeah, yeah. A little bit, like, smile on your face.

Neil1:41:54 Yeah. He's a little bit bouncy, isn't it? You know what I mean? You can't have Blink182 on and be like, oh, it's miserable.

Chris1:42:00 It be could.

Neil1:42:00 You're like, yeah, it's all right.

Chris1:42:02 Yeah.

Neil1:42:02 I mean, Be all right. I'll just. Because it's funny and upbeat and, I don't know, there's some, like, cool guitars. Yeah, I can see why it's coming back.

Chris1:42:13 Yeah.

Neil1:42:16 So everyone needs pop punk, but there's a load of, like, new punk artists that are out now, and I think they're dead good. I think they're really funny. That they are really embracing them, that kind of whole. Not taking it all too seriously, but banging out, like, massive tunes at the same time as being able to, like, you know, make fun of the world a little bit. So, yeah, I, I, yeah, looking forward to this. It's gonna be dead good, I would imagine. We'll get four pop punk albums and then we'll go and do something else. I don't know. There's so many. It's funny. Is it? You remember when we first started to do this?

Chris1:42:58 Yeah, I remember.

Neil1:42:59 We sat down, we came with the idea, and then we were like, what if run out? What if we run out of albums?

Chris1:43:06 We did. Yeah. Yeah. That's what happened. Is it?

Neil1:43:10 But then we were like, well, if we run out of albums, we could perhaps, like, do. We could do a whole artist. We could do. Yeah, yeah. We could go and do like. We go and do, like, Green Day. Yeah. And we can go through the whole back catalog. There's just so many albums.

Chris1:43:24 Yes. Yeah, yeah. We'll be fine.

Neil1:43:26 Oh, you know, we do know what's after this new metal.

Chris1:43:30 Yes.

Neil1:43:30 Because we could dive into Limp Bizkit.

Chris1:43:33 Yeah.

Neil1:43:33 And Linkin park and Papa Roach. Oh, Papa Roach. Yeah, yeah. They were pod.

Chris1:43:40 Yeah.

Neil1:43:41 Who covered Smooth Criminal. Oh, yeah. We could do them. Yeah, yeah. This is gonna be good. It's brilliant.

Chris1:43:50 Off we go.

Neil1:43:51 Just do it. Sorry, sorry.

RIFF091 - Megadeth - Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying

Show Notes

When Jazz Meets Thrash and the Door Cards Won't Stop Rattling

Episode Description

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Featured Tracks & Analysis:

Tangential Gold:

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