Dave Mustaine argues that the songwriting credits on Megadeth’s latest album do not always show who worked more, and that guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari deserves more recognition on some tracks than the booklet says.
“`The band’s leader spoke about the self-titled album on Chris Jericho’s «Talk Is Jericho» podcast. Mäntysaari, Megadeth’s lead guitarist since 2023, is listed as a songwriter on nine tracks of the record. «Just because somebody has a credit on a record doesn’t mean that they wrote a lot», Mustaine said, according to Blabbermouth’s transcript. «On some that we wrote together I put in a little, and it says me and him. In some cases it should probably say Dave and a lot of Teemu. I never got hung up on that, it’s ink. What matters is how it hits your ear».
Asked what he looks for when someone brings him a riff, he answered that it is a matter of instinct: you do not analyse a good Megadeth riff, you feel it — like when you listen to an album, one track grabs you, you move on and in the end you come back to it.
He also explained that playing guitar amazingly does not mean you write good songs either, bringing up Michael Schenker and Stone Temple Pilots as examples. In the latter, he said, it was bassist Robert DeLeo who joined the parts of the songs — «I don’t know their songs well enough to say what he did and what he didn’t».
The album came out on January 23 through BLKIIBLK and Frontiers, produced by Mustaine and Chris Rakestraw, and became Megadeth’s first to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200, while it also topped the charts in Australia, Switzerland and Austria. Mustaine has stated that it will be the band’s last studio album, which is on a farewell tour, and that he plans to revisit unfinished ideas once the album’s cycle closes.
See also: Dave Mustaine: James Hetfield’s phone call and Megadeth’s «Rust in Peace».
Source: https://blabbermouth.net/news/what-makes-a-good-megadeth-riff-dave-mustaine-responds
