{"id":910513,"date":"2026-09-26T15:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T15:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/910513\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T15:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T15:24:11","slug":"megadeths-dave-mustaine-explains-why-hes-retiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/910513\/","title":{"rendered":"Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Explains Why He’s Retiring"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDave Mustaine<\/a> physically showed fans the reason why Megadeth<\/a> are calling it quits during a book launch event for his recently released memoir, In My Darkest Hour<\/a>, in New York earlier this month. When the moderator, Rolling Stone Senior Writer Kory Grow<\/a>, asked him if his fans should believe him when he says his band was calling it quits<\/a>, Mustaine held up his left hand for the audience to see.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have an injury to my hand,\u201d he showed the 200-or-so people at New York\u2019s Kaufman Music Center. \u201cSome of you can see it. I\u2019ve got what\u2019s called Dupuytren\u2019s contracture. In the center of my hand, the tendons have grown together and are pulling my finger down. So I have the option at some point to do surgery, and I figured I would do this tour and do the support for this record<\/a> and at that point, we\u2019ll see what the technology\u2019s like. \u2026 I think about, \u2018Could I carry on if I just sang?\u2019 I wouldn\u2019t want to do that. I would want to play guitar, because that\u2019s my love.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn August 2025, Mustaine announced that the long-running thrash group would be retiring sometime after the release of Megadeth. \u201cIf there was ever a perfect time to tour the world, it\u2019s now,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis is also a perfect time for us to tell you that it\u2019s our last studio album.\u201d When it came out in January, it debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200. When Grow asked Mustaine at the book launch how that achievement made him feel, Mustaine put his microphone to his crotch and tilted it up, saying, \u201cBoiiiing,\u201d to the audience\u2019s amusement. \u201cIt\u2019s a great feeling,\u201d he said. (Mustaine also said at the event that he had no interest in recording a Dave Mustaine solo album, because to him it would just be another Megadeth album.)<\/p>\n

\n\tMustaine said that so far Megadeth\u2019s final tour has felt bittersweet. \u201cThere\u2019s times when we take the stairs in the back, and walking up the stairs \u2026 I say, \u2018It\u2019s your stage,\u2019 and I go up there and do my job,\u201d he said. During the chat, Mustaine hinted that recordings from the tour may serve as the basis of a future live album. \u201cIf we were to want to, say, have some live recordings of us playing songs for the future, it might be a good idea to record a bunch of different live tracks,\u201d Mustaine said. \u201cBut yeah, we\u2019re going to have fun doing it, regardless of whatever we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tMustaine also said that Megadeth may still release studio recordings in the future, too. \u201cThere\u2019s bits and pieces and little stuff like that,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a couple completed songs from the last album with James [LoMenzo, bass], Teemu [M\u00e4ntysaari, guitar], and Dirk [Verbeuren, drums], that we did not release yet. But I think those are supposed to be bonus tracks for the label or something. \u2026 There may be a song or something, but I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also revealed that another book he had written, detailing the stories behind every song he\u2019d written, was lost in the shuffle of a label that went out of business. \u201cThat book was written and turned into Sanctuary Records many, many years ago, and Sanctuary went bankrupt,\u201d Mustaine said. \u201cThat was a book called Score, and it was the first 20 years of Megadeth songs. They gave the book back, and I don\u2019t know what happened to it. \u2026 I just don\u2019t know if I want to write another book right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked what the \u201cDave Mustaine Retirement Plan\u201d would look like, Mustaine said he\u2019d like to remain involved in music in some fashion \u2014 \u201cwhether it\u2019s as simple as listening to it or making it,\u201d he said. Mustaine added he hoped for technological developments that would help his hand heal.<\/p>\n

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\n\tElsewhere in the hour-long chat, Mustaine discussed his tongue-cancer diagnosis, how he handled it, and what he learned from his battle \u2014 all of which serve as the basis for the book, In My Darkest Hour. He explained his mindset about hearing that he had \u201cthe Big C\u201d as a doctor rudely told him to the ways that the discipline he\u2019s learned from studying martial arts helped him through it, as well as his general attitude now. \u201cGetting up in the morning is a choice for all of us, and what we\u2019re going to do with that day,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially when you know you\u2019ve got so many days left. It\u2019s important to use those days wisely. For me, I try to live every day like it\u2019s my last, because I don\u2019t know when that will be, and I want to make sure that it\u2019s a good day for everybody around me, my family, my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tWhen asked what gives him hope, he simply described his mindset. \u201cI know I just need to keep living life,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been living life, trying to do the right thing always because it\u2019s the right thing to do. I look forward to whatever is in store for me, the touring, the playing, the new music if there is any, the moments we get to share doing things like this. \u2026 We just like to do cool things. I don\u2019t want to be one of those people that crawls off into a cave and dies. I want to live hard and I want to play hard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Mustaine physically showed fans the reason why Megadeth are calling it quits during a book launch event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,43805,75,43806,341],"class_list":["post-910513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dave-mustaine","tag-entertainment","tag-megadeth","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}