{"id":234964,"date":"2026-01-15T17:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/234964\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:36:07","slug":"megadeths-dave-mustaine-im-not-a-right-winger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/234964\/","title":{"rendered":"Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine: “I’m Not a Right-Winger”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Mustaine<\/a> wants to make it clear that he\u2019s not a \u201cright-winger\u201d despite some past comments that suggest he leans that way. In a new interview with the New York Times<\/a>, the Megadeth<\/a> frontman says he answers to a higher power.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Christian, and I answer to a different set of angels,\u201d said the metal legend. \u201cI obey the law, but no, I\u2019m not a right-winger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get Megadeth Tickets Here<\/a><\/p>\n

He added, \u201cWe used to always say that religion\u2019s for people who are afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people like us who have been there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same New York Times feature, Ice-T \u2014 who is featured on the song \u201cNight Stalkers\u201d from Megadeth\u2019s 2022 album The Sick, the Dying\u2026 and the Dead! \u2014\u00a0noted, \u201cI don\u2019t know if [Mustaine is] a Trump supporter or not. I\u2019m not, but I respect people for standing on what they stand for. Sometimes you\u2019ll be on Twitter and you might post something, and they go, \u2018Oh, wow, you agree with Dave Mustaine.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s my man.\u2019 And then they back off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Video<\/p>\n

The perception of Mustaine as a right-winger comes, in part. from comments he made leading up to the first Donald Trump presidential election when he called Trump \u201ca very successful businessman\u201d and added that he would never vote for Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

Four years earlier, Mustaine expressed support for Rick Santorum, a Republican candidate for the 2012 election. He also made some disparaging remarks about Barack Obama at different points during his presidency.<\/p>\n

In a 2019 interview<\/a> with the Ron Keel-hosted radio show Streets of Rock N Roll, Mustaine also attempted to clarify his political beliefs, offering comments similar to those in the new interview with the New York Times \u201cI\u2019ve got this reputation that I\u2019m a right-winger,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cWell, check my voting record to see that I\u2019ve voted Democrat and\u00a0Republican. And it\u2019s just a shame that people are trying to destroy people\u2019s careers because of a vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the New York Times feature, Mustaine discusses Megadeth\u2019s upcoming final album and farewell tour, his relationship with his former bandmates in Metallica, and other topics.<\/p>\n

Megadeth\u2019s self-titled final album<\/a>\u00a0arrives January 23rd and will be followed by an extensive farewell tour, beginning with a\u00a0Canadian headlining run<\/a>\u00a0kicking off in February.\u00a0Get tickets here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Mustaine wants to make it clear that he\u2019s not a \u201cright-winger\u201d despite some past comments that suggest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-234964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}