Talk about longevity and a strong work ethic. Megadeth was formed in 1983 by Dave Mustaine after leaving Metallica, and for the mathematically challenged amongst us, that’s no less than 28 years ago. During that time they have released 13 studio albums, and taking into account that they took a two year hiatus in the early to mid 2000s, that’s exactly an album every two years for more than a quarter of a century. When coupled with a ridiculously heavy touring schedule, it makes one tired just thinking about it.
Drummer Shaun Drover has ‘only’ been in the band for a relatively brief seven years, but he has already been involved in three studio albums, at least two live album and countless live shows. He believes it’s simply a case of everyone in the band having the same level of commitment and dedication to the cause and being on the same page. Plus the fact that the constant creation of new music keeps things fresh for a band that have been around for so long.
“We all have the same drive,” Shaun states, “obviously we tour a great deal to support every release that we do. I just think it’s wise to do that (constantly release new material), because you don’t want to become a nostalgia act, where you keep going on tour, keep playing the hits. For us, we always celebrate our past but we’re always looking into the ‘now’. We’re current, we never rest on our laurels, we’re always trying to create a better record every time.”
The band are set to release their thirteenth studio album, titled, strangely enough, Thirteen. It’s another rabid collection of blistering metal tunes that stays true to the band’s roots and is sure to keep long standing fans happy, whilst being modern enough to keep increasing their ever-expanding fan base. It’s always a fine line to walk, but Shaun and the band are ecstatic with the results and ultimately prefer not to over think such things. “Modern, or not modern, it’s funny because in all the interviews I’ve been doing, some people say it sounds modern, and some journos say ‘wow it really sounds like some of the old stuff!’” he laughs.
“For me, it’s just a new batch of metal songs,” he explains, “the production value of it is a current production, because we’re in current times. We kinda go the same way every record, and that’s just create the best heavy metal songs that we can, and hope that our fans and journalists alike will like it as much as we did creating it.
“We really didn’t have a lot of time to do this record,” he continues, “we made the choice, we had about a nine to ten week break between tour legs, and we had a bunch of musical ideas already. So we said ‘let’s go in and cut an album at this time. And thankfully for all of us it was a very easy record to do for some weird reason…it was a very seamless record to make. It was a real blast making this record.”
Megadeth begin the Thirteen tour shortly in South and Central America, and these dates take them through to the end of the year. Early 2012 sees them headlining the massive Gigantour festival jaunt across North America alongside Motorhead, Lacuna Coil and Volbeat. But, never strangers to our shores, Shaun is extremely confident that the band will be heading Down Under in the next twelve months or so: “Well, as you know we always go to Australia with every release that we do,” he says, “it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.
“I don’t know at this point because I don’t know what our tour schedule is for next year beyond doing the Gigantour festival in America in January. But you know we’re going to go to Europe, you know we’re going to go to Australia, we’re going to go to Japan, we’re going to go everywhere we can just like we always do. Obviously we have an amazing fan base in Australia, so the logical answer is yes, we’ll be back.”
And the metalheads of Aussie will be waiting.