Some years ago, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine and Metallica frontman James Hetfield were planning a collaboration together – and then the project got scrapped.
Per a new interview with Guitar.com, Dave talks about the last time he spoke to James; the two were having a discussion regarding splitting credits. Per a past tweet of Dave’s (posted back in 2017), this splitting of credits seems to be related to a reissue of the Metallica demo No Life ‘Til Leather.
But while talking about this reissue, Mustaine also shares that he and James were in talks to collaborate with one another for a new project. However, as that conversation regarding the splitting of No Life ‘Til Leather credits moved forward, Mustaine said something that really got under James Hetfield’s skin. Per Dave, this is what went down:
“There’s three sides to every story, right. There’s my side, there would be the other person’s side, and then there would be the truth which is somewhere right in the middle. You know, oddly enough that was one of the last conversations I ever had with James Hetfield because we were talking about getting back together and doing a project.
Something had come up about the publishing discrepancy that we have been arguing about for years and years and years, and I told James, ‘I’ll do it but we’ve got to get this stuff sorted out first’. And he said, ‘Oh yeah, sure’.
“So I said, ‘Now these two songs you and me split, 50/50. Lars didn’t write on this song – you know that. I don’t know why you gave him percentages but I’m not. I’m not going to sign another deal that’s gonna confirm that because I never agreed to that’.”
“And James said, ‘Well, Lars has a different recollection of that,’ and I said that’s fine; there’s his side of the story, my side and the truth is somewhere. And that blew his mind, and we haven’t talked since.
You know, I was trying to be really friendly with him; he told me that the last three projects they did bombed, and they wanted to go back and use all the stuff that I was on, and I said sure. As soon as I said that ‘three stories’ bit, it was over!”
Damn, we were so close to hearing a Dave Mustaine and Metallica collaboration! Apparently, that collaboration is something that Dave still wants! Would you be excited to hear Dave Mustaine join forces with Metallica?
Dave Mustaine Has Been Secretly Hoping To Collab With James Hetfield
