13 Aug 8th-Aug 14th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | T he beauty of rock ’n’ roll music is that it rarely demands to be understood. If you spend a lot of time trying to dissect it or figure it out, you’ll end up missing the real point and that is this: Rock ’n’ roll music begs you to feel. Sometimes it’s way more fun and feels better to let your emotions enjoy the ride than to attempt to figure it out. People (including your humble story- teller here) often try, though, to attach all kinds of meaning to songs. We strive to understand the artists, too, and we’re often dead wrong about who they are as people. Even the biggest rock stars have real lives to live and, a lot of the time, have real prob- lems, fears and feelings they’re trying to sort out just like you and me. It’s really fun when you get a glimpse of the person, even if you ultimately prefer to bang your head and rock out to their tunes. On Megadeth’s most recent record, “The Sick, The Dying … And The Dead!” Dave Mustaine of Megadeth has a song called “Life In Hell.” Upon first listen, it seems like a pretty straightforward treat- ment of modern life and the struggles of an addict, but it goes much deeper. During a recent conversation, Mustaine, now 62 years old, looked up the lyrics after I asked him about the song and gave me the kind of detailed answer I wasn’t expecting prior to our conversation. I had thought he might just give me some lip service and I was wrong. “It’s about somebody who got caught doing something very bad. Caught red- handed. The guy is cheating. He’s got this mentality that it’s okay to live this life of carrying on. The guy is just narcissistic, self-centered, egocentric and when the shit goes down, he has a drink or a drug or whatever,” says Mustaine. This was after he recited the lyrics to me, too. I was a bit blown away at how excited Mustaine was to really dig into the song, but as our conversation continued, I got to see that he’s a very thoughtful and focused dude. A song like “Life In Hell” could easily be about Mustaine’s way of living in his early 20s, but it goes deeper and speaks to something many of us can understand all too well right now. Mustaine has been open over the last 20-plus years about his battles with drugs and alcohol. Substance abuse was the cause of his dismissal from Metallica (prior to the formation of Megadeth) in 1983 and plagued the singer/guitar player into the 1990s. It was in the beginning of that particular decade that he and his wife, Pamela, became Phoenix residents and then parents to two children, Justis and Elektra, who are now both adults and involved in the music world. “We wanted to get away from >> p 14 Guitar Hero Dave Mustaine of Megadeth is back in Arizona for the Destroy All Enemies tour. BY TOM REARDON The man, the legend: Dave Mustaine. (Photo by Travis Shinn)