Dave Mustaine

Dave Mustaine is the founder, singer and guitarist of Megadeth, and his entire body of work grew out of being fired. Born in La Mesa, California, he was Metallica's first lead guitarist, from 1982 to April 1983, when the other three expelled him over drinking and behaviour and put him on a bus back to Los Angeles — days before the recording of Kill 'Em All. His riffs stayed. "The Four Horsemen", "Jump in the Fire", "Phantom Lord", "Ride the Lightning" and "The Call of Ktulu" carry his name in the credits, and the humiliation became fuel: he founded Megadeth weeks later, with the stated aim of playing faster and more intricately than the band that had dismissed him. Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good! (1985), Peace Sells… but Who's Buying? (1986), Rust in Peace (1990) and Countdown to Extinction (1992) delivered on that, and made Megadeth the intellectual counterpart of American thrash. As a guitarist his riffing is angular, harmonically restless and full of metric shifts; as a singer he took up a nasal, snarling delivery that no school teaches and that became a marker of the genre. He survived two threats to his career: a nerve injury in his arm in 2002, which forced him to relearn the instrument, and throat cancer diagnosed in 2019 and successfully treated. He still fronts Megadeth, four decades on.