So yes, it became a very good decision, but maybe not for the reasons Metallica might have thought. Sure, they got a great replacement who was a more stable influence, and then went on to create some of the greatest metal albums of all time, but it also released Dave Mustaine on a bus trip that fostered his wall of anger and desire to create a band that, in his own words, ‘was heavier and faster than Metallica’. And eventually, Mustaine’s dismissal allowed Metallica to find their legendary status, but also planted the seeds for what became a band that would eventually challenge their status as best metal band on the planet.
On his return to the west coast, Mustaine went about trying to find the right personnel to put together for his new band, a process that as expected wasn’t the easiest thing to do. His initial foray back into the business was to form a band called Fallen Angels in April 1983. This band underwent much movement of players, but two things from its earliest formation became permanent fixtures. The first was the recruitment of a replacement bass player by the name of David Ellefson, who was Mustaine’s neighbour at the time. He came into the band in one of its earliest formations, around the same time that the name of the band changed to Megadeth, and the name stuck. Other band members though were hard to recruit and then hard to hold on to. Over a dozen drummers were auditioned for the band, and three or four worked their way into and out of the band for various reasons. After six months of looking for the right lead singer for the band, Mustaine finally decided to do the role himself, as he had done on occasions for his previous band. The second guitarist's role was just as difficult to fill. Kerry King from Slayer famously played five gigs for the band in the role before getting out and heading back to his main band. Eventually, Gar Samuelson, a jazz fusion drummer, came in and performed the role that Mustaine was looking for. Just as importantly, his former bandmate from the jazz band The New Yorkers saw Megadeth perform as a three piece one night, and decided he wanted to be a part of what was going on, and after an audition Chris Poland became Megadeth’s second guitarist. After 20 months of hard slog in trying to find a line up that would produce the kind of music he was looking for, Mustaine finally had his four piece sorted in December of 1984.
Mustaine signed the band to Combat Records after considering several offers, as they offered the highest budget to record and tour. They received $8,000 to record and produce the debut album, though after spending half of the budget on drugs, alcohol and food, the band fired the original producer and finished the recording themselves. The end result was the album “Killing is My Business... and Business is Good!”, one that had been a long time coming, but was now unleashed to make up for lost time.
By the time this album was released, it was over two years since Mustaine’s firing from Metallica, and the subsequent release of their debut album to wide acclaim, and then their follow up album some 15 months later. This would have given Dave cause for retooling his own songs that he may have had lined up for his own band’s album. Metallica had used a total of six songs over the course of those two albums that he had had a hand in creating, whether it was much of the song or a riff or live of lyrics. It meant that he had to either use whole different tracks or republish songs or ideas that he had helped create that had already been used and would be now better known as ‘Metallica’ tracks rather than ‘Mustaine’ tracks. He had also lost two years that both Metallica and other bands from the Bay Area that had gotten record contracts now had on him and his new band. He only had to see the difference that was seen from the band Exodus at that time, who had only just released their debut album “Bonded in Blood” shortly before this album. Exodus had once been heralded as the leading light of the Bay Area scene, and yet had now fallen to the middle of the pack themselves. It was something that Mustaine wanted to avoid now that Megadeth was up and running.
The album begins with the wonderful piano tinkling with bass accompaniment of "Last Rites", the unusual and unexpected beginning to the album, until the crashing and cascading into the opening riff of "Loved to Death". It's raw, it's furious. The solos sometimes sound like they had been worked out on the spot, but it's good old fashioned thrash metal from the outset. Great lyrics focusing, not for the last time in Megadeth’s existence, the song drawn from the broken relationship of Mustaine’s love life. Is there a double meaning in the lyrics directed towards his old band? Perhaps, but it is the broken relationship that Dave returns to for some of his greatest material as we track along his discography. This is followed by the title track, with "Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!" not only being written about a hired killer but showcasing what Megadeth as a band is going to be from the start - combining interesting subject matter in the lyrics, layered with a great drum beat and bass track, scintillating guitars and Dave's distinctive vocals over the top of everything. It mightn't be a classical voice, but it isn't the screams that were heard in his early days with his other band either. It has definitely 'matured' for this album release, and as it is going to be a full time gig, it makes its distinctive mark on the songs from the outset. The speed of the double kick drums throughout here, with Poland’s solo tracking over the top is just sensational. As Dave ends the song with... ‘you’d better believe it!’
"Skull Beneath the Skin" is another great song that again combines all of these characteristics. It’s an awesome riff at the opening along with the solo over the top. Speed metal yes, thrash metal yes, but some great headbanging riffing that kicks this song into gear. With lyrics ostensibly about human torture, as well as dabbling in the occult and black magic, Mustaine and his crew succeed in drawing ire from many groups for the content both lyrically and musically. For the teenage metal fan, it ticked every box. Then this is followed up with These Boots", a song that I thought was a Megadeth original on my first listens to the album. It did seem a little out of context, but it was enjoyable. It wasn’t until a little time later that I discovered that it was a cover of a Nancy Sinatra song “These Boots Are Made for Walking”, with lyrics adapted and changed by Mustaine to make it more suitable for his band's audience. It explained why this song is a little out of step with the rest of the album, but I still enjoy it. The writer of the original track, Lee Hazlewood, eventually chucked a wobbly and insisted that it be withdrawn from future editions of the album. Seems like a bit of a dummy spit, but there you go. My original copies of the album still have this in its full purity.
"Rattlehead" is a great song from the start, demanding from the outset and laying down the law of the land. In every way, lyrically and musically, this is Dave answer to Metallica's "Whiplash" - same subject matter, same furious pace throughout the song, and the same mentioning of the band's name as a part of the song. Terrific. A great song that is just amazingly fast and performed brutally.
On the first occasion I was played this album, when it got to the song "Chosen Ones", I was implored to listen to the lyrics and come up with what they were and what they were referring to. Both of us were (and still are) huge fans of Monty Python, and it didn't take long for me to recognise the first verse of the song, and where it had come from: “You doubt your strength or courage, don't come to join with me, For death surely wants you, with sharp and pointy teeth, An animal so vicious, no others fought and won, So on the fields of battle, we are the chosen ones”. They are (liberally) the words spoken by Tim the Enchanter during the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, and the whole song is about that scene in the movie about the attack of the killer rabbit. Brilliant. Genius. Hilarious. And perhaps, as much as I had enjoyed everything that had been played to me on this album previous to this, it was this song that tied me to this album, that gave me a connection that enticed me to listen to this album again and again. An album always needs a hook. This album for me does have more than one of those, but this was the one that first caught me in its headlights.
The song that has become one of my all time favourite Megadeth songs is "Looking Down the Cross". It is still somewhat of a mystery as to why this has not become a classic, one that is permanently in the live set list and played with venom at every gig. Beginning in a menacingly slow style with the piano and Mustaine's spoken vocals, before exploding with guitar riff and rolling drums into the heart of the song. Mustaine spits his lyrics out with venom, his description of Christ’s crucifixional demise on the cross spoken in the first person by Dave himself, taking on the role and speaking honestly and aggressively from the outset of the fate that befalls him. While this song obviously is his retelling of the story, is there not just a little part of Mustaine in the role himself, having been crucified by his former band mates and sent out to face his fate? Reading the lines: “Down the walkways, through the blood-stained town, Looking down the cross, bleeding from the crown, Led to stay, to die beside the thieves, Kill the king of the world to be” is there not just a little bit of Mustaine being sent back to the west coast on that bus about this? I could easily be reading too much into it. Either way, Mustaine’s description of Christ’s eventual fate is scored perfectly by the rise and fall of the music, ominous yet pounding, before finishing on a high of aggressive guitars and drums as Mustaine completes the tale. This song, composed and written at this stage of the band’s career, is a high water mark, one not often spoken about but surely one of the most underrated of Megadeth’s songs.
When my heavy metal music dealer played me the final song of this album and insisted I would be surprised by what it contained, it was immediately recognisable. The music was from another song, though it seemed to have missed a bit in the middle, and the lyrics were different and it was infinitely faster. When I looked questioningly at him, he told me that Dave Mustaine, the leader of Megadeth, had actually been an original member of Metallica, and this song was the one Metallica had originally played until Mustaine had been fired from the band. They had then revamped it and recorded it as "The Four Horsemen". This, however, was the original - "Mechanix" - and thus duly recorded here in all its glory, at that amplified speed as well. It's great. I love it. Some have a problem with it being here, suggesting that he should have left it off and written another track to take its place, but why should he? It’s his song! He has the right to record it! And while it feels as though this whole album is directed as a middle finger to his former band, this song in particular has that historical reference.
During my heavy metal awakening in the final years of high school, I had had a number of amazing albums that had been my first entry point into band that became so important to me of the next 40 years. Iron Maiden’s “Powerslave”, Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”, Dio’s “Holy Diver”. All bore an indelible mark that I retain to this day. All of these albums of course had been released some time before I actually heard them and they were not the first albums released by those bands either.
Midway through 1987, my heavy metal music dealer asked me to come down to his parents’ new home, just a short walk from where we attended high school, to listen to an album he had just purchased. Over the past six months or so, he had purchased his first denim jacket and had been slowly buying metal patches to plaster all over it. In this way it had actually become a kind of ‘magic jacket’, because when he bought a patch of a band that he had heard of but hadn’t actually heard any music of, they immediately turned out to be awesome! On the back of this, he had recently bought a patch of the band Megadeth, a name we both agreed sounded great, and whom he told me had been formed by some guy who had once been in Metallica, a band that we had discovered at the beginning of the year. And now he had found that band’s debut album, purchased it, and insisted I come down and listen to it, because it had many amazing parts to it. So during our lunch break at school, off to his house we went, and he then placed his vinyl on the turntable, turned it up and let it fly, all as we scoured over the cover and the inside linear notes. I knew nothing about the band or the album, but Kearo very kindly filled me in as we listened to the album – Mustaine's history with Metallica, experiencing the awesomeness of “Rattlehead” and “Looking Down the Cross”, listening to the lyrics of “Chosen Ones”, and laughing out loud when I immediately recognised where they came from, and then hearing “Mechanix” for the first time and finally understanding the link between Mustaine and his former band. That afternoon sent me down the rabbit hole that was to become another of my real obsessions over the next few years, travelling the Megadeth road to brilliance.
My love of this album can still be traced back to that lunch time. Over the years any number of friends and acquaintances, album reviewers and keyboard warriors have complained that this album is nothing but a poorly organised and produced set of songs, most of which are average at best, and sound dated to an era that has so many better examples of speed and thrash metal that this barely rates a mention. And to this, I just nod my head slightly and say very little, because what can you say to people who either don’t want to see the big picture in regards to what this album started, or just can’t enjoy and album for what it is rather than what they demand that it should be? Is the sound quality not perfect? Is it a bit scrappy? Sure. Show me an album of a thrash band starting out in that era that isn’t. But are the songs fast and thrashy and contain wonderful guitars and drumming, with lyrics that are fun AND thought provoking? My word they are. I love the goofiness of “Chosen Ones”, the ungodly genius of “Looking Down the Cross”, the outright thrash demands of “Rattlehead” and the title track and “Loved to Deth” and the stick-it-to-the-man attitude of “Mechanix”. I mean, what’s not to like?!
I don’t play this album as much as I used to. I will go for other Megadeth albums when I want to hear the band. But I’ve had it back out again this week, and I have loved it. Again. Because even though it may not be a masterpiece like a few of their albums are after this, it has everything you could want in a thrash metal album. And isn’t that what we all signed up for in the first place?
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