Megadeth Makes One Super Fan’s Dream A Reality
As part of PledgeMusic's new series Pledger Stories, we hear the personal account of a Megadeth superfan who traveled to Nashville to spend a day in the studio with the metal band to listen to early mixes, get a personal guitar lesson, and even record.
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Guest Post from PledgeMusic
The joy of the PledgeMusic experience is the fostering of real, meaningful engagement between the artist and fan. Pledger Stories, our newest series of posts on the Pledge blog, allows various super fans to share their own powerful stories of connection. In our latest entry, metal heavyweights Megadeth give a super fan an incredible day in the studio — from sharing stories over sushi to a personal guitar lesson to an early listen to mixes and even a chance to record some guitar tracks!
My name is Milan and I am a lawyer in London, England. Ever since I became a fan of Megadeth in 1992, I have listened to every album and seen the band live 25 times in six countries. The combination of ferocious guitar riffs/solos, powerful bass lines, pounding drums and commanding vocals left me pressing the “repeat” button on my music player. Also I found the lyrics and how the songs were structured to be very clever.
As the band entered the studio to record their next album, I was thrilled to see the announcement by PledgeMusic about various opportunities to interact with Megadeth. I play the guitar and pledged two items: time in the studio and a guitar lesson from Dave Mustaine. So, I travelled over 4,000 miles to join Megadeth in the studio just outside Nashville in May 2015.
The studio, Lattitude Studio South, was a lovely place. It reminded me of a cozy house in the English countryside! As I entered the studio I was struck by how warm and relaxed the atmosphere was. I met Dave Mustaine, Kiko Loureiro and other great guys and was made to feel very welcome. Nothing was too much trouble, and we all had a good chat over sushi. Kiko was so nice in offering to take pictures. I walked in thinking the day would be about Megadeth, and I’d be an interested observer in the background, which I would have been happy with. Instead the day was somewhat centered around me!
Dave kindly asked me to join him at the huge console system in order to show me how the recording was being done. As I love technology, I enjoyed learning about how the different instruments were recorded digitally. The recording process was a lot more complex than I thought it would be, but it was still fascinating. What was really cool was that I even helped with the recording of some lead guitar parts played by Kiko! As corny as it may sound, I did feel “at home”. I was in my element hanging out with everyone, listening to metal and being immersed in the recording process. I sat back in my chair and wondered, "Why on earth did I become a lawyer instead of a musician or studio engineer?!”
If the studio time wasn’t fantastic enough, Dave also taught me the solo to “1000 Times Goodbye”" and the whole of “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due.” And yes, I was using one of his Dean guitars, which was great to play. Unfortunately I was out of practice and kept making mistake after mistake, but Dave was very patient and encouraging. I was so inspired by this guitar lesson that when I returned to London, I made more time to play my guitar and write music. After spending a few hours playing the guitar and hanging out with Dave Mustaine, you may be curious to know what kind of person he is. Well, Dave’s extremely intelligent, funny, genuine and generous with his time.
Megadeth’s new album is called ‘Dystopia’ and I fortunately got to listen to a rough mix of it. With every song either my jaw dropped, shivers went down my spine or the hairs stood up on the back of my arms. The new album sounded amazing. I was wondering if this was going to be Megadeth’s best album ever. In fact, I felt a bit dorky standing in the middle of the studio nodding and playing a little bit of air guitar but I couldn’t help it!
In summary, this PledgeMusic opportunity was outstanding on many levels. I am very grateful to Megadeth, everyone else I met and PledgeMusic for making this an amazing experience.
I know how he feels….I had that opportunity many years ago…and in Nashville!