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‘ You need to wear that brand of sneaker !’ It ’ s about nature itself .”
Mustaine can talk philosophy – intelligently and articulately – until the proverbial cows come home . And the attitude he ’ s adopted these days is more live and let live – there ’ s nothing much that really pushes his buttons anymore . For example , he says , he has a good friend who works at a guitar company – he won ’ t name the fellow – who is currently pursuing a completely different path than his own . “ He ’ s a Buddhist , and the only way you would know – if you ’ re looking for signs – is him having a shaved head , and beads on his wrist perhaps , or maybe his demeanor and how he ' s always so peaceful ,” he says . “ Does that bug me ? Hell no ! And having been brought up as a Jehovah ’ s Witness , you want to talk about weirdness ? You could tell me that you were a Frisbitarian , and that you believed you were a Frisbee , and when you died you were thrown up onto a roof , and I would say that that sounds far more believable than what I was brought up with .”
Despite the popularity of Atheismtrumpeting theorists like Richard Dawkins , the late Christopher Hitchens , record gallops , from the Trojan-horse-referencing “ Death From Within ” (“ Revenge of patient men is sweet and best served cold ”) to “ Post American World ” (“ If you don ’ t like where we ’ re going / Then you won ’ t like what ’ s coming next ”), “ Lying in State ” (“ What we are witnessing is the decline of Western civilization / Crushing our potential and piling it on , how will history portray us ?”), “ The Emperor ” (“ You look so perfect but everybody knows / They ’ re petrified to say the emperor has no clothes ”), to the closing cut , a rousing rendition of the jagged old Fear chestnut , “ Foreign Policy .” Mustaine never dreamed that – after 12 near-miss nominations in his career – that the disc ’ s title track would actually win him a coveted 2017 Grammy for Best Metal Performance .
What is the bottom-line message behind Dystopia ? What does Megadeth see coming down the pike that its peers don ’ t ? The Brent Elliot cover painting depicts a skeletal armed cyborg contemplating the smoking , post-apocalyptic ruins of New York City on the horizon , a katana blade in one hand , the Statue of Liberty ’ s severed head in the other ( the concept was Mustaine ’ s ). “ What I see is that it ’ s still very much the same – we are still responsible for what is going to happen to us ,” he says , cryptically . “ So what I think is going on with Dystopia – and my outlook on the
24 illinoisentertainer . com july 2017 and even Real Time HBO host Bill Maher ( who ’ s usually on perfect political point with most of his beliefs ), science and faith can peacefully coexist , Mustaine insists . They ’ re not that disparate , or diametrically opposed . “ Plus , music fans don ’ t want to be lectured to about religion – that ’ s the last thing that a music fan wants to hear ,” he says . “ So I try not to bring that stuff up . I ’ ll sing about stuff like the things that I believe in , things that are credos , like the lyrics in some of the songs on ( Megadeth ’ s 1986 sophomore set ) Peace Sells … but Who ’ s Buying ?, which were a lot like Aesop , where there would be a moral and you would learn something from it .”
The vocalist swears he ’ s no Nostradamus , but it ’ s certainly a Skynet , Terminator bleak future he documents on Dystopia , starting with its machine-gun opening salvo , “ The Threat is Real ,” which melds a Middle eastern melody with scathing lyrics that dig into the motivations for ISIS-violent terrorism (“ Your terminal lack of vision / Blinded eyes see no light / A chronic lack of perspective / Their cancer now eats us alive ”). The thunderous title track follows , with Mustaine snarling a warning of ” What you don ’ t know ,” the legend goes , “ can ’ t hurt you ”/ If you only want to live and die in fear / Dictatorship ends starting with tyrannicide / You must destroy the cancer at its root .” And so the
world is – if you don ’ t like the way things are going , then you need to do something about it . That ’ s why I try to always be there for my fans , even though it ’ s uncomfortable , being available on social media sometimes . It ’ s hard , because you ’ ll be having a great conversation with somebody , and then somebody else will toss something into a thread that ’ s just hurtful or not true .” One of his recent thoughtful threads was disrupted by a ( talk about Skynet ) bot , he adds , which he had to painstakingly delete . Which in itself caused an online discussion . “ A lot of people were saying , ‘ Oh , that was a real person !,’ and I was like , ‘ Oh , my God ! You can ’ t possibly believe that that was a real human ! That same face has been on 30 different profiles !’”
Mustaine – who , after playing Big Four concerts around the world with his thrashmetal compadres Anthrax , Slayer , and of course Metallica , penned his autobiography , Mustaine : A Heavy Metal Memoir -- treasures that hard-won Grammy . But the kudo he loves the most is the Genesis Award , presented to him in 1993 by Doris Day for raising animal-rights awareness via Megadeth ’ s aptly-titled Countdown to Extinction album that year . And he ’ s been winning other plaudits lately , too – a Clio for a Megadeth ’ s recent virtual-reality campaign , and gold , platinum , and dou-
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