Dave Mustaine - Mustaine - A Life in Metal

“I don’t have a guitar.”

No problem, Mark said. I could borrow his acoustic. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just knew I liked the feeling of having a guitar in my hands, making music, being part of… something. I was a smart kid but an indifferent student, even as far back as elementary school. I’d get in trouble for fooling around or failing to have my homework completed, and sometimes I’d have to stay after school. Frankly I found this embarrassing. But I knew in my heart that I was a natural learner, especially if it was a subject that captured my interest.

Like music.

I loved having that secret weapon, that bond—where you sit down with another musician, and you start talking, and everyone else at the table immediately takes notice, because you’re speaking a language they don’t even understand, can’t hope to comprehend. It’s like they think the conversation is going to be empty-headed, but it’s not. It’s just…different. And if you don’t play music (as opposed to just listening to music), you really can’t possibly know what I’m talking about.

So joining a band was about camaraderie as much as anything else, I suppose.

And sex, of course. Ultimately, when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll, it’s always about sex.

ONE AFTERNOON WHENI was about thirteen years old, we went over to Mark’s house to rehearse. There were a bunch of people hanging out, including one of Mark’s buddies, who lived across the street, and his girlfriend, whose name was Linda. When I walked into the house, Linda caught my eye. I wasn’t exactly a player, even by junior high standards, but I noticed right away that Linda was giving me a hard look. She hung out while we jammed for a bit, and afterward, having seen that I was the new lead guitar player, she introduced herself to me. Within a matter of days, Linda had chucked her old boyfriend for me. Why? Not because of my looks or dynamic personality, but simply because I played guitar. And I recall thinking, as Linda sidled up to me and took my hand in hers, Hmmmm…I kind of like this.

The hormonal inspiration for picking up a guitar is a cliché; it’s also fundamentally true, as pure and honest as any other muse. And it doesn’t change, even as you go from gangly, pubescent teen to full-grown adult male. That was one of the things that surprised me most about the music business: you hear all this stuff about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll…and you laugh it off. Then you get to peek behind the curtain, and guess what? It’s real! You go to Salt Lake City, the pristine capital of that most morally upright of states, and discover there’s a reason the rock stars call it Salt Lick City. You discover the cliché is based on truth. It’s absolutely real, and pretty soon you’re trying to decide which of the two proverbial bulls you want to be: the one that charges down the hill, full speed, and fucks the first cow he meets, or the one who saunters down the hill slowly and fucks them all.

MARK’S HOUSE BECAMEa place of inspiration and experimentation. One of the very first songs I learned to play was “Panic in Detroit” by David Bowie, followed by Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes.” There was a pot dealer who lived up the street, and he introduced us to a variety of great stuff (in more ways than one): Johnny Winter; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Triumvirate; and, of course, Led Zeppelin. I mean, if you played guitar, you wanted to be Jimmy Page, right? And if you sang in a rock ‘n’ roll band, you wanted to be Robert Plant. Everyone was trying to learn “Stairway to Heaven,” which I actually picked up pretty quickly. But you know what really got me hooked?

KISS.

Man, I really dug the early KISS stuff—not just musically but stylistically. I was not a Gene Simmons guy, either; I liked Ace Frehley, because he was a lead guitar player. I liked the whole rock star thing, and KISS seemed to have taken it to a new level. In the same way that Axl Rose made people hate rock stars, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley made rock stars seem kind of decadent and megalomaniacal—which wasn’t a bad thing at all, so far as I could tell. KISS was one of the first bands I saw live, and I couldn’t help but notice that a disproportionate number of their fans looked like Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders: they all had blond hair and wore tube tops, and they seemed to be throwing themselves at the band. And if the band wasn’t accessible, well, then the guy next to them in the audience would do.

My love for music, and especially my fascination with the lifestyle it promised, was viewed skeptically by some members of my extended family. My mother, of course, was forever conflicted: on the one hand, I know that she loved me and supported me, and wanted to see me happy and successful. On the other hand, there was no reconciling her son’s drinking, drugging, and “devil music” with the tenets of the Jehovah’s Witnesses; they were fundamentally incompatible. Similarly, my brother-in-law Bob Wilkie grew increasingly disenchanted with my changing interests. He liked me when I was a baseball player or an aspiring martial artist (I first took lessons at the YMCA in Stanton, which was located directly across the street from Bob’s police station). Those were pursuits he could get behind. But playing in a band? Listening to heavy metal music?

Uh-uh.

One day when I was not quite fifteen years old, Bob came home and discovered me hanging out in his house, listening to Judas Priest’s Sad Wings of Destiny. He walked in the front door, marched over to the turntable, and turned down the volume.

“What the hell is this?” he said, waving the album jacket in disgust.

“Judas Priest,” I answered, somewhat sheepishly.

“Who does it belong to?”

I shrugged. “It’s mine.”

And with that Bob dropped the jacket, took two big steps in my direction, and punched me in the face.

“No more of that shit in my house! You understand?”

I stood there, stunned and dazed, holding a hand to my cheek, fighting back tears.

“Yes, sir.”

What else could I do? I respected Bob too much to fight back. He would have kicked my ass anyway. I mean, the guy was a professional athlete—and a cop! Not only that, but Bob had come into our family—and into my life—as a good guy. He’d married Suzanne, adopted her son, and generally conducted himself in an old-fashioned, chivalrous manner. This seemed completely out of character.

But as I retreated to the kitchen to get some ice out of the freezer and applied it to my swollen jaw, I had to wonder: Who the hell punches a fifteen-year-old?

And…

What the fuck does he have against Judas Priest?

“He likes to pour Al steak sauce on my pussy before giving me head.”

I WAS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD THE FIRST TIME I GOT HIGH.

WE WERE LIVING IN GARDEN GROVE AT THE TIME, AND A FRIEND WHO LIVED DOWN THE STREET HAD INTRODUCED ME TO THE MAGIC OF MARIJUANA. THIS KID WAS ONE OF THOSE INGENIOUS LITTLE FUCKERS WHO, IF HE HAD MANAGED TO CHANNEL HIS ENERGY AND INTELLECT IN OTHER DIRECTIONS, MIGHT HAVE EARNED A PHD SOMEWHERE. AS IT HAPPENED, HE PROVED MAINLY TO BE GOOD AT FINDING WAYS TO INGEST POT.

WE WERE HANGING OUT AT HIS HOUSE ONE DAY AFTER SCHOOL, AND HE SUGGESTED WE SMOKE SOME WEED. BUT NOT IN ANY MANNER THAT I RECOGNIZED. RATHER THAN ROLLING A DOOB, THIS KID WENT TO HIS ROOMand returned with a homemade bong crafted out of a Pringles potato chip can!

“What do I do with this?” I asked as he proudly showed me the tube.

And then he demonstrated. A half hour later I was staggering back down the street, red eyed and giggling, absolutely loaded. And that was it. Game on.