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Story Behind The Song - Megadeth's Risk
14 October 2002
Story Behind The Song - Megadeth's Risk


INSOMNIA
Those weird notes at the beginning were actually the last notes that I recorded for this album, and actually the last notes I recorded for Megadeth. This tune was kind of an afterthought and was almost completely Mustaine's. I was very impressed by the modern sounding stuff that he and Dann Huff came up with.

PRINCE OF DARKNESS
I recorded the eerie middle section at my home studio in Phoenix. I wrote a lot of this tune and overall I think it came out pretty good. We opened many shows on the 'Risk' tour with this one.

ENTER THE ARENA
This reminds me of that little 'bonus track' at the end of the original vinyl version of Kiss' "Destroyer". I like it for that.

CRUSH 'EM
For me, this tune is like a powerful shot that misses the bulls eye. It's way too complicated to be what it's trying to be, which is a sports anthem. We fought and fought over many facets of this song, between the members, managers, producers. I give everyone credit for trying and a big thanks to the Megadeth CyberArmy who did the backup vocals!

BREADLINE
This was my fave tune on the album at the time. I also did my fave solo of the album on this song, but it was replaced by Dave without my knowledge. I showed up in Nashville all excited to hear the mixes and when "Breadline" came up, I was especially excited. The solo came and my mouth dropped to the floor. Where the hell was my solo??? I was furious that no one had told me anything until the song was already mixed. It turns out that our managers didn't like the solo I that did, they said it was 'too happy and melodic'. Well it was a 'happy and melodic' song! Anyway, if they needed it redone, they just could have told me, I would have been glad to get back to Nashville and redo it. This lack of consideration certainly planted the seed for me to want to quit the band. It was like, if they didn't need my guitar playing, I certainly didn't have to be there. It wasn't like I was Ace Frehley, too high to play and not showing up in the studio to record. I did a great solo, and I would have been happy to replace it with one that made everyone happy, but no call, no nothing, until I'm standing in the control room listening to the final mixes.

THE DOCTOR IS CALLING
I complained to Dave that we didn't really have any 'really heavy' songs on the record and that everything was kind of middle of the road. I wanted to be extreme; make the heavy stuff unbelievably heavy and the light stuff totally pop. The rest of the guys weren't too comfortable with that, and Dave and I argued a bit before using one of my riffs to write this tune. This is probably my fave solo on the album, but the way it was mixed, it gets kinda lost. I also don't understand and don't particularly like all of the spoken parts and sound effects in this tune. Also, some parts of this were taken from a song called "Absolution" that I wrote for "Countdown". Parts of that were used in "Trust" as well.

I'LL BE THERE
Great vocal work by Dave. This has lots of guitar textures that I did, and I believe there are some other instruments filling this out. I learned how to use an e-bow for this.

WANDERLUST
Nice playing by everyone. I like the breakdown in the middle. We were really trying to be more than a thrash band.

ECSTACY
I LOVE the drum beat at the beginning!! Jimmy rules!! Also nice playing. You can tell that we were not only metallers, but well-rounded musicians. Dave's voice on the choruses is fabulous, I saw a ton of potential in him as a singer when I hear him sing this way.

SEVEN
By listening to the lack of production on this, you can tell that this was the one that the producers were least interested in. But at the same time, this is what we sounded like without all the sound effects, samples and other stuff thrown in. I used an ancient 8 inch Rickenbacker amp for the breakdown. Fxxking amazing drumming on this one too!

TIME: THE BEGINNING
More great vocals. When I was working on songs like this, I really was excited about the future of the band. This is a classy ballad, but still has the eerie Megadeth quality about it. I love the two different drum set sounds used in this one.

TIME: THE END
I did a demo version at my house that I like much better than this one, but it was way too futuristic and weird for the others to buy it. It's probably best that this one came out as full-on slamming metal.
 
 
 
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