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Megadeth is an American successful heavy metal band that was formed in 1983 by Devi Mustaine after he was fired from Metallica.
Since that time, Megadeth has released 15 studio albums, including "Rust in Peace", "Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?" and "Countdown to Extinction". For 35 years of Megadeth's existence, more than 20 musicians have officially participated in the band, but only Dave Mustaine has remained the leader of the group from the first lineup.
After dismissal, main Devi’s idea was to create more vigorous music than Metallica. Fortunately, the sense of revenge allowed Megadeth to have the world at their feet: the band got in the “big four” of American thrash metal bands (by the way, Metallica is included too), released 15 albums, and was Grammy-nominated 12 times. But before getting successful, the band had a lot of ups and downs. The band lineup changed many times. David Ellefson, the virtuosi bass player, became the first Devi Mustaine band member. Actually, he is really loyal to the band. Although the musician left it 20 years later, he had returned to the band in 2010 and has been performing for now.
As for other band members, the first drummer was Deegon Carruthers, but he left the band before recording their debut demos. Lee Raush sat at the drums instead of him. In the band lineup also were Gar Samuelson, Greg Handevid, Chris Poland, Chuck Behler, Jeff Young, Nick Menza, Marty Friedman, and others. Despite his positive attitude to bad habits, Devi fired some of the band members (for example, Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson) due to their drug addiction. To this day the best or “golden lineup'' continues to be Devi Mustaine, Nick Menza, David Ellefson, and Marty Friedman. Since 2016, the band has consisted of Devi Mustaine (lead vocals, rhythm, and acoustic guitars), Kiko Loureiro (rhythm and acoustic guitars), David Ellefson (bass guitar), and Dirk Verbeuren (drums).
In 1985, Megadeth released the debut studio album "Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!" that didn’t get an incredible success but managed to get major-label interest. The album also has the song "Mechanix", which was written by Mustaine when he worked with Metallica. By the way, Metallica released a different version of this song titled The Four Horsemen". Megadeth's first album also included a cover of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin". Due to controversy between Megadeth and the writer of the original song version, it was removed from pressings released from 1995 to 2001. Soon, Megadeth started the creation of the next album, which was produced on a $25,000 budget from Combat Records. Being unsatisfied with the financial limitations of the current record label, the band left Combat Records and signed with Capitol Records. Therefore, Capitol Records bought the rights to the album. In 1986, the next band’s album with the title "Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?" was successfully released. Its songs are more sophisticated. Therewith, Megadeth's logo first appeared on this album. Almost immediately, the guys started their first headlining 72-week world tour in the United Kingdom.
The third album of Megadeth was released in 1988 based on a major-label budget. Actually, the production took almost half a year due to the drug addiction of Mustaine and disagreements between band members. The album under the title “So Far, So Good… So What!“ satisfied fans as well as critics. So, after touring around the world, Megadeth started the creation of the following album. "Rust in Peace" is probably the most popular album by Megadeth. Being released in 1990, it debuted at №23 in the United States and №8 in the United Kingdom. Moreover, this album received a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance in 1991.
The next band's album titled "Countdown to Extinction" became the most commercially successful. Thanks to this release, Megadeth expanded its influence beyond the United States. Moreover, the album was certified double platinum in the US. After the reunification with the producer Max Norman, the guys followed up to create new songs for Countdown to Extinction. Then Megadeth released Youthanasia, the fifth album that also was certified platinum in the US. After having a break of around half a year, the band went to London in order to work on other new songs for the Cryptic Writings album, which was released in 1997 and peaked at №10 on the Billboard 200. This year, Menza was fired from the band due to his tumor on the knee that needed to be cut out during a world tour. Menza was replaced with Jimmy DeGrasso for the remainder of the tour, but later Mustaine said that he believed Menza had lied about having cancer. Unfortunately, their next album released in 1999 got a failure. The album wasn't commercially successful and got a lot of bad criticism. The negative response to Risk forced Mustaine to fire Bud Prager. As a result, in the ninth album, all songs except for "Promises'' were written by Mustaine. In 2000, Megadeth left Capitol Records and signed with Sanctuary Records(due to ongoing tensions with Capital management).
Released in 2001, the next Megadeth album debuted at number sixteen on the Billboard 200.
In 2002 Mustaine was disbanding Megadeth, as he was unable to play guitar due to a hand injury. While being in a treatment center, he fell asleep in an uncomfortable position, and as a result, he was diagnosed with radial neuropathy. The full recovery of the head of the band was going to take some time before reuniting and starting work on a new album. "The System Has Failed" was released in 2004 and was met with positive reviews. Then the band continued its existence and worked on new albums. Megadeth also released "United Abominations", "Endgame", "Thirteen", "Super Collider", and "Dystopia" albums. Currently, Megadeth is working on an upcoming sixteenth studio album as well as touring around the world.