I questioned Mustaine, who is 62 years old, about the song during a recent conversation, and he looked up the lyrics. It was the kind of in-depth response I wasn’t expecting before our conversation. I was mistaken to believe that he would merely pay me lip service.
It concerns a person who was apprehended for committing a serious crime. Red-handedly captured. The man is unfaithful. He believes that it’s OK to live this life of continuation. Mustaine claims, “The guy is just selfish, self-centered, egocentric, and when the shit gets real, he takes a drink or does something else.
It’s really fun when you get a glimpse of the person, even if you ultimately prefer to bang your head and rock out to their tunes.
On Megadeth’s most recent record, “The Sick, The Dying … And The Dead!” Dave Mustaine of Megadeth has a song called “Life In Hell.” Upon first listen, it seems like a pretty straightforward treatment of modern life and the struggles of an addict, but it goes much deeper
This was after he recited the lyrics to me, too. I was a bit blown away at how excited Mustaine was to really dig into the song, but as our conversation continued, I got to see that he’s a very thoughtful and focused dude. A song like “Life In Hell” could easily be about Mustaine’s way of living in his early 20s, but it goes deeper and speaks to something many of us can understand all too well right now.
Mustaine has been open over the last 20-plus years about his battles with drugs and alcohol. Substance abuse was the cause of his dismissal from Metallica (prior to the formation of Megadeth) in 1983 and plagued the singer/guitar player into the 1990s. It was in the beginning of that particular decade that he and his wife, Pamela, became Phoenix residents and then parents to two children, Justis and Elektra, who are now both adults and involved in the music world.
