10 Bands That Stole Another Band's Sound

Dave Mustaine deserves a lot of credit for pioneering the sound that has become known as thrash. Ever since he started playing in the California area, the riffs he wrote ended up becoming some of the most legendary musical pieces in the metal genre. It’s a pretty big accolade for any rockstar to achieve that, but Mustaine never really got to celebrate his accomplishments.

Originally destined to dominate the planet with Metallica, Mustaine was woken up and kicked out of the band after they had travelled across the country in search of a record deal. Even more insulting was the fact that Dave ended up hearing his riffs used in some of Metallica’s greatest songs like “Ride the Lightning” and “The Four Horsemen.”

Not wanting to go back to being a burnout, Mustaine assembled a ragtag team of metal musicians and formed Megadeth, where he performed his songs to try to equal his former band’s might.

Attempting to improve upon his old band’s attempts at writing songs, Mustaine ended up rewriting songs with the same riffs he had written for Metallica, with “Mechanix” copying “The Four Horsemen” and “Hangar 18” borrowing the chord progression from “The Call of Ktulu.”

A lot of bands like to borrow from their predecessors, but in this case, Mustaine ended up aping himself and crafting a completely different metal beast.