10 Stars Of Rock & Metal With Famous Second Bands

Dave Mustaine is one of the legendary innovators of the thrash metal scene that rose out of the US west coast in the early-mid eighties. He is the founder of Megadeth, one of the biggest selling bands in the genre who formed in 1983, and nearly forty years later have sold in excess of 40 million records. But Megadeth was created out of heartbreak for Mustaine, who in 1981 had joined a fledgling band by the name of Metallica.

Mustaine was their lead guitarist and in the early days was the most confident and mature member, often having to speak to the crowd in between songs, as James Hetfield was finding his feet as a frontman. But Mustaine played hard and drank hard, and had a violent streak in him when intoxicated. He soon began clashing regularly with Hetfield, and when their arguing one day resulted in a fist fight, Mustaine’s days in the band were numbered. After a gig in New York, Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich woke Dave up the following morning, fired him and handed him a bus ticket back home.

On the long trip back Dave planned his next move, and wrote down a phrase in a magazine he was reading … "megadeath". Fueled by a desire to rival everything Metallica did, Mustaine would hold a serious grudge against his former band mates for many years, before time allowed them to settle their differences. The two giants of metal would eventually go on to perform shows and share stages together.