FH: We were talking about your inspiration from Led Zeppelin and the Beatles earlier. Are there any new bands out there that has made you "think", inspiration-wise?

DAVE MUSTAINE: The answer is definitely "No". With the Beatles in the '60s, when I was still a child, and Led Zeppelin in the '70s, when I was a teenager, in combination with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, that was really what made me create my style. Diamond Head, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Mercyful Fate, Budgie and AC/DC all added to that. After that, I was pretty much done.

FH: How did Megadeth survive the decay of Metal in the 90s?

DAVE MUSTAINE: I don't know! I think we just put our heads down and did records like Cryptic Writings and Risk and just survived. When Metal started to come back, getting harder again, we were already prepared for it to die. We had, at that point, embraced the "hard rock-attitude" which is more survival oriented, 'cause we had nowhere else to go.

FH: After recording softer material like that on Risk, what made you take a step back to this "old school-you"? - New inspiration or new frustration?

DAVE MUSTAINE: There was really nowhere else to go during that period with Risk. Either you'd keep the little edge you could, and try to incorporate that with what you could do with Metal radio. Our friends at radio were very supportive of us, but not the record companies. We needed to write pop and alternative songs, and what I did couldn't be categorized as neither nor. Like being in the ring (fighting), you can be knocked down a bunch of times and people might not think you're gonna get up. I can understand that a lot of people thought we were finished. We're not. We may go back into a much smaller talent-pool, but we have a 100% credibility there.

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