Dave Mustaine appeared at the Kaufman Music Center in New York on Tuesday, September 8 for a conversation with Rolling Stone's Kory Grow, marking the release of his memoir "In My Darkest Hour." Much of it circled back to the condition that brought MEGADETH's touring career to a close.
Mustaine has been diagnosed with Dupuytren's contracture, sometimes called Viking Disease for how common it is in Northern European populations. Tissue under the skin of the palm thickens until it pulls the fingers into a permanently bent position — as though the hand were closed around an imaginary axe. There is no cure. Treatment can ease the symptoms and slow the progression, but not reverse it.
Asked what retirement looks like, the 65-year-old was candid about what he is hoping for. "Well, I'm sure I'm gonna be involved in music to some degree, whether it's as simple as just listening to it or making it. I don't know. I'm hoping God's gonna heal me and there's gonna be some kind of new technology that they'll say, 'Hey, guess what? When you put your hand in this glove and then — boom — your hand's given back to you nice and shiny and new.' That would be pretty bitchin', I think. But I'm just gonna keep trying to be hopeful and play the best I can until then."
On the farewell tour itself, he described a nightly ritual rather than a celebration. "It's bittersweet. It doesn't feel great, I can tell you that much. There's times when we take the stairs in the back, and walking up the stairs, I keep saying the same thing I've said every night when I go up the stairs. And it's like a private thing. I just say, 'It's your stage.' And I go up there and I do my job. And that's it. I go out and do my job, the gift that God's given me."
There is also unreleased material. "There's a couple of completed songs from the last album with James and Teemu and Dirk that we did not release yet," he said, referring to bassist James LoMenzo, guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari and drummer Dirk Verbeuren. "I think those were supposed to be bonus tracks for the label or something. I'm not sure. [So there may be] a song or something. But I don't know."
Mustaine had explained the decision to wind down on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" last December, and it was never only the hands. "All that area there has arthritis and it has discs that are bulging. I've got a broken lumbar bone. Of course, you know I have my back fused, up by my shoulders, by my neck. And just a lot of stuff."
What tipped it was a passing remark. "I said to my manager, I said, 'I don't know how much longer I can do this. My hands are really hurting.' And I didn't mean to set the ball rolling. Honestly, I just was making conversation, and it turned into me talking to the band guys and sleeping on it and talking to my family and praying on it."
The self-titled "Megadeth" is the band's final album.