In the world of metal, few lineups are held in as high regard as the Rust in Peace-era configuration of Megadeth. With Dave Mustaine, David Ellefson, Marty Friedman, and Nick Menza, the band’s early ‘90s output defined a generation of technical thrash. So when rumors began swirling in the 2010s about a possible reunion, fans were understandably excited. Yet, despite some real momentum, the reunion quietly unraveled. According to the people who lived it, the pieces simply no longer fit.
At the Los Angeles premiere of This Was My Life: Nick Menza’s Metal Memories With Megadeth And Beyond, Ellefson reflected on his time with Menza both personally and professionally. “There were some personal ones, like when he first got in the band. I was getting sober. He was taking me out. We’d go mountain biking. We’d go to his house. He’d go to Gelson‘s and buy his orange roughy and make fish, and that kind of stuff. So those are some personal moments that were awesome, priceless.”
He continued: “On stage? We had great creative moments. He was funny. We made, obviously, some great music together. And we were a team back then. That lineup was a team. We all had different roles, but we were a team, and we had each other’s backs. If there was a problem, we would fix it. And it was great. That was a great band to be in during that period. And honestly, once Nick had left, the dynamic started to change quickly, and then it became not that else. And the audience knows it too, and I think that’s why the audience loves that lineup, and that’s why Nick will always be one of the favorite sons of heavy metal.”
The idea of reuniting the Rust in Peace lineup gained traction after the 2014 departure of guitarist Chris Broderick and drummer Shawn Drover. In 2015, Friedman and Menza met with Mustaine and Ellefson at NAMM to talk about a potential reunion. But behind the scenes, things were already beginning to fray.
“Well, I told Nick. I saw him one day in the drum hall at NAMM. And we had connected, and it was very cool,” said Ellefson. “And then I told him, I said, ‘Hey, listen. I don’t know this for sure. What I’m sensing’ — ’cause I was in Megadeth at the time — I said, ‘Dude, you’re gonna get a call. It might not be tomorrow, it might be a year from now, but you’re gonna get a call. Something’s gonna kind of turn here.’ And sure enough, about a year later, I think I saw him again at NAMM at an autograph show, and I said, ‘Dude, your number’s coming up.’ So I gave him an advance warning. I said, ‘Get ready.'”
But optimism hit a wall of reality. “Now, I think, honestly, with Nick, he was a different physicality,” Ellefson admitted. “Drummers take the hit first age, joints, everything about it. Everything about it. And he was just in a different place. He wasn’t the Nick Menza that we knew, the 25-year-old spry Rust in Peace guy. And who would be? You’re 50 now. But his heart was in it.”
According to Ellefson, other concerns slowed things down. “I think it was a challenge to kind of come all the way back around. And again, we tried. There was an initiative from management, ‘Hey, let’s put this together.’ And then I was the one who really put the logistical, pragmatic brakes on it. And I just said, ‘Marty‘s off in a whole other world. He’s been on his own. Does he even wanna come back and do this again? Nick – can he do this again because of just the years that have passed?'”
“And so, you look at that, and you go, look, if it can’t be as good as what we did with Rust in Peace: Live from the Palladium in 2010, when I went back in the band, if it can’t be that good, then why ever revisit this again? Sometimes things are better left in infamy, and as we tried it, we remained friends from it, which is great. But it just wasn’t meant to be as a business plan or even as a next musical chapter for any of us.”
For Friedman, the issue was just as much about respect as it was about money. In his book Dreaming Japanese, he recalled the financial offer made to him by Megadeth‘s management. “Let’s just say he wasn’t even in the ballpark. Hell, he wasn’t even in the parking lot for the ballpark. The amount they offered was right around the first salary I got when I joined Megadeth in 1990. If I’d had any idea they would lowball me like this, I never would have met with them in Anaheim.”
“Had I taken that offer, I would have been paid less in a week than I made in a normal day in Japan. I was stunned and angry and told them I couldn’t even consider it. I made a counteroffer, which was the bare minimum I could accept, and far less than I have received from any of the artists I’ve toured with in Japan.”
Friedman added that despite his frustration, he was willing to compromise for the right opportunity: “I was willing to take the financial hit because a reunion tour with Megadeth opening for Iron Maiden could open doors for me again in America. And what followed could be a bigger tour than anything we had previously done. Even if they met my rate, the tour would have been a huge windfall for them. They easily could have agreed to that, and the reunion would have been on, but they said I wanted too much money.”
Ultimately, the deeper issue was about identity. “I was happy with my career in Japan, doing what I loved, making real money without the kind of drama that comes with Megadeth,” Friedman wrote. “They didn’t even acknowledge they had just lost their guitarist and drummer and needed me more than I needed them. When I got over my initial anger, I was puzzled and sad.”
Even before money came into play, there were creative red flags. In Mustaine’s 2020 book Rust in Peace: The Inside Story of the Megadeth Masterpiece, Friedman was candid: “I’d been in Japan for more than ten years cultivating a career with solid rewards. I was making money not only for myself but also for my management and staff. My manager has been with me for fifteen years.”
He added: “Everything was sound and solid professionally, and when the offer came up to all of a sudden join Megadeth again, as long as I would not be making less money, I was ready to go. But I was certainly not going to take a loss to join a band that, frankly, at that point, didn’t seem like they had too much to offer musically.”
Friedman was blunt in his assessment of Megadeth‘s direction: “It wasn’t like Megadeth was on the tip of people’s tongues, at least not in Japan. I had reached the point where people stopped immediately connecting me to Megadeth and were talking about the things that I had done in Japan.”
Part of his hesitation also stemmed from how the band was run: “Had it been more of a band situation and not such a one-man, Dave Mustaine main-man party, I might have considered doing it for a little less,” Friedman said. “But, at the end of the day, Megadeth is so much Mustaine because that’s the way he engineered it. I didn’t feel that kind of camaraderie, the four-man diamond, The Beatles, Kiss, Metallica.”
“I felt like I would be going out there and tour, and it was going to be Mustaine’s big success. If I’m going to do that, I’m certainly not going to lose money to do that; I was doing great on my own in Japan.”
The reunion eventually never went beyond discussions, and there were never any rehearsals. Fans, however, continue to cherish the history of that lineup and the music they created together. Perhaps that is how things ought to be.
