Yeah It’s going great! We’re doing some festivals, next thing we’re doing some headlining shows in between the festivals and stuff. Yeah all the shows have been awesome so we’re really excited about everything.
It’s my 2nd time in France with Megadeth, we played festival seasons 2005, Le Mans, France at Fury Fest… yeah we played that two years ago… that was a really good show.

You’ve just released the DVD "That One Night : Live At Buenos Aires". Can you tell us more about it?

Yeah that show was film for a DVD, it was recorded for a live CD, it was on national television, and national radio, it was all kinds of stuff going on that night, and yeah we just thought that, that show would be a really good show, for us to film a Megadeth concert so we did, and it turned out really great, we have really great fans in Argentina, we just decided to film there, and record there and that’s what we did, and there you have it, turned out very well, very proud, of it.

"United Abominations" your new record has been released a few weeks ago. What was the reaction from the fans and the medias in general about it?

The reaction almost everywhere that we hear has been great you know a lot of people have been saying "Yeah you know the best megadeth record I heard in ten years dadada…" stuff like that and yeah the reaction has been awesome you know we were top ten in America on billboard charts you know and many places around the world we’re on the billboard charts. So pretty much everybody really like the record and we like it as well also so it’s all good.

And all the members contributed to the writting of the record?

Yeah of course yep. I mean Dave wrote pretty much of all the material over the course of some stuff that he had from awhile back, some stuff we did through rehearsals, yeah of course we made contributions of the record and stuff absolutely.

I heard that you used John Bonham’s drum...

Yes absolutely, yeah! 26” bass drum, yeah it was awesome! It was little surprise that Dave had for me. You know he said "I got something for you", we get to England and so you know when I got there yeah so I used John Bonham’s kit mixed in with the kit that I had there as well. So you know I will use parts of John Bonham’s kit depending on the song and stuff. Yeah it was fantastic.

Was that an original John Bonham’s drum kit?

Yeah it was old 1975, very old! Yeah it was an old, old, old kit, sounded great, so that was a lot of fun, i enjoyed that.

To me this new record, especially on the guitar riffs, sounds sometimes like "So Far, So Good, So What?"...

... You think so?

Yeah, have you heard about that before?

You know a lot of people want to compare something to something, from the past but you know a band like Megadeth, so some people say “it sounds like oh yeah a little bit of "Rust In Peace" or "Countdown To Extinction" this and that "Peace Sells...". Of course that’s possible you know but everyone has a different opinion about that you know what I mean. So yeah we’ve a lot of comparisons we didn’t try to do that, we didn’t try “ok lets make this song sound like you know something off "Killing Is My Business" or "So Far, So Good, So What? ", or anything like that. But it’s just that the songs are a little heavier now then they were from probably ten years now, I think it’s natural that some people are going to think because it’s sounds like some stuff sound like music from the past they’re going to say like you know "Peace Sells..." or "So Far, So Good, So What?", yeah I think it’s normal. But i don’t think it does... (Laugh)

Artistically, this new record seems to be better, I mean the songs seem to be less radio oriented than those we could find on "Risk" or on "The World Needs A Hero" for exemple...

Right! So less commercial, that’s one way to put it! Yeah but we didn’t go in there and Dave didn’t say "let’s write a bunch of songs that could be hits on radio" it was just let’s go write a bunch of good tunes, we knew it was going to be, we wanted it to be somewhat heavy and stuff you know and we just went In there and did it you know, there was no direction like I said we didn’t write a radio hit, we didn’t write anything that sounded like anything else we just went in and did a bunch of songs that’s what we did.

Megadeth has a new label which is Roadrunner now. Why this choice and why those changes from Capitol to Sactuary, Sactuary to Roadrunner?

Well Dave left Capitol before I went into the band, he was on Sanctuary which released "The World Needs A Hero" & "The System Has Failed", and after I joined the band, he had left that label as well, I’m not really sure why to be honest, that’s more of business thing I’m not involved in the record company, meetings and all kinds of stuff like that... But I think that was good that he did. And I think that’s great that we signed to a company like Roadrunner, they’re totally focused on metal and all that stuff and so far they’ve done a great job for us so I’m really happy that he did go over there you know so it’s been very good, they do great promotions for us and so far they’ve done an amazing job so I’m very glad to be with Roadrunner.

And now Megadeth is maybe their biggest band?

Well they got Slipknot and Slipknot is a very big band and of course Nickelback, but Nickelback is not a metal band they’re rock, but overall the biggest band because they sold millions of records, but we were certainly one of the biggest bands up there that’s completely true. Stone Sour, the guys from Slipknot, they’re a big band as well, we’re definitely one of the more popular bands on the label, for sure.

I didn’t think about the Nickelback because it’s not the same here...

Are they as big in France Nickelback?

Not so big...

They’re not big ? Like in America and Canada they’re so big.

Why did you choose to record a new version of the "A Tout Le Monde" song?

It’s something Dave has been talking about doing for sometime now and I think he wanted to do it obviously a bit different you know what I mean? Instead of just record the song exactly the same why bother. He talked about possibility of adding a female vocalist and we talked about names ,and certain names are mentioned and stuff, somebody mentioned Christina from Lacuna Coil and we all thought that would be a really great choice. And all the business contacts and she wanted to do it and she came in and did it. Simple as that. I mean I think it turned out really well. Again some people like it more than the original some people don’t, we did it as the best intentions the song turned out really great, we’re really proud of it Christina did a great job.

The most negative critic we could make about the record is about this song because Megadeth is not as big as it was a few years ago and this song could be seen as a way to become more popular again, to catch the attention of the old fans and also to touch another audience which is not yours, with Christina on it...

That’s completely not true another thing I forgot to mention, when that song was released in America we released the video, the video was banned by MTV because they thought the video was too… I can’t remember what the exact thing was but they thought some sort or part of the video was offensive and they didn’t think it was a good idea so they banned the video, when they banned the video the single on the radio just died. So I think it’s another reason why he wanted to do it again was to give it the chance that it deserve and another reason why and it has nothing to do with wanting to be popular, if we wanted to do that we’d make an album full of pop songs, you know what I mean so much for that it’s completely not true.

How did you end up joining Megadeth with your brother?

Yeah that was weird, as you know Glen got in the band first and he was in the band couple months before we went on tour and they got Nick back in the band for whatever reason I’m really sure why it didn’t work out with Nick, Nick and Dave was working out. So I guess Dave mention Glen what do you think of getting Shawn in the band? So they called me on the phone and I was on a plane 12 hours, 6 days later we’re on tour. And I joined the band in 6 days we rehearsed 4 days traveled one day and we’re on tour just like that. (Laugh)
It was very strange really I’m glad that it happened of course for me, Glen had a lot of time to prepare you know, learn all the Marty’s solos, for me it was just like "Lets go now! ", "Oh Ok!". (Laugh) So yeah that’s how it happened.

And what did you do before?

I played in a band with my brother called Eidolon. We had a bunch of records on Metal Blade in Europe and stuff it was a much much smaller band, we didn’t tour we did a couple of festivals in Germany you know Wacken festival, Bang Your Head festival you now 4 or 5 years ago, very very small amount of live shows. And that was it we just recorded albums, that’s how really Glen got the gig as well, he got the gig because people who were looking for Dave for musicians, one guy said (the webmaster for Megadeth) "What about this guy Glen Drover from Eidolon, I got his record, he’s good... " , and that’s how it happened, and that’s basically Glen the whole wheel got turning with Glen getting into Megadeth because of Eidolon, which is good.

What makes you continue doing this kind of music personally and with Megadeth? Is it something related to social or political stuff? The lyrics are a bit about politics...

Sure, but that has nothing to do about the kind of music or why I want to, lyrics are just subject matter, a good way to talk about for Dave. It’s good way to talk about what’s going on with the world. But he could be talking about playing golf and the music would still be, that’s the most important thing. To me lyrics are of course important and Dave does write really good lyrics which is great, but I’m in a band because I love metal and I love metal since I was ten years old and this is what I wanted to do my whole life. I’m in it because I love this band and love this kind of music and I make a living of doing what I love to do. I mean that’s pretty cool you know, travel the world, get to do all great festivals and talk to people like you and it’s a lot of fun for me. For me it’s all fun you know. So that’s why I do it.

Megadeth has recorded a lot of b-sides and rare tarcks. Do you plan to do something like "Hidden Treasures" like ten years ago?

You know that’s a good question. We recorded 14 songs, 11 made the record, in Japan there’s 12 songs we have the Zeppelin song we did "Out on the Tiles", so that where that song went. Then there’s 2 more songs that we recorded, and you know what I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe it could be a b-side if we release a single, our next single or whatever, I really don’t know but that’s a really good question. I don’t know about that now but it maybe like you said it could be saved for something later like "Hidden Treasures" or a "Greatest hits plus bonus track" something like that. But for right now it’s going to end up somewhere, I just don’t know where and don’t know when. And they’re actually very good songs I like them very much but that one Led Zeppelin song we did, "Out on the Tiles" is  on the Japanese version of the record. I haven’t heard it yet I don’t have it either, I want to get it, I’ll get it but I don’t have it yet, but I will.

During the past few years you did a couple of acoustic shows like in Buenos Aires... You never thought about releasing an MTV Unplugged or something like that?

There’s no plans, but anything could happen. That was something we did, it was like "Lets go to a park! " and we knew there was a bunch of fans around and Glen was there Dave brought acoustic guitars & did a bunch of songs and fans were singing all the words and we were there for 15 minutes and we packed up and left. It was just something Dave wanted to do "ok cool lets go", and we filmed it of course.
But we don’t have any plans to do that, but you never know maybe we could do a radio show in the future, anything’s possible but we don’t have plans to do anything like that right now.

To finish what’s your plans for the next month?

We have on and off for the next year we have touring plans I don’t know what they are yet I think we’re going to take a month off next month there’s all the business stuff to work out where we going to go and when but would assume we would go around the world and I’m sure we’ll do a full European run, not during festival seasons, we’ll do a proper tour same with America, Japan, Australia all those places you know, definitely South America of course we just don’t know when but It’s all coming we’re all planning.

Interview Manu & O.S
Translation Sophia Coss