My Life With Deth (20 page)

Dave told me that he wanted to assign the catalog to me, so we met in a Starbucks by my house in Scottsdale. He had a stack of paperwork with him detailing the catalog from Capitol Records, which he wanted me to remaster and reissue. My heart wasn’t in it, though. I knew that if Megadeth no longer worked, I wouldn’t have an income to sustain my family. I had to move on to new endeavors as the breadwinner of my home. I was very freaked out and still in a state of shock, and I now knew what Marty felt like when he was done. I told Dave, “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to live out my dream,” meaning, “Thank you for our partnership over the years.”

As the day went on, however, I became more and more angry with his decision to leave the group, and after seeing him at a meeting a few hours later I angrily told him, “If you’re getting on with your life, then I’m getting on with mine.” They were very harsh, tense words and I got in my car and drove off.

A THOUGHT

Change—The Ultimate Leap of Faith

While change can be liberating, it can also be scary. Ironically, my life in a rock ’n’ roll band was nothing but constant change, and I experienced it together with my band of brothers. But when change comes upon you without asking for it, that is a whole other story. Especially when this first big change of my adult life made me question everything I had known from the previous eighteen years, as a member of a successful heavy metal band.

Fortunately, God seems to make a way when there seems to be no other way. Those were the moments when all I had to back me up was hope that it would somehow work out, and faith that it actually would. Seemingly, that was all that was required to start a new life.

“If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people?”

—1 Corinthians 6:1

A
s I look back on my life so far, it’s pretty clear to me that when I unhooked myself from the train of consequences that was Megadeth, I embarked on a new journey that was sober, mature, responsible, stable, and, finally, adult.

The first thing I did was start looking for jobs. Fender had called me about a possible bass amp product manager job, which I wasn’t really equipped for. Also they wanted me in the office full-time, with no time for any future tours. At this exact same time, Alice Cooper’s camp called to ask if I wanted to play bass with them for an upcoming tour. As much as I appreciated Alice’s offer, I also realized that I needed to be with my family during this season of my life, as I might very well wake up on a tour bus at the age of fifty, and have completely missed my kids growing up. I had to stay the course of being responsible for providing for my family, even if that meant sacrificing my dreams of music and rock stardom.

I then considered a career as a producer, but I didn’t relish the idea
of being stuck in a studio for the rest of my life. I did, however, produce three songs for the band Numm out of Minneapolis, which included a friend of mine, Dale Steele, in their lineup. Nothing happened with that band or the demos, though. I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for a career flying around the country, producing unsigned bands. I also spoke to Monte Conner at Roadrunner Records, investigating an A&R role with them, and that didn’t materialize either, but Roadrunner did ask me to go and do some writing with their band Dry Kill Logic. This was an eye-opening experience for me, musically and with the music business. By and large it helped me open up dialogues with current record companies, managers, agents, and publishers.

At this time there was a wave of modern heavy metal where all the bands tuned down, which was a different sound from that of traditional metal bands like Megadeth who tuned to the standard concert pitch of A440. It was funny writing with the Dry Kill Logic guys, who were all ten years younger than me, tuned down to A# and all these other whacked-out tunings. All of a sudden I realized that I was the old guy in the room. I got hip to the sound, though, because it was really a great thing to be exposed to.

All the old rules of thrash metal, which I’d lived with, had gone out the window, and it was so liberating. I started breaking out my old riff tapes of unused material from as far back as
Countdown to Extinction
and playing them in a new tuning, and they sounded completely fresh. I had a whole new palette of creativity on the same fingerboard that I’d been playing for twenty years. It was like learning to paint all over again.

But apart from those inspirations, I felt as if I had nothing going on career-wise with any real substance or momentum. I was really angry about it all and not a pleasant guy to be around during this time. I felt as if my whole rock star dream had been taken away from me. I know it sounds selfish, because to most, I had already achieved the dream. But I struggled with the reality that the decision to change my life had been made for me, rather than something that I had a hand in, and that bothered
me. I knew that playing music professionally was still my calling, and I’d certainly laid the groundwork for a successful legacy. The trick was doing it while still being able to provide for my family. There were a lot of growing pains during this period and I just had to man up and deal with them.

My marriage was put under some strain, because there were now financial issues and because my whole identity was different. Previously, any time a kid in a heavy metal T-shirt came up to me in a grocery store and asked for an autograph, I’d go into rock star mode. Now I wasn’t a star anymore, and had to work like everybody else. It was tough for my ego, I’ll admit, although it was refreshing to drop all the celebrity airs and go back to being the salt-of-the-earth guy from the farm that I used to be. It was a great ideal, but sometimes a difficult reality.

Finally, after consulting with record labels on A&R jobs and producing, I considered another behind-the-scenes role in the industry, that of artist relations for a musical instrument manufacturer. I had dealt with many of the people in these positions for my own endorsements, so I felt that a role on the other side of the corporate desk might be a good fit for me.

I called a buddy who formerly worked for Ampeg, a brand I had previously used on the
Youthanasia
cycle. His name was Tony Moscal and he was now working with Peavey. Coincidentally, I was currently endorsed by Peavey for my bass amplification. Suddenly, I felt a surge of hope.

Tony made the referral for me, and Peavey’s president, Mary Peavey, called me up and said they were very excited about the possibility of working with me, which put a spring in my step, because until that moment I’d really felt like a man without a country. I flew down to meet with Mary and Tony for my interview, which back then involved part of the trip flying on a small and turbulent turboprop plane to arrive at their headquarters in Meridian, Mississippi. Mind you, this was something of a change for a guy who had been accustomed to flying
around the world in jumbo jets, either business or first class, for the past fifteen years.

I arrived at Peavey and the owner, Hartley Peavey, had his own aircraft hangar, which was impressive. I think they liked that they were hiring a guy who had been around the world and knew the industry. By the way, this was the first time I had ever prepared a résumé! I made a three- or four-page document with everything on it that I had ever done professionally, and apart from the creative side it struck me that pretty much everything I’d done as a rock star could be summed up as marketing, whether it was promoting the band through interviews, Internet promotions, and so on. I really had a knack for marketing, it seemed, although I’d always looked with disdain upon salesmen and these slimy corporate marketing guys who I’d see at trade shows and the like. My view of them was about to change.

My job with Peavey was to go out and prepare artists to endorse their products. It was basically a cell-phone-and-laptop job, which I did from my home in Arizona, but I took it as seriously as if I were actually there in the office. I’d wake up in the morning and check in with Peavey HQ, whatever the time was according to the one- or two-hour time difference, and get on with my daily tasks. It was an interesting job, because Peavey was an established brand and they wanted to build a much higher profile for their amplifiers and guitars in conjunction with artist endorsements.

I started reaching out to artists as clients and it was gratifying, because they all took my calls. I guess I’d never realized how popular and influential Megadeth was, or that I enjoyed so much respect from so many people, because I’d been in an internationally famous band for so long. It taught me that the only way to really lose is to give up. As long as you stay in the game, in any line of work, you can become well known for it and respected, too.

So here I was, doing a lot of cold calling to management companies, agents, and even record labels. Some of the first artists I brought on board were Paul Gray from Slipknot, Mike Kroeger from Nickelback, the keyboard player for Kid Rock, and a few other pretty big fish, all within the first few months.

I didn’t have a target to hit. Instead, I just went for it with all the gusto I had, eager to prove that I could do it, both to myself and to Peavey. I had
a new role in life and I really liked it. I was now esteemed as the artist-relations manager for one of the largest musical manufacturers in the world, and I reported to Tony, who was a tremendous mentor to me throughout the process. I owe a lot to him, and to Peavey, for taking a chance on me. Tony had a famous artist-relations manager over at Ampeg, keyboardist Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep, so Tony was very hip to the dynamics of this “famous guy doing endorsements for a company” thing. He knew that a well-known musician like me from a credible band like Megadeth who was actually using the company’s products professionally, in charge of talking to artists, could only be helpful for Peavey. It worked out very well. It was definitely a successful method of doing business.

Once the Peavey gig was locked in, Julie and I once again considered moving to New Jersey, but ultimately we decided that we wanted Roman and Athena to stay at their Christian school in Arizona. It was the right decision, because my whole life had recently been turned completely upside down and we wanted to buffer them from the impact of that change. It was beautiful to work at home doing the artist-relations job. I could stay plugged into my local recovery community and keep the kids in their school. It was a great job and, to me, a gift from God.

I had to make this work. My annual income had dropped to around a quarter of what it had been in Megadeth, which as anyone who supports a family will know is a serious blow. I had some investments and savings, but I wasn’t financially secure by any means.

I was basically a guy who had lost a really good, high-paying corporate job. That’s how I looked at it, because Megadeth was a corporate rock band by that point. The Sanctuary deal was supposed to have kept us all going through 2002, but of course that money didn’t exist as long as the group was disbanded. At the same time, there was no threat to my sobriety. I wasn’t about to fall off the wagon and undo all the work I’d done because my band didn’t exist anymore. It turns out that the years of daily discipline had cemented a foundation for me.

Let me say this. It’s almost as if I’d been given the grace of all those
years clean to prepare me for these changes. I knew in my gut that God hadn’t given me the twelve years of sobriety that I had amassed at the time just to yank the rug out from under me. This phase was just the beginning of a new and exciting chapter, and I had faith that the good Lord would provide. Besides, everything in this world will eventually leave you. You’ll either let go of it or it will be taken from you, but sooner or later everything will be removed.

You come into this world alone, and you go out of it alone, and the journey of your life is really about your relationship with your Creator, and how you can fit into the scheme of life as He would have it be. God was doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself—He was guiding me onto new pathways of life, toward experiences that would shape me into a better person and bring me closer to Him, too.

To me, the book in your hands is about transformations, both good and bad, but there are no mistakes in God’s world. After Megadeth was swept away and I felt like a man with no country, ultimately these became the best things that ever happened to me. Eventually, I found a real peace and my creativity was invigorated.