When I last wrote here about my stupid-expensive, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a private guitar lesson with the legendary Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, the date was still being confirmed and I had given Pledge Music a list of songs that I hoped to work with Dave on. There were a few of his originals and then some Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Tenacious D. I’ll spare you the details about how the night before I was leaving Pennsylvania, I got another email from Pledge saying that Dave doesn’t really know the other songs I listed, so let’s just stick with Megadeth stuff. With that, there went four songs that I had been practicing like mad for the weekend. Fantastic. No need to panic or anything.

On the subject of panicking, the day of the lesson I woke up in my Nashville hotel and all throughout breakfast and the following trip to Just Love Coffee on Demonbreun Hill, I crammed as much Megadeth guitar tablature into my brain as I could. (Well, I had to make up for lost songs!). After a quick bite of sushi for lunch, I taxied over to Southern Ground Nashville and knocked on the door. There was no answer.

I did have a contact to call named Jesse and it turned out that he was currently on the road but would be back right around 1:00 PM. Sure enough, she showed up just as my lesson was scheduled to begin and let me into the studio. It was pretty small with a narrow hallway leading past an overflowing gear room and towards a stairway. Up the stairs and past a landing with three guitars on stands, we went through another door and into the main room. And there, sitting at the sound board with a guitar in his hands and answering emails on a Macbook Pro was Megadeth itself, Mr. Dave Mustaine. I shook his hand and my voice might have cracked when I introduced myself because at first he wasn’t calling me Rob.

Dave: What’s your name? Pierce? Good to meet you. Where’s your guitar?
Me: I didn’t bring one. I flew down here from Philadelphia last night.
Dave: Ooh. That’s a problem. We only have one guitar here.
Me: Huh. You wouldn’t think that, with it being a recording studio and all.
Dave: Ok, Chris will take you downstairs and you can pick one out.

He introduced me to Chris, the studio engineer, who took me back downstairs to get an instrument. Down in the gear room, there were several of Dave’s signature models to pick from but there was only one that called my name. How freaking cool was this?

First Lesson of the Day… How to Use a Strobe Tuner

Back upstairs in the studio, Dave asked me if I had ever used a strobe tuner. I said that in full disclosure, I’ve never even seen a strobe tuner in person, let alone used one to tune up my guitar. But that’s what they use in the studio so we plugged me in and Dave explained the way that it worked. On a strobe tuner, there are two horizontal bands that move in opposite directions when you strike a note. The goal is to turn the knobs on the guitar head as you would normally while looking at the bands and trying to get them to slow down and move in sync. I thought I got it more or less tuned up but I could tell that Dave wasn’t quite satisfied. In his first act of saintlike patience of the day, he asked for the guitar for a minute and then tuned it the rest of the way with the ease that I might tie my shoelaces.

At this point, Chris finished setting up a video camera which was pointed at Dave’s guitar and fingers. So for two mind-blowing hours, everything that he played was recorded and should be arriving in my inbox any day now. Onto the first song!

Song 1: “Symphony of Destruction”

I started the intro riff and after a few seconds, Dave stopped me for what turned out to be the big takeaway from the entire lesson. Namely that all of the guitar tablature, whether from the Internet or the “official” printed Hal Leonard books, was mostly wrong. For instance, I was playing the riff this way, straight from the book:

E —————————–
B —————————–
G —————————–
D ————-3–2–2——-
A ————-3–2–2——-
E —1-3-1—1–0–0——-

But Dave plays it with shortened chords like this:

E —————————–
B —————————–
G —————————–
D —————————–
A ————-3–2–2——-
E —1-3-1—1–0–0——-

It’s a minor thing and doesn’t sound THAT much different but it was the first example of many. In other cases throughout the day, there would be places where I was used to playing single notes for something, whereas Dave used chords. In other places, the wrong notes altogether were printed. I got through the chorus rhythm part by myself though I knew full well that what I was playing was cheating and leaving out a lot of notes. Dave said that it was a good start and showed me that all of the notes I should be playing here are down-picked, starting from the D string. I was also interested to discover that while I butterfly pick for everything (move the pick back and forth, each time striking a string), Dave picks in the same direction for all but the fastest riffs.

Song 2: “Sweating Bullets”

I started out on the intro and Dave stopped me, saying that the lead melody was Marty’s part and he didn’t know it that well. So instead of doing that, we went over some quiet yet menacing chords underneath that I had never paid much attention to before since I was always playing the lead part. Then we got up to the three chord “da-na-NA!” riff that’s repeated in the verse and Dave stopped me.

E —————-
B —————-
G —————-
D ———9—–
A —8-7–7—–
E —6-5———

Dave: No, no. It’s got to be faster.
Me: (Plays it faster.)
Dave: Even faster! More of a snap.
Me: (Plays it snappier.)
Dave: Yeah, that’s it.

I knew the rest of the song fairly well up until the end of the bridge, which Dave did at a reduced speed into the camera. It also turned out that the fast section right after the second chorus (which was indicated as chords in the tab book) was actually played with single notes. Score another one for Hal Leonard!

Song 3. “Dread and the Fugitive Mind”

Here’s where things started getting a bit rocky. I had the intro fairly well down (though my book listed it as single notes instead of the chords that Dave played) and the pre-chorus wasn’t that bad either. But that chorus…

That part did NOT go well. I’ve never been able to stretch my fingers fast enough to hit that third note of each set in the first measure and the third. Dave didn’t really have any kind of magic bullet to get through it, but he did show me a better way to hold my hand that helped somewhat.

At this point, I remarked that this was the first time I was playing on a 24-fret guitar and how I wished I had one when playing the high pull-off part of…

Song 4: “Into the Lungs of Hell”

Bonus song! We didn’t do the whole thing but now that I had a guitar with the extra two frets, Dave taught me how to do the pull off in the solo at 1:21. He also leaves his thumb on the 12th fret while doing it. I had no idea!

Me: That song was a hell of an opener. It actually drove two of my ex-girlfriends crazy when I used to play it in the car with them.
Dave: Really? Sorry about that.

Song 5. “Trust”

Trust was probably the easiest song of the day. I already knew the intro riff, which also doubles as the chorus. The verse wasn’t too bad, it was just a matter of repeating back the power chords Dave was giving me and giving them the proper UMPH! in the right places.

Song 6. “Blackmail the Universe”… and a Fifteen-Minute Break

This was a REALLY tough one. I’ve been trying to break into it for years but could never get past the third or fourth riff. It’s fast and complex and each riff is different enough that you can’t just memorize one and be done with it. But we got through the intro and to the “Appeasement only make the aggressor more aggressive!” bit at 1:24. That’s a really cool sounding part and was on the first list that I sent to Pledge Music.

Me: [Superfan moment] I honestly can’t believe you came back with this song after your arm injury. I remember seeing you guys in Fukuoka, Japan and this was the first song you did. Though there was something wrong with the mic and you had to call over an engineer to fix it WHILE still playing.
Dave: …
Me: Maybe you don’t remember that specific time.
Dave: Honestly, that kind of stuff happens a lot.

After ‘Blackmail, we decided to take a ten minute break. Dave had to hit the bathroom and Jesse offered me a cup of coffee in the downstairs kitchen. On the way down, Dave and I chatted about some other guitarists’ styles, namely James Hetfield and John Petrucci (the former I most definitely wasn’t the one to bring up). During the break, I was talking with Jesse and Chris down in the kitchen about how long I’d been playing guitar and also about Marty Friedman’s career in Japan. I mentioned that I had never really taken lessons and was pretty much self-taught. They said that Dave didn’t either, which I already knew, but I was really surprised to hear the same about Marty. I asked how that could be true considering his days in Cacophony and what they pulled off but Chris and Jesse said that’s what they heard. But he’s still living in Japan and as far as they know, has a TV show and a solo career to keep him busy.

After the break, Dave and I met back upstairs and it was time to pick the next song.

Dave: Did you say that you wanted to do Hangar 18?
Me: Yeah! Do you think we have time for it?
Dave: Do you know how to play it at all?
Me: Um, not really.
Dave (giving me a look and raising an eyebrow): Let’s try something else then.
Me: Ah, ok. Then how about… (started playing the intro riff to…)

Song 7. “Disconnect”

I got through it on the first try, though Dave plays it a totally different way. Same with the chorus. My way wasn’t technically wrong; I was playing the same notes just on a different part of the fretboard, but Dave stressed that when he’s playing on stage, he wants to keep from flying all over the place so that he can look at the fans and not his hands. I couldn’t really argue with that.

Dave: We have a bit more time. Since we didn’t do Hangar 18, want me to show you the beginning of Holy Wars?
Me: Oh God, yes. Please, let’s do Holy Wars.

Song 8. “Holy Wars… The Punishment Due” and a Check-In on the Never-Ending Metallica Feud

I already knew the notes to play the rapid triplet intro to this song and the only corrections came at the end of each phase. After a few tries and much patience on Dave’s part, I got the notes right but nowhere close to the right speed. By this time, I thought it would be a good idea to get an autograph and in keeping with the theme of the day, Dave made a few corrections to my Hal Leonard book:

Dave plays the verse riff.
Me: How you can do that and sing at the same time is beyond me.
Dave: I don’t know how I do it either. But when you’re kicked out of Metallica, you’ve got to bring it up a notch.
Me: Ah. I didn’t want to bring up the M-word…
Dave: No, it’s ok. We’ve been fine for… a while now.
Me: It seems like everything been quiet since [the Big Four concert in] Bulgaria.
Dave: Right. Really the last thing that was a problem was Some Kind of Monster. It was the way they edited that that really pissed me off.
Me: [superfan moment] Right. I remember you talking about that on Bruce Dickinson’s radio show in 2004…

New Material Bonus Round!

“Holy Wars” brought us to the end of the lesson and I would have been perfectly satisfied walking out right then. But then…

Dave: Do you want to hear some new music before you go?
Me: Well… ok! You twisted my arm.
Dave: Cool. Chris will get it set up. I’ve got to go out in the hall and make a phone call.

A few moments later, Chris came back in with a portable hard drive which he plugged into the studio Mac and started browsing for the songs. They’re by no means final, so each song was comprised of over a dozen different files. Chris merged them using Pro Tools and a few seconds later, the mixed waveform was up on the big screen above the sound board. The song itself was pretty kickass and after about a minute of listening, I noticed that Dave was over hanging out in the doorway watching me and judging a fan’s reaction to the new music. Hopefully I was giving him some good vibes and I’m really looking forward to hearing how the finished thing turns out.

Afterwards, Chris mixed together another track that still needed a solo. So immediately following a fight with FedEx over some missing drum skins, Dave pulled out his guitar and recorded five or six takes of the solo with the rhythm part playing in the background on a loop. Finally we listened to the entire song and the four of us all came to the consensus that the intro before the vocals come in was a little long and needed to be trimmed. So in the most general terms possible, you could make the case that I contributed to the new Megadeth album.

But all once in a lifetime opportunities must come to an end. By this time I had been in the studio for almost four hours and Jesse nudged me and asked if I was ready to go. I said I guess I was but on my way to grab my bag, I asked Dave one last question about how he’s handled time management over the years and how I was looking for some tips to apply to my own career. He gave a pretty good answer and delved a bit into money management too. I thanked the three of them again profusely, told them to keep on killing it, and let Jesse lead me back downstairs and out into the parking lot.

Touristy Nashville and the Ensuing Tweetstorm

One of the benefits of being at a music studio in Nashville is that when you leave the studio… you’re in world famous Nashville! As soon as the studio door closed, I raced back to Just Love Coffee and immediately started jotting down notes that would eventually become this blog post. I also tweeted out a picture from the lesson, making sure to mention @megadeth and @davemustaine and @pledgemusic, because why not? I’m not on Twitter much but if there was anything worth bragging about, this was it. About an hour later, I met up with my good friend Jess from when I worked at the radio station in Wilkes Barre and we went out for the ultimate Nashville tourist experience. Well, we had some excellent hot wings and the best Samuel Adams drafts and kamikaze shots that the town had to offer. Plus I actually found myself digging the band playing at the shot bar, despite the total absence of 1980s thrash metal from their set! Who would have thought?

Later around 12:30 AM as I was finally thinking that I’d be able to get some sleep after a total mindjob of a day,  my phone and iPad dinged simultaneously. I looked over and realized that @megadeth had retweeted my post from earlier. Almost instantly, both devices came alive with a beep at least every few seconds as people started favoriting it, replying, or retweeting it themselves. Basking in an unexpected end to the day, I just laid back and laughed until about five minutes later when the beeping showed no sign of letting up. “Ok, that’s enough of that,” I said aloud and switched the notifications to silent so that I could get some sleep.

Thanks @DaveMustaine , @Megadeth and @PledgeMusic ! That was a hell of an afternoon! #Megadeth15 pic.twitter.com/ODyvRLhVAl

— Rob Pierce (@MrCultural) June 6, 2015

As if that weren’t enough, when I got touched down in Philadelphia the next night, I saw that Dave himself had also tweeted about the lesson and my phone resumed blowing up.

Another great visit & guitar lesson in the books thanks to great fans & Pledge! http://t.co/lGxhVCMp0q @MrCultural pic.twitter.com/wkpQMQCKgl — Dave Mustaine (@DaveMustaine) June 8, 2015

What else is there to say? All in all, it was a terrifying yet totally awesome whirlwind of a weekend. As I said to Dave when we sat down on Saturday, “I’ve got to admit… in 1995 when I first listened to you on The Beavis and Butthead Experience at my friend Doug’s house, I did NOT see this one coming.” Total superfan moment.