Megadeth chose Lamb Of God drummer Chris Adler to play on their upcoming album as they wanted to excite fans, according to mainman Dave Mustaine.
And he reports that although he talked with some big-name sticksmen following the departure of Shawn Drover last year, he didn’t want to go for a predictable choice.
Mustaine tells Rolling Stone: “Our hopes were to have a permanent drummer but the option to do a record with Chris was really exciting to me.
“We’ve looked at a lot of people. I talked with my friend Mike Portnoy, who I think is an amazing talent, and I talked to Dave Lombardo. Mike Mangini’s name has come up.
“But there was just something telling me to pause, saying, ‘Really think about who you’re gonna play with, Mustaine. Make sure you’re going to do something that’s really going to excite people and that it’s not predictable.’”
Adler won’t take to the road with the thrash giants in the future but Mustaine says that’s been taken care of, adding: “We have a drummer committed to our dates so far this year.”
Mustaine, Adler, bassist David Ellefson and guitarist Kiko Loureiro have been working on the follow-up to 2013’s Super Collider just outside of Nashville. And Mustaine reveals some of the names of the tracks they’re recording.
He continues: “There’s a song called The Emperor Has No Clothes and another called Tyranocide. Several have working titles but I don’t want to say what they are.”
He also confirms two of the 15 tracks are covers of Budgie’s Melt The Ice Away and Foreign Policy by Fear.
Megadeth launched a PledgeMusic pre-order campaign for the as-yet-untitled album. It’s expected to launch later this year.
