Megadeth's Dave Mustaine criticises 'f---ing lazy' bands who lip-sync at live shows

Megadeth lynchpin Dave Mustaine has criticised “f---king lazy” bands who lip-sync at live concerts.

Earlier this month, Dave Mustaine sat down for a chat with Kerrang! Radio’s Johnny Doom backstage at Download Festival for a chat about Megadeth’s upcoming new studio album ‘‘The Sick, The Dying… and The Dead!’, and much more.

During the interview, Mustaine reflected upon David Ellefson’s exit last year and the bassist’s replacement James LoMenzo.

Reflecting upon what LoMenzo brings to the Megadeth table, Mustaine enthused: “James LoMenzo is by far... I think one of the deepest bass players that I've had a chance to play with, including Cliff (Burton).

“Y'know, Cliff was fantastic, he was a very deep bass player as far as talent goes and James has a wealth of knowledge. He’s played with a lot of people – Ozzy, he’s played with me before.

“He’s not a slouch by any means. He’s been to the top of the mountain and the one thing that he has that we really haven’t experienced a lot of is superb singing.”

Sharing his views on lip-syncing and without naming a certain rock band, Mustaine continued: “I’ve always done the background singing on the records, until maybe about 10 years ago we started having another person come in and help supplement the vocals because it's just not my bag to be singing stuff that I'm not gonna sing live y'know? I sing when I sing live on the records as much as I can.

“I don't think there's anything wrong with using supplements for songs and other sounds and stuff like that if you can't play them live.

“If you can play it live and you're being f---ing lazy and you're seeing whatever happened just a couple of days ago with one of those big bands, and the singer... the tape started and the drummer wasn't playing or something. You probably heard about that. I can't remember who it was...”

He added: “We don't have vocals that are canned, usually what we have is a MIDI click track that runs all of our lights and switches all of our solos and stuff.”

You can watch Dave Mustaine’s full interview below where he also discusses Megadeth’s “really aggressive” new record, his cancer battle, his fabled career so far, David Ellefson’s exit, why it’s important to help new bands and more.

Now read: Iron Maiden's Adrian Smith slams bands who use backing tracks at gigs

Megadeth at Download Festival 2022:

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