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grade stuff and look at the tone he got out of all that you know that is some of the greatest guitar tone recorded . Another one is like James Hetfield look at the flying V that he played on all those Metallica records that he ’ s still famous for that tone . That ’ s not a Gibson that ’ s an Epiphone you know . Most people don ’ t know that they thought it was a Gibson . It ’ s really an import Epiphone V not a USA Gibson I didn ’ t know that
When the Megadeth situation came around and they got in touch with you , I read just like anybody that you were for it then you kind of stopped in your tracks , like I don ’ t want to play solos of 20 years of different people from Marty Friedman all the way up , how did you weigh that ? What really happened was that ’ s not really what happened at all . My number one decision not to play with Megadeth , which gets overlooked because I think the way Blabbermouth posted it and after Blabbermouth posted it everybody else posted the same thing . Blabbermouth posted Rusty Cooley turns on Megadeth and it wasn ’ t like that at all . If you watch the interview there ’ s a video interview that I did and that ’ s where all this came from . They just cut and pasted things out of it but if you watch the video interview I turned down Megadeth because ( yes , my daughter ) I got divorced in 2011 she asked me to move in and I said , of course , I felt like I had already missed enough of her life that I don ’ t want to miss
any more of it . If I go do this Megadeth thing she ’ s going to have to move back in with her mother , I ’ m going to be gone and I just thought about it the grand scheme of things and 15 years from now when I look back and know that I was here and not on the road playing other people ’ s music you know when that ’ s not what I got into it for . I looked at it like this , what could Megadeth do for me that I can ’ t already do on my own ? You know most of Megadeth ’ s fans probably already know who I am is that going to help me sell my own music ? No . What am I going to do ? I ’ m going to be on a tour bus for 18 hours a day play a couple of hours of other people ’ s music , even though it ’ s Megadeth one of the greatest metal bands ever ! You know , I love Megadeth . It was an honor and Dave Mustaine was nothing but a true gentleman to me the whole time which is the exact opposite of what the media was saying . I never saw that side of Dave he was super freaking cool . I just couldn ’ t you know I write too much music and do too much of my own stuff to sit on it you know . It takes too long to do what I want to do anyway and if I go out on the road and do this I mean I ’ m not going to get to any writing to record my own solo ’ s and I ’ m sure that will be overseen . I don ’ t know now that I know where I am mentally I don ’ t know that I would ever be happy playing for anyone you know and no matter how big the gig was . I don ’ t know I think I ’ d just have to do what I must do because that ’ s what I do Exactly I can ’ t really express it any other way . Maybe you know I certainly would have gone out and tried it if my daughter wasn ’ t living with me and I certainly would have done that . What I didn ’ t want to do is I didn ’ t want to get out there be two or three months into it and go this is not what I want to do ! Because I don ’ t want to waste anybody ’ s time especially Megadeth ’ s .
You got some backlash about your decision . Yes and I try not to get involved in all of that stuff because you know people , if I see myself being misrepresented or misunderstood sometimes I will chime in but I don ’ t usually I try to stay out of that because I didn ’ t join the band because my mom fell out of the truck and was dying , it doesn ’ t matter what you were doing or whatever they have predisposed beliefs about you and you can ’ t change their minds theirs no use trying to bend to that level . I just don ’ t get that whole
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