In the past, a total of 28 members have left Megadeth. One of them is guitarist Chris Poland. Poland recently spoke to Disturbing the Priest Podcast about his quit from Megadeth in 1987. Describing Dave Mustaine’s firing of him as a ‘relief,’ he stated that during that period, Mustaine only paid members 200 dollars a week. He said:
“It was kind of a relief. And I brought that on myself – I was late for a band meeting where Dave was giving everybody their $200 weekly salary for being in Megadeth. And I couldn’t get there. I didn’t have a car. And I get there and they’re gone. And so I called Dave up, and I said, ‘Dave, I need my per diem,’ and he’s like, ‘Well, you should have been there.’ And I said, ‘Dave, I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t get a car, I couldn’t get a ride. And then of course he’s just telling me to fuck off, and so then we just got into it. I dared him to fire me, and he did.”
Poland then said that Mustaine told him he joined the Megadeth for the money, even though Mustaine paid members $200 a week. He continued:
“Dave used to say that I joined the band… y’know, I was in it for the money. And I was like, ‘What money?’ We didn’t have any money when I was in the band! I didn’t quit the band. You fired me.”
Poland Had To Work As A Waiter After Megadeth
After Chris Poland was fired from Megadeth, he had to do what he had to do to make money. The guitarist, who had to work as a waiter despite being known locally, also expressed his irony of Megadeth’s later success. In 2022, in an interview with The Metal Voice, he explained:
“I was bussing tables from midnight to 10am at Denny’s after I left Megadeth. I would be bussing tables on a weekend and some guy would go, dude your Chris Poland and I would have to go yeah I am. It is so weird because he just looked at me like what the Fu*k are you doing here? I would just say hey man I got to eat, I got to pay the rent. When you think about it today it is pretty crazy because Megadeth was beyond gold, Peace Sells was really like a train and here I am bussing tables in the middle of the night at Denny’s.”
Mustaine Announced They Resolved Their Problems With Poland
On the other hand, Dave Mustaine, thinks that ex-members who are fired are very rarely happy about being fired and they bring these issues to the media for attention. Mustaine has stated that he maintains friendships with many former members, including Chris Poland, with which he has resolved past issues. Speaking to RiffX in September, Mustaine also touched on his relationship with Poland. He said:
“I think you’ve gotta look at the whole story. People that get fired are very rarely happy that they got fired. Sometimes they’re happy they got fired because they didn’t want to have to quit but they don’t wanna work there anymore and they needed a reason to quit.”
“We’ve had a lot of people that have been playing with us over the years and we’ve maintained our friendships, and there are a couple that are very bitter, and usually the story has been played out in the press from when it happens in reality and then how long a person will keep bringing up those old stories. Usually, they bring up stuff about me or about Megadeth whenever they’ve got a new project or they’ve got some concerts coming up or a new record.”
Mustaine then named former fired members with whom he had a positive relationship, including Poland. He said:
“The guys that we’ve been able to maintain friendships with, and there’s a lot of them, we’ve been able to discuss why things happened the way that they did. I miss Gar (Samuelson), I miss Nick (Menza). Chris Poland and I, we settled things and there’s no problems there. The second lineup with Jeff (Young) and Chuck (Behler), Chuck and I are really close, and I’ve always said I thought that Jeff Young was a good performer.”
You can watch the interview where Chris Poland talks about his firing from Megadeth below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=5MxgFOlsQL1JJrW4&v=c80PoaIRF54&feature=youtu.be
