Dave Mustaine shared in Megadeth’s official fan newsletter that the band’s new album is about 90 days into production.
“We are almost 90 days into the making of the 17th Megadeth album, currently titled, ‘Album 17,”‘ the musician wrote in his message. “That was a difficult choice, doh!”
He continued, “So, I started working on new Megadeth album with [producer] Chris Rakestraw from ‘Dystopia’ and our most recent album, ‘The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!’Teemu [Mäntysaari, Megadeth guitarist] came out to join me right after New Years Eve, and James [Lomenzo, Megadeth bassist] and Dirk [Verbeuren, Megadeth drummer] will be here in February.”
“We are off to a good start.. A trivia tidbit: I seem to remember that ‘Holy Wars’ and ‘Symphony Of Destruction’ were some of the last songs written on their perspective albums… I hope you all are getting ready for Valentine’s Day!” Mustaine added.
In an X Spaces interview in December, Mustaine gave an update on the album. He said all band members were gone, and he was alone, explaining, “Right now I’m in the studio working with [engineer] Chris Rakestraw. And everybody else is gone. Teemu [Mäntysaari] is in Switzerland and James [LoMenzo] and Dirk [Verbeuren] are in Los Angeles.”
Dave also stated, “[It] has been frustrating, because I wanna be farther along than I am right now. But that’s quite all right. When you write original music, you’ve always gotta start at the first step. And that’s what I’ve been doing my whole career.”
“So, before we did this, I had all four of us listen to the entire catalog — every single song; 205 songs — and I wanted to make sure they knew chord progressions, lyric patterns, all kinds of stuff like that, so that they would hear tempos and starts and stops and everything to help them be able to songwrite and contribute also,” Mustaine noted.
“And it’s been really great because Teemu is contributing, Dirk is contributing, like last time, James contributed back in the day and he’s got more stuff coming on this record,” the rocker concluded.
