Dave Mustaine recently reflected on Megadeth’s tour with Iron Maiden. He explained why the run got off to a rough start and pointed to the relationships that helped smooth things over.
“They’ve been really great. When it started off, it was a little rough. Most tours are like that in the very beginning, but we had the friendship between myself and Steve [Harris] and Bruce [Dickinson] and the management,” Mustaine said.
He also pointed to the close ties between the two camps and the tour’s overall success.
“Rod Smallwood, I actually asked him to manage us for a period, so we’re all really close, and the tour has been very successful. We’re going into the South Pacific, into Australia and New Zealand with them,” he said.
Mustaine went on to share how a casual conversation about soccer may have helped line up additional Maiden dates.
“We were talking about soccer yesterday, and I figured, ‘How the f*ck am I going to get some more Maiden dates down in South America? All right, I know Steve’s a sucker for football.’ So I go, ‘Hey, when’s the next football game?’… We started talking a little bit more about soccer, and by the time I walked away, I’m pretty sure we had the tour, at least in my mind.”
Those remarks give a clear picture of how personal relationships shape a major co-headlining run. They also point to the next stretch of the tour on the other side of the world.
Megadeth appears as special guest on Iron Maiden’s Run For Your Lives World Tour 2026. The tour celebrates the band’s 50th anniversary. The Australia and New Zealand leg takes place in November, with stops in Auckland, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Melbourne and Sydney are stadium shows, a first for Iron Maiden in those cities.
Megadeth has also built a busy 2026 schedule outside the Maiden run. The band’s This Was Our Life Latin America tour in April and May included shows in Lima, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Santiago and Mexico City. That history makes Mustaine’s talk of more South American dates with Maiden easy to understand.
Rod Smallwood has managed Iron Maiden for decades as co-manager. He formed Phantom Music Management in 2006 after leaving Sanctuary. Mustaine’s comment about asking him to manage Megadeth for a period is one of the clearest recent signs of a link between Smallwood and the Megadeth camp.
The friendship between the two frontmen is long-standing. Harris has said the band is thrilled to bring Megadeth to Australia and New Zealand. He has also described his bond with Mustaine in simple terms.
“We’ve been friends for years,” Harris said.
