Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine recently spoke about his favorite guitar players of all time. He reflected on how Yngwie Malmsteen’s arrival changed the guitar landscape.
Mustaine explained that while Malmsteen’s influence was undeniable, it also led to an era where distinguishing individual guitar players became increasingly difficult.
“European guitar players, there’s so many really fast-picking guys, but ever since Yngwie [Malmsteen] came out, everybody else is just a really fast-picking guy,” Mustaine said. “Before Yngwie, when a really great guitar player came on the scene, you had [Michael] Schenker [UFO and Scorpions], or you had Angus [Young, AC/DC], or you had James [Hetfield, Metallica] or myself, and we were really distinguished guitar players. You had the guys from [Iron] Maiden, but then there was this explosion, and there are so many guitar players now that are really good, especially because of the software that they can learn how to play with.”
Mustaine then went on to share his personal list of all-time favorite guitarists, breaking them down by what each player brought to the table.
“So, I would have to say probably one of my favorite guitar players has a lot to do with the era that they came in,” he continued. “And I would say for guitar layering and sounds, it would be Jimmy Page [Led Zeppelin]. For excellent note selection, it would be David Gilmour [Pink Floyd]. For being metal as f*ck back when there were no metal guitar players, Ritchie Blackmore [Deep Purple and Rainbow].”
Mustaine also offered a lighthearted aside about Blackmore’s band before rounding out his list.
“I am not a fan of the keyboard, so I could have had them be a little bit lighter shade of purple and gotten rid of the keyboard player,” he said. “But, yeah, he was great. And then, of course, like I said, AC/DC and Angus and UFO with Michael Schenker. That’s my ‘last supper’ kind of thing I’d want, have those guys with me.”
The comments offer a rare glimpse into Mustaine’s musical influences and his perspective on how the guitar world has evolved over the decades.
Mustaine’s views on what separates a truly great guitarist from the pack are rooted in a philosophy he has applied to his own band throughout his career. He has long held that honoring a guitar part means executing it faithfully, not approximating it. When discussing how his own guitarists handle previously recorded solos, he has been direct about his expectations: “When they’re doing a previous guitar player’s solo, I ask them to do it right and pay tribute; that’s how you honor it. When you go into an established song and don’t do the solo right, that’s a problem.” This standard reflects the same thinking behind his comments on Malmsteen — that true distinction comes from commitment to craft, not just speed.
Yngwie Malmsteen’s arrival in the early 1980s introduced a new level of technical ability to rock guitar and effectively created an entirely new genre. Malmsteen is widely regarded as the foundational figure of neoclassical metal, a style that fused Baroque and classical composition with high-speed rock guitar playing. His approach set a new benchmark for technical and melodic standards that countless players have since chased.
The ripple effect of Malmsteen’s influence has been well-documented within the rock and metal community. Players like Nuno Bettencourt have been cited as direct products of the Malmsteen era — guitarists who absorbed his technical vocabulary and built their own identities on top of it. Mustaine has acknowledged Malmsteen’s role in shaping the modern guitar landscape, recognizing that Yngwie’s talent gave an entire generation of players both a target to aim for and a standard to measure themselves against.
Mustaine’s own guitar identity was forged in a very different environment, one defined by aggression, raw energy, and rhythmic precision rather than classical technique. His playing style is characterized by fast, syncopated riffing and a tone rooted in early punk and hard rock, with influences including Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath and Randy Rhoads. That foundation is precisely what Mustaine argues made pre-Malmsteen guitarists so easy to tell apart. Each one carried a sound that was unmistakably their own, shaped by distinct influences rather than a shared technical template.
That sense of individuality is ultimately what Mustaine is mourning in his comments about the post-Malmsteen era. The explosion of technically proficient players, accelerated further by modern learning software, has produced a generation of guitarists who are undeniably skilled but increasingly difficult to distinguish from one another. For Mustaine, the greats he listed — Page, Gilmour, Blackmore, Schenker, Young — were great not just because of what they could play, but because of how immediately recognizable they were the moment they played it.
