Dave Mustaine has admitted the UK version of his autobiography has been "vetted" more than other editions – and he says it’s because British lawyers read books in order to find people to sue.
His self-titled life story is released in Britain later this month, but some of what he’s written about people he’s worked with in the US version won’t appear.
He says: "
It’s crazy when you think about making a book. You’re not going to make a mountain of money off it, but you do it as a labour of love. Then you watch all your proceeds go away because of litigation.
"We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars going over this book, over and over, with all the legal stuff that was involved.
"The UK book is more vetted because of the legal process. I guess in England there are lawyers who survive just on book releases. They go through it and look for somebody saying something about somebody, and they contact them and say, ‘Let’s sue’.
"That’s kinda sucked the fun out of the book being released in the UK.
"I’ve been really open about all kinds of stuff with lineup changes, ups and downs with marriage and kids, all that kind of stuff. There’s one or two people in there I would have liked to barbecue because of the way I feel about them. It would have been easy to tell stories that would have destroyed them because of who they are and how they’ve got the public fooled."
But Mustaine says he’s not too upset about not having said what he wanted to say in some cases. He explains: "Water has a way of finding its own level, and these guys will be exposed."
One of the things he hopes will be exposed in the book, however, is the fact that he wasn’t always the bad guy. He says: "All kinds of crazy stuff happened over the course of our career. I was like the big brother who’d say, ‘What are you thinking?’ all the time.
"We had to cancel the Monsters of Rock festival one time in England because of David Ellefson. Everybody knew I had a drug problem, but they didn’t know he had one, so it was really surprising to them. I think it’s left room for more storytelling – there’s more to the story."
Thanks for the report to RockRadio.
Ah well I'll still buy and read it. I guess at least I won't know what I'm missing.