Dave Mustaine Thinks Bands Who Rely on Backing Tracks Are ‘F–king Lazy’
Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine is the latest in a string of rockers who've recently weighed in on the controversial topic of backing tracks, stating that he thinks bands who use them are "fucking lazy."
Megadeth, who just released a brand new song called "We'll Be Back" last week, spent the month of June touring throughout Europe. Mustaine made his comments about backing tracks during an interview with Kerrang! Radio (seen below) at the U.K.'s Download Festival.
"I've always done the background singing on the records until, maybe about 10 years ago, we started having another person come in and help supplement the vocals because it's just not my bag to be singing stuff that I'm not gonna sing live. I sing when I sing live on the records as much as I can," the frontman explained.
Mustaine thinks it's justified to enhance a live performance when there are parts of a song that the musicians cannot play live, but if they are capable of performing it, then it's a different story.
"If you can play it live and you're being fucking lazy and you're seeing whatever just happened a couple of days ago with one of those big bands, and the singer... the tape started and the drummer wasn't playing or something. You probably heard about that. I can't remember who it was," he elaborated.
"We don't have vocals that are canned. Usually what we have is a MIDI click track that runs all of our lights and switches all of our solos and stuff."
Check out the full conversation below. Megadeth are set to head out on tour in the U.S. in August with Five Finger Death Punch, The Hu and Fire From the Gods — get tickets here.
One band in particular that recently exposed their backing tracks, and seemingly by mistake, was KISS. During a performance in Belgium in early June, the rockers were playing "Detroit Rock City" when drummer Eric Singer made a rhythmic mistake that revealed Paul Stanley's apparently pre-recorded backing vocal tracks.
Fozzy singer Chris Jericho recently touched upon the subject of backing tracks as well, but he's actually in favor of them, and argued that some of the biggest rock bands in the world use them to amplify the live experience.
"It doesn't mean we're not singing and not playing. If you're listening to a record, you go to a Def Leppard gig and you hear 'Pour Some Sugar on Me' that was recorded with 25 tracks of guitars, you can't just go with two guitars onstage and in your right mind think there wasn't something building up the background there," he contended.