The final Megadeth album will include a rerecorded version of the Metallica song “Ride the Lightning,” frontman Dave Mustaine confirms in an interview with Rolling Stone.
“It wasn’t really that I wanted to do my version,” Mustaine says. “I think that we all wanted it to turn out a certain way, and for me, this was about something so much more than how a song turns out. It was about respect.”
Mustaine received a writing credit for “Ride the Lightning,” the title track off Metallica’s 1984 sophomore album, since it uses riffs he had written while he was an early member of the future “Enter Sandman” metallers. However, Mustaine didn’t get to play “Ride the Lightning” on the record, since Metallica fired him in 1983 and replaced him with Kirk Hammett.
“Our intentions were pure,” Mustaine says of rerecording “Ride the Lightning.” “I didn’t have any reason I was going to say, ‘Oh, hey man, this thing that we’ve had for 40 years where you guys will never tour with me, me doing the song is going to change things.’ That wasn’t it at all. It was more about: This is my life going forward. I want to do things that are respectable.”
Mustaine adds that his former Metallica bandmates James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich didn’t know about the “Ride the Lighting” rerecord ahead of time, and they haven’t reached out since.
“I think the whole purpose of this was not to try and rekindle relationships or anything,” Mustaine says. “It was about showing respect to a man [Hetfield] that … I don’t believe he thinks I respect him and I wanted to make that clear.”
The final Megadeth album, which is self-titled, is due out Jan. 23, 2026. Lead single “Tipping Point” is out now.
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