Calling Megadeth’s debut, 1985’s Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good!a “landmark” album isn’t hyperbole – it’s a fact. It’s a lynchpin of trash metal – and it served as a proper picking of oneself up off the deck for Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine, who had been fired from Metallica in 1983.
The story of the Metallica-related chip on Mustaine’s shoulder has been beaten like a dead horse. But former Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland sees it a bit differently.
“You know what? Maybe twice in the whole time I’ve known Dave has he ever said anything about Metallica,” he says. If you believe Poland, as far as “the looming specter of Metallica” goes, there’s not much to tell – aside from the fact that several songs from Killing Is My Business were originally intended for Metallica, namely the album’s most notable track, Mechanix.
Poland was incredibly new to Megadeth at the time, meaning Mustaine was very much in control.
“I kind of knew the songs,” Poland says. “Dave took care of the rhythm parts, and mostly, I just did solos. But if it wasn’t for a friend of the band who took Dave aside and said, “You need to give Chris more solos,” I wouldn’t have had those solos!”
If total control over an album’s guitar approach sounds like “on-brand-Mustaine,” that’s because it is. But Poland comes to Mustaine’s defense. “I’d only been in the band for maybe two weeks,” he says. “I’d just met Dave; I was learning the songs. We didn’t have a lot of money. We did the best we could under the circumstances.”
Money was indeed a factor for Megadeth in ’85. The reported budget for Killing Is My Business ranges from $6,000 to $8,000 (Poland says it was $6,000), and to be fair, for such a tiny sum, Mustaine and company could’ve done a whole lot worse.
“It was a blur, man,” Poland says. “Guitar tone wasn’t even a thought. Dave just took a Marshall and dimed it! He had a B.C. Rich Bich that had a 25dB boost. He’d just crank that up and punish that Marshall. And I just took a Rockman and plugged it into the front of a non-Master Volume Marshall.”
In terms of tracking, Poland says Mustaine would be “pissed if I wasn’t doing pull-offs when he was. If he was doing a pull-off when he was doing rhythm parts, we both had to; otherwise, we wouldn’t be simulating double tracking.”
But what really made tracks like Rattleheadwhich Poland feels is the album’s standout, unique – and difficult for future Megadeth guitarists to follow – was a freak high-school-era injury to Poland’s hand.
“I cut my hand on the glass of a 200lb oak door coming at me,” he says. “I put both my hands up, my hand hit the glass, and it broke. My hand got totally trashed. I looked down and could see the bone of my pointer finger. I lost the ability to bend that, and I can’t feel my pinky from nerve damage. It drove me to play how I play.”
Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good! – not-so-killer budget and all – went on to become a classic, boosting the launch and subsequent commercialization of the genre – but Poland wasn’t around to see it firsthand. He stuck around for one more album, 1986’s Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?before egos and substances got in the way. He has no regrets.
“I wouldn’t want to change anything,” he says. “What happened is what happened. I remember just how good those first two records are – but that first record was groundbreaking. I’m just proud to have been a part of it.”
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