![“‘This Isn’t a Puppet Show’: Dave Mustaine States He’s Against Featuring Former Members in Megadeth’s Final Tour”]](https://backingtracksfullcollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/‘This-Isnt-a-Puppet-Show-Dave-Mustaine-States-Hes-Against-758x426.jpg "“‘This Isn’t a Puppet Show’: Dave Mustaine States He’s Against Featuring Former Members in Megadeth’s Final Tour”] 1")
Megadeth’s farewell tour kicks off in February but Dave Mustaine has warned fans not to expect any dewy-eyed on-stage reunions with past members. He doesn’t roll like that, apparently.
In a new interview with Guitar World he has said as much: “We’ve already done that with Marty (Friedman, the former guitarist who returned for a surprise appearance in 2023)… And I mean, let’s look at the other people we’ve played with, there’s a lot of people. That would be a huge undertaking.”
“I don’t think I want to do that. I’d rather keep doing what we’re doing and let the fans (experience) Megadeth music and be happy about it. It’s not ‘puppet show Megadeth.’”
This is pretty much what he said on Eddie Trunk’s podcast last month. When Trunk raised the prospect of former members making an appearance, Mustaine put his foot down. “I just can’t – I can’t. Because, first off, it would be unfair to the other band members if I didn’t play with them as well.”
Megadeth’s This Was Our Life farewell tour kicks off in Canada at Victoria’s evocatively-named Save-On-Foods Arena on February 15. Mustaine last year suggested to Kerrang! that the global jaunt could go on “for another three to five years”, adding: “If we’re going to be doing it for that long then, shit, I’ll be looking at the birthday I don’t even want to think about!”
He has also mused to Metal Hammer that he would be interested in the band’s final gig being in space. “I think that will be a really fitting climax, he said. “And I’m not talking about on the side of a vomit comet. A gig on the Moon, a full moon landing, that would be cool. I saw they sent up a bunch of celebrities into space and I thought ‘Well, if them, why not me?’, you know?’”
That is, quite frankly, unlikely to happen.
One thing for certain is that Mustaine and his merry men have a new – reputedly, final – album out on 23 January. It’s self-titled and has already had three singles issued from it: Tipping Point, I Don’t Care and Let There Be Shred. It also features a version of Metallica’s Ride The Lightning, which of course Mustaine co-wrote when he was a member of that band back in the early 1980s.
