My Life With Deth (23 page)

That led to another gig with the Fantasy Camp, a corporate event out in Hawaii, which was much less enjoyable, because I was really out of my element. Mark Hudson, the TV personality, was the musical director and when we were up on the bandstand, he was calling off all kinds of music. He actually had a good sense of showbiz and knew how to have fun onstage. He was really big on playing songs that got the audience rocking, not just songs the musicians wanted to play. I didn’t
disagree with him, but these were tunes from another generation. He was calling out songs from Booker T & the MGs, the Beatles, and so on—and some of these were songs that I didn’t know. It really taught me that I had to bone up on the music.

At one point during the gig, Bruce Kulick (a fine musician who was in KISS, among other bands) was up there, too, and said to me, “Dude, give me the bass, I’ll get us through this” and so I handed my bass to him. I have to be honest here: it was totally humiliating. I was embarrassed. Being the guy from Megadeth gave me zero credibility among these musicians, because they were all older and more experienced than me.

The experience made me realize that since the age of twenty, I’d had a record deal and had performed all original music as a result, the odd exception such as “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ ” aside. I hadn’t played cover tunes since I was a teenager in Minnesota. Now I needed to broaden my horizons, and it was a real wake-up call. Mark Hudson was on me constantly, like, “Come on, it’s the Beatles! You need to learn these tunes! Kid, you gotta get yourself a rock ’n’ roll book. . . .”

Kip Winger, who was a good friend of mine, told me not to worry about Mark, but he was right. I needed to step up. I really woodshedded to get through it: I thought, “Let me pretend that Mark Hudson is looking over my shoulder right now,” and I really boned up. My goal became to get his approval, and ultimately I achieved that aim and it really broadened my playing. Mark became a real mentor to me on those camps and we became good friends as a result. I guess the lesson there is that you can tuck your tail between your legs and run away, or face the music and see it as an opportunity to grow. Fortunately, I chose the latter.

I also played with singer Tim “Ripper” Owens, whom I’d first met in 1998 when Judas Priest were supporting Megadeth in Monterrey and Mexico City—not the other way around, like it was on
Rust in Peace
back in 1990 to ’91. Tim was Priest’s singer at the time, and he seemed like a nice guy. Now, a few years later, Tim was a solo artist and a good neighbor in the heavy metal community.

During the winter NAMM show of 2008, Rock House Method wanted to put together an all-star heavy metal band for a jam at their annual event, which was at a club in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in Anaheim, California. So I called Jason Bittner of Shadows Fall, Rob Arnold from Chimaira, and Marc Rizzo from Soulfly to put a lineup together. Jason suggested getting Tim to sing, which is how that
connection came about. We rehearsed some tunes the night before, but Tim couldn’t make the rehearsal, so at the show the next day he walked out onstage unrehearsed. We knocked out the tunes, though, and it sounded awesome. It was so good, and I was truly impressed with Tim’s ability to walk in and just nail the parts.

The following September, Mark Abbattista, a music business attorney and artist manager friend of mine, called me with an idea. He wanted to put a band together to tour in South America in January 2009. The idea was that famous guys would go down and play songs from the metal genre, in a group he wanted to call Hail! I told him I’d just worked with Ripper at NAMM and that he should be the singer, and Jimmy DeGrasso—who Mark also represented—should play drums. He also suggested Andreas Kisser of Sepultura, who represented the South American thrash contingent. It was a bold idea but one we felt would work with the right list of songs.

In January of 2009 we flew to Santiago, Chile, and put the plan into motion. We had a set list of about twenty songs and, sight unseen for Andreas, we plugged in and tore into “Ace of Spades.” It sounded great! It was so cool. We rehearsed for only a couple of days and did a little preview show the night before the tour. The fans absolutely loved it. It rocked my world, playing to the fans in Chile, and it seemed they were happy to see me again, too. The shows were great: there were six of them in five cities across the country, and it was one of the most fun tours I’ve ever done. We did Hail! tours all around the world after that.

Looking back at all this cool stuff makes me think. I realize now that my early years in Megadeth were not only tough, but they were the ones that would prepare me for the life to follow, too. The eight years away from the band, and the recent years in which I have been a member of Megadeth once more, have been my favorite years since I was eighteen, largely because of the experiences I had from 2002 to 2010, which really changed my life and my music. Who would ever have predicted that?

A THOUGHT

Inspirations

Over and over again, I’ve been shown that some of the best things that have ever happened to me were never my idea. They come to me in the form of a phone call or an e-mail, or I may simply run into someone out of the blue who asks for my participation in a project. I have to chalk this up to some type of faith that life will provide you with all you need.

I have also learned that when someone asks, the best response is yes. After all, they didn’t ask so I would say no. It keeps life fun and improvisational and keeps me on my toes. Isn’t that what living is all about?

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy: I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

—John 10:10

I
n the meantime, I maintained my sobriety, which remained my number-one priority. While doing so, I encountered other musicians whose paths had also led them into addiction.

The fundamental question I ask myself is: What makes an addict an addict? What I’ve discovered is that it’s different for everybody. My sponsor Craig S. always said that trying to figure that out is like trying to rearrange deck chairs on the
Titanic
. You’re going down, so get the heck off the ship! In other words, rather than throw another rock of crack into the crack pipe and sit and contemplate, get out of the crack house.

It has been written that when a substance goes into an alcoholic’s body, something happens that does not happen in a normal person: a phenomenon of craving develops and they’re off to the races. After they’ve gone on a few sprees and possibly been to jail, or gotten divorced, or been made homeless . . . they come to their senses and realize that they have to stop. A normal person would just stop before that point, if it ever got that bad. An alcoholic’s mind will justify their behavior because the lure of the bottle is so powerful that they have no defenses against it, and they keep going back to it.

So it’s a twofold thing: a physical addiction and a mental urge to return
to the substance, sometimes even when the addict is already sober. That is where the recovery process comes in: it’s the spiritual medicine that fixes it. That’s why you can’t just give a pill to an alcoholic and say, “Take this and call me in the morning—everything should be better.” That was what I thought rehab was going to be: I thought they would give me the “don’t drink” pill and I’d be good to go. But it isn’t like that: the spiritual enlightenment and awakening that occurs is sudden for some people.

In Acts 9 of the New Testament, Paul witnesses a white light on the road to Damascus. He hates Christians and he kills them, and suddenly he experiences this light and he is completely transformed and born again in that moment. It’s as if the Holy Spirit tapped him and said, “You’re done doing that: I need you over on the winning team!” I realized that alcoholics and addicts get tapped, too. This can occur through a “come to Jesus” vision or through a slower, more educational experience—in my case, one that took place over an eighteen-month period, from 1988 to 1990.

I came to believe and then I walked away from my drink and my drugs. I had a week of sobriety, then a month, and then a year. Over time I was transformed. We all need to be transformed in order to defeat our addictions. We learn new disciplines to replace the old ones. It takes work: it’s not enough to simply sit at home and say, “Isn’t this great? I’m saved! I’m good to go.” No. We need prayer and instruction and fellowship. We need all of those things, because they form the process of recovery.

Are we all addicts? Well, my pastor would argue that we’re all addicts to sin. Each of us has some form of hang-up in our lives, our cross to bear, if you will. For some it may be greed or lust. For others it’s work. Others seek to avoid confrontation. You can fill in your own blank. I agree with my pastor on one level; however, I think that a chemical addiction lies outside that realm, because drugs and alcohol were never meant to be put into our bodies in the first place. We can clearly do without those things.

In my case, my early sponsors approached my behavior not as a sin but as a misalignment of my natural qualities. This misalignment occurs in many instances. For example, money is given to us so that we can provide for our families and be self-sustaining, but used selfishly it leads to greed, which is selfish. Every one of the seven deadly sins is basically a naturally occurring quality in humans that is abused and becomes a sin. Sin can simply be described as something that separates us from our Creator and our fellows. In other words, we play God because we are deluded enough to think that we know better, and that we can handle it on our own.

We all become a product of our environment. Drugs and booze are everywhere when you’re in a rock band. Some people have to get off the road and even out of the business entirely to save themselves, because it’s an environment that takes them down every time they get into it. My personal experience that I refer back to is the time I got started playing bass when I was eleven years old. Did I do it for sex and drugs? No. I did it for my love of rock ’n’ roll. I fell into those other things along the way, and I definitely needed spiritual help to get out of them and remain out of them.

In the Bible, there is also talk of spiritual warfare amongst us. It declares that this war is fought in the heavenly realms and that it is between God and Satan. However, those attacks are made toward us. Whether you subscribe to that belief or not, it certainly explains a lot of otherwise unexplainable stuff. In Ephesians 6 it says that we should put on the full armor of the Lord so that we will be protected. For me, that is the right approach. I get up each morning and put on the protection of the Lord, because I know from personal experience that the enemy is out there waiting.

When I’m physically fit, I’m healthy: when I’m spiritually fit, I’m healthy. If I fall short in either of those things, it’s easy to get off track. I have a responsibility to stay fit on both levels, so I’m covered. Addiction is selfish: it’s all about wanting to feel good right now, so you say, “Hand
me the joint,” to get immediate gratification. Recovery is all about letting that process do for you slowly what the dope does quickly. More than that, it is about serving others, so as much as I might want to do something to feel good right now, my ultimate responsibility now is first and foremost to my sobriety, which is obedience to the Creator. This aligns the will to do His bidding on this planet. From there, we can serve our other purposes. I do my best to align them as God, family, work. Those are the priorities I’ve learned work best.