Dave Mustaine, frontman of thrash metal band Megadeth and original lead guitarist of Metallica, has spoken about the difference between thrash and glam metal, suggesting that Metallica and Mötley Crüe are more alike than they seem.
In an interview with Heavy Consequence, Mustaine explained the similarities between the different types of metal: “The whole thing with glam and thrash at the time, metal had so many different factions and splinters that had taken place in the very beginning. We were all heavy metal.”
He continued to mock the increasingly specific strands of the genre, stating: “And then, you started hearing people called the power metal trio, and then there was, ‘Well, heavy metal’s not good enough because you’re thrash metal.’ ‘What’s thrash metal? I’m fucking playing all over the place. OK. We’re not trash, we’re speed metal/’ ‘What the fuck is speed metal?’ ‘We’re faster than thrash.’”
“Y,know, it’s like metal has become a qualifying word just to signify a certain heaviness of music regardless of what original genre it is they come from,” he argues.
He speaks on the similarities between glam and heavy metal, in particular, using Mötley Crüe and Metallica to illustrate his point: “You can’t really say that the first Mötley Crüe record didn’t have some metal tracks on it – because ‘Take Me to the Top’ or ‘Live Wire’ had the same kind of real fast right hand picking like James and I were doing.”
Mustaine argues that if thrash metal pioneers Metallica had recorded the two tracks, they would have been “heavy as fuck”. But he also states that the tracks “probably would have stayed pretty similar because we were doing a lot of copy songs.”
He concludes that the glam look, which included heels, leather, makeup, earrings, and hairspray, actually comprised the rock star look: “That’s somebody’s impression of what a rock star is supposed to look like. I promise you, if you go up to a guy who’s dressed up like that, who has that kind of an image, and, and you say, ‘What is this image that you’re going for? What would it be described as?’ They would say they’re a rock star.”
