Don’t send the Devil. Don’t call a priest. Apparently all it took for Dave Mustaine to get over his religious objections to playing “The Conjuring” was a little self-reflection. That track from the classic thrash album Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? was a point of contention for the born again Christian for years, but that’s no longer the case.
Mustaine opened up about this little bit of Megadeth lore during his appearance on the Steve-O’s Wild Ride! podcast. While speaking with the Jackass alum, Mustaine talked about a whole laundry list of topics ranging from Cliff Burton’s death to wrestling and UFC, but one particularly interesting tidbit dealt with the aforementioned song from 1986.
“I wasn’t sure about what effects the lyrics would have on our young fans. And I didn’t wanna mislead anybody. I wanted to make sure if I was singing something and they gave it any kind of importance that I wasn’t inadvertently making a decision for them and they were saying something that was gonna possibly hurt them in some way or form… [But] the structure of the song did not have in it what I thought was in there. There’s nothing misleading in there, and after extensive evaluation with it, a lot of thought, a lot of navel gazing and prayer and stuff, I figured it’s okay to do this one now.”
Megadeth hadn’t performed that song since 2001, with Mustaine objecting because of his religious beliefs. The band eventually changed its tune while opening for Judas Priest in June 2018 at the Home Monitoring Aréna in Plzeň, Czech Republic. And while it was a major moment for fans of the song, there’s another track that Mustaine’s religion is keeping him from playing: the Sex Pistols cover, “Anarchy In The U.K.”
According to Mustaine, it all boils down to a single line in the song. Rather than change the lyrics in any way, he said he’s decided to just put the kibosh on playing it all together “because ti says ‘I’m an anti-Christ,’ and I’m not an anti-Christ.” Nevermind that those aren’t even his own words and he could probably just… not say that line… but here we are. He did, however, explain that a chance opportunity to bury the hatchet with Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx led to the band playing the song at Download 2016.
“We did that over at [U.K.’s] Download [festival in 2016]. So Nikki Sixx [MÖTLEY CRÜE] was there. And I looked at him and for some reason I just felt that I needed to just bury the hatchet with him for something. And I don’t know what it was, but just something made me feel like I needed to just make things cool. Not that I need his approval or anything like that, and not that he cares about me at all, but I just felt like maybe there was something out there that I did. And I remembered that we had a guy in our band that had a shirt with Nikki’s face on it with a red line and a circle through it. And so I’m glad that I did make that amends with Nikki, although it wasn’t like a ninth step or anything like that, ’cause I’m not in the program. But I’d gone up to him and said, ‘Hey, man, would you be interested in playing ‘Anarchy’ with us tonight?’
“So the last time I played it was with Nikki at Download. And it was fun. I don’t think anybody expected to see that. I certainly wouldn’t have expected that. If young Dave would have talked to old Dave, I would have said, ‘You’re out of your fucking tree, Mustaine.’”
It’s interesting to see what lines Mustaine has in terms of his old material. Sure, Megadeth’s old stuff can get pretty dark with the occult themes, but it’s all mystic magic bullshit anyway. If Slayer’s Tom Araya, a known Christian, can do all of his band’s discography without batting an eye, surely Mustaine can too.
