Earlier this year, Dave Mustaine said that it's "likely" he and Metallica's James Hetfield will one day write music together again. "I have been secretly hoping there'd be a day where James [Hetfield] and I can write together again," Mustaine told VWMusic back in September.
Well, it turns out the Megadeth frontman was keeping another secret from fans — allegedly, he and Hetfield already had "a project" in the works.
In a new interview with Guitar.com, Mustaine revealed that he and his former Metallica bandmate were at one point planning a joint endeavor of some sort, but things got derailed after Mustaine offended Hetfield with a comment about publishing royalties, and they haven't spoken since.
Mustaine brought up the topic when he was asked if his "outspoken" reputation had hindered his career in any way. From there, he dove into an anecdote about the fraught conversation he had with Hetfield, and casually dropped in the little nugget that the two of them were planning something new together.
"There's three sides to every story, right," Mustaine began. "There's my side, there would be the other person's side, and then there would be the truth which is somewhere right in the middle. You know, oddly enough that was one of the last conversations I ever had with James Hetfield, because we were talking about getting back together and doing a project.
"Something had come up about the publishing discrepancy that we have been arguing about for years and years and years, and I told James, 'I'll do it but we've got to get this stuff sorted out first'. And he said, 'Oh yeah, sure.'"
"So I said, 'Now these two songs you and me split, 50/50. Lars didn't write on this song — you know that. I don't know why you gave him percentages but I'm not. I'm not going to sign another deal that's gonna confirm that because I never agreed to that'.
"And James said, 'Well, Lars has a different recollection of that,' and I said that's fine; there's his side of the story, my side and the truth is somewhere. And that blew his mind, and we haven't talked since.
"You know, I was trying to be really friendly with him; he told me that the last three projects they did bombed, and they wanted to go back and use all the stuff that I was on, and I said sure. As soon as I said that 'three stories' bit, it was over!"
It's unclear exactly which publishing royalties Mustaine was talking about here, but as Blabbermouth notes, it likely had to do with songs on Metallica's 1982 demo tape, No Life 'Til Leather, which was reissued for Record Store Day in 2015. That project included tracks from Metallica's early catalog, many of which were co-written by Mustaine when he was still in the band.
As for the new "project" that he and Hetfield were planning, that's also a complete question mark. He didn't specify whether it was a new band, an album, a song, or even a reissue of old Metallica material, but given Mustaine's recent comments about wanting to write with Hetfield again, it certainly seems possible that a fresh collaboration of some kind was on the table not too long ago. Who knows if it'll ever happen.
