Dave Mustaine has revealed that a painful hand condition was partly behind his decision to do one last tour and album with Megadeth.
The 64-year-old rocker suffers from Dupuytren’s contracture, where tissue forms on the palm and forces fingers toward the centre of the hand, and it’s becoming harder for him to play the guitar.
Speaking on MariskalRockTV, he said: “I just said one day to my management, ‘You know, I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be able to do this.’
“I didn’t say, ‘Hey, I wanna retire right now.’”
Demonstrating what will happen to his finger, he explained: “It’s gonna make my finger come down like this.
“It’s already started, where it’s kind of bunching up a little bit. And then if you look at the tips of my fingers, they’re severely arthritic. So all those bumps make it really painful to play.”
Mustaine plans to have surgery on his hands after he wraps the thrash metal group’s farewell jaunt.
He said: “If I wait until my hands are causing a problem and I try it and it doesn’t work, well then I’ve toured everywhere, I’ve said farewell to everybody and am not leaving stuff unsaid or unfinished.”
Mustaine also has problems with his back, leaving him “unable to give a hundred per cent every night”.
The decision to bid farewell to Megadeth came after the band finished recording their last self-titled album.
He told SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk show: “It wasn’t that I was unable to give a hundred per cent, because we finished the record, and I think we did a good job on it, but there was a period when we were working and I said to my manager … ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this. My hands are really hurting.’
“And I didn’t mean to set the ball rolling. Honestly, I just was making conversation, and it turned into me talking to the band guys and sleeping on it and talking to my family and praying on it.
“And the answer was clear to me that by the time we’re done with the record, I’m gonna know how the record’s gonna do. If the record does really well, then I’ll be able to have one last really good tour.
“And the part about the farewell thing, it’s kind of like the same thing, isn’t it? We’ve got some dates that we wanna play to say goodbye to our friends.”
Mustaine concluded: “The thing is we’re an American band, but we play everywhere. So it’s not like we just are weekend warriors, like country acts here in the States. We’ve got a lot of touring to do in order to do our farewell properly.”
The band’s 17th studio album – Megadeth – will be released in January and they will kick off their This Was Our Life tour in Canada in February.