Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has spoken about reaching out to Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson for cancer advice. Mustaine was diagnosed in 2019.
In his darkest hour, Dave Mustaine trusted Bruce Dickinson following a throat cancer diagnosis in June 2019. Mustaine was cleared in October that year, but has spoken to Forbes about why he chose to reach out to Dickinson.
Dickinson himself was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015, after two tumours were found at the back of his throat. He told the BBC in 2015, “I’ve been through what a load of people go through every day.”
“There’s thousands of people every day in the UK and around the world who have treatment for this kind of thing. In that respect the only thing that’s special about it is that I’m quite a well-known person. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve had a really good bounce back.”
Dickinson did bounce back, but his experience influenced Mustaine in reaching out. “It’s not like I have a whole Rolodex of rock friends that sing heavy metal music that have throat cancer,” he said, “so my choices were limited.”
Dickinson was something of a trooper in motivating Mustaine, who had some dark thoughts upon the initial diagnosis.
“I consider [Bruce] to be someone I look up to,” Mustaine said. “He basically told me… surround yourself with good, upbeat, positive people, places and things and try not to cause any unnecessary stress on yourself.”
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“He’s always been super kind to me and very, I don’t want to say ‘gentlemanly’, because I don’t want anyone to think that he’s not a bad motherfucker!”
It’s certainly not the first time the pair have come together. Iron Maiden embarked on a ‘Maiden England’ tour in the US in 2013, with Megadeth as a special guest. Anthrax, Testament, Sabaton and Overkill later joined to open for Iron Maiden at the ‘Battle of San Bernardino’ concert.
It doesn’t matter if he’s aces high, because Dickinson clearly cares about his friends.
