During a recent interview with Songfacts, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine further discussed recent comments he made regarding a scrapped project he was working on with his former Metallica bandmate James Hetfield. The venture didn’t move forward due to a dispute related to their shelved “No Life ‘Til Leather” reissue.

Mustaine said the following about his last chat with Hetfield:

“The last time we talked it didn’t end very well because we have some memory of a couple of things that took place when I was in the band. I remember it one way and he is saying that it happened another. But it’s about somebody else – it’s not even him. He’s talking to me on behalf of ‘you know who’ [Lars Ulrich].

They wanted to release ‘No Life ‘Til Leather‘ – 27 songs, posters, flyers, pictures, everything. I said I would love to do this thing, and James said,’”Look, we fucked up. The last three things we’ve done failed abysmally.’

He said it was ‘Lulu‘, something called ‘Orion‘ [Metallica‘s past ‘Orion Music + More‘ festivals], and there was one other thing… I think it was a film about a fan or something [‘Metallica: Through The Never‘]. I don’t know. I don’t see them as a failure.

But, I had said, ‘Yeah, I’d be interested.’ And he said, ‘We’d like to get everything right with all the history, the publishing and stuff.’ And I said, ‘Good.’ Because part of the reason why we haven’t been able to really reconcile is because I had songs that when I left I didn’t want them to record, and they went ahead and recorded them but they didn’t pay me what my share of the songs were.

James and I wrote ‘Metal Militia‘ and ‘Phantom Lord‘ – every note. And somehow, on the record [‘Kill ‘Em All‘] it says Lars gets 10%. And on ‘Metal Militia‘ that Kirk gets some of it, and he wasn’t even in the band!

So I’ve come to terms with it, and when he said, ‘We’d like to get this right,’ I said, ‘Great. Let’s do it. I have no problem.’ And when I said, ‘This is what it is,’ he said, ‘No. It’s kind of what it was, and that’s how it is.’

And I thought to myself, you know what? When you guys did that to me before, it was not cool. I said, ‘Don’t use my stuff’ and you did it, and then didn’t give me my fair share. So why would I want to willingly enter into something like that? I wouldn’t. So that’s where we stand right now.

I would love to work with James. I’d like to work with Lars again, too, but I think the real talent in Metallica has always been around the guitar – everybody makes fun of the drums.

Lars is a really great song arranger. And believe it or not, I watched him on a piece-of-shit acoustic guitar write the opening riff to ‘Ride The Lightning‘.” [Sings riff, which turns out to be ‘Master Of Puppets‘.]

You know what that was? It was a guy with a guitar that doesn’t know how to play, and he’s going [mimics playing a chromatic run] on the neck. It wasn’t anything really mind-blowing by any means. The way James played it made it mind-blowing.”

He continued when it was mentioned that he was humming something that sounded more like “Master Of Puppets”:

“Yeah, whatever that is. I don’t fuckin’ know their song names. I don’t listen to them. I totally respect them, I just don’t listen to them. It’s not out of me not liking them. When they come on the radio in my car, a long time ago I would change the channel, but I don’t anymore. It’s just music, and I’ve been able to put all that stuff behind.

That’s why when I saw James talking bad about himself [see here], I was thinking, ‘Fuck that, man. Don’t buy into that.’ I don’t know if he’s back in the bottle or not, but I love that guy. I fought somebody because of James. Somebody was going to beat his ass in San Francisco, and I got in between them – and got knocked around a bit myself. But I would never let anything happen to those guys.

Somebody picked on Lars and I snapped his leg – you remember that, right? And I’m not a violent person, I’m just very protective of the people I love. And when I see James saying stuff like that, I don’t like it. I want to help him. He probably wouldn’t want my help, but maybe if a couple of guys with guitars and a bag full of chips can get through a conversation and become friends again, who knows?”

During a recent interview with Guitar.com, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine revealed that there was a time when he almost reunited with his former Metallica bandmate, James Hetfield, for new project. However, everything ended up falling apart due to the songwriting dispute that led to the shelving of their “No Life ‘Til Leather” reissue.

Mustaine said the following:

“There’s three sides to every story, right. 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!”

This news comes shortly after Mustaine expressed a desire to work with Hetfield again.