Barack Obama has been re-elected president and Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine is still an American citizen. The rocker, who made headlines earlier this year suggesting he might move out of the country if the president was re-elected, says his comments were primarily “stage fodder.”
The vocalist tells Atlantic City Weekly about his Obama commentary in front of a Singapore audience, “A lot of that was stage fodder … I was just there marveling how beautiful Singapore is and I started thinking about how our nation is changing and I don’t know if we can handle all of the taxation. I know years ago that in England the taxes got so out of control that people left and I can see it happening here. There could be a mass exodus here.”
Mustaine went on to add, “There are quite a few musicians who are blessed enough to be making $250,000 or more a year and they will be taxed. I think what will happen is that bands will be dying left and right. What’s happening now is that everything America has been built on will be destroyed.” Regardless of what happens politically, Mustaine says, “I think life will continue on. We’re a strong nation, no matter who is in the White House.”
The vocalist has been quite the lightning rod in the past year for some of his comments made onstage and in interviews. However, Mustaine said in a recent interview he’s learned his lesson about voicing his thoughts. “You can’t joke around very much anymore without people misinterpreting what you’re saying,” says the vocalist. “You know, I probably should have said things differently. I probably should’ve skipped that altogether … I learned a valuable lesson from all of this stuff.”
Recently, Megadeth have been revisiting their ‘Countdown to Extinction’ album on tour, and Mustaine says the feelings now are similar to when the album was first recorded. He explains, “What’s similar about now and then is that it’s a difficult time in our country. There’s extreme tension now and there was extreme tension then. Maybe that’s why ‘Countdown to Extinction’ is still resonant today.”
-Loudwire.com
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