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Recently, legendary former Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland, always a man of many words and interesting stories, was kind enough to speak with us regarding, among many other things, his tenure with the Thrash Metal pioneers and his much-celebrated work with acclaimed Fusion veterans Ohm…
Todd: How did you initially become involved with Megadeth?
Chris Poland: “At the time, we (Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine) were both sharing the same manager. He was quite a character. It was all about the almighty dollar and trying to get his band to the forefront of whatever was happening. It was strange because Megadeth was a Speed Metal band and the band (late Megadeth drummer) Gar Samuelson and I were in was a Fusion band called The New Yorkers. …Basically, Gar played me a tape of Megadeth. I think it was from a live gig at The Waters Club. I don’t even think it’s there anymore. I thought the music was pretty challenging even though it was pretty hard to hear it. It was obvious that they needed a second guitar player because every time Dave would go to do a lead, the whole bottom end of their sound would drop out. …Megadeth was rehearsing at a place called Mars. Gar suggested that I come down and rent a room next to them and just start playing along with them just to see what they would think. …Dave walked in and said ‘Hey, come join our band’.”
Todd: Did you initially find it hard to incorporate your style into Megadeth’s Speed/Thrash Metal format? Taking into consideration your Fusion and Jazz background(s), joining a fledgling Thrash Metal group must have been quite the change of pace…
Chris: “The stuff Gar and I were playing was all Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Tony Williams stuff. Weather Report…stuff like that. We weren’t Bop players. It’s not like we were sittin’ down playing standards, readin’ charts. We came from all of that. Gar tried to play like Tony Williams and (Mahavishnu Orchestra drummer) Billy Cobham. All these guys that he listened to when we were growing up…that’s what we listened to. It’s funny…the first time I heard Mahavishnu, it was on a record called Guitars That Destroyed The World. Every time it would come on, it was like ‘Wow! That is the worst track I have ever heard in my entire life’. But I kept going back to it. It was like train wreck. You had to watch it happen again. All of a sudden, one day I got it. That was it. I never looked back. That’s why it was so hard for me to be in Megadeth. It was challenging musically, but I was coming from a whole different place, ya know? And my ideas were from that area and so were Gar’s. When we were in Megadeth, the band had a little different sound.”
Todd: What ultimately prompted your involvement in the recording of The System Has Failed? Not surprisingly, I had always been under the impression that, all things considered, you and Dave would never work together again…
Chris: “Even after all of the shit that happened, I still don’t hate Dave because Dave is…a troubled person and that’s why he writes and plays the way he does…the way he writes his lyrics. That’s why he is who he is. He’s got problems, man…but that’s what makes him who he is. Even after what happened, I still don’t hate him. Shit happens, attorneys get involved and that’s what it’s all about. To tell the truth, I’m sure I wasn’t exactly a joy to work with either. I’m not pointing any fingers here. It was just a rough time for everybody. The three of us are lucky we are still alive.”
Todd: On both a musical and personal level, how would you rate your latest and presumably last experiences recording with Megadeth?
Chris: “I have to tell ya…having worked with him on the last record, he’s still the same person. He hasn’t changed a bit. He’s just way more business savvy and he’s very aware of where every penny is going…that kind of thing. He tries to keep people on…to keep the people around him in check. But it’s not about keeping the people around you in check; it’s about keeping yourself in check. But, I guess he does what he has to do to. It was very challenging. They wanted some very specific stuff. There was no doubt about what they wanted. I would try to do something on my own, and they would tell me ‘Oh no. That’s too far outside of what were looking for’. It was very hard. …If Dave left, it would be just me and the engineer Ralph. Honestly, out of all the engineers I’ve worked with, he’s probably the most creative and nurturing guy. He’s all about seeing what you can experiment with. He had a box of guitar effects pedals that most people wouldn’t understand. The box might be worth a hundred thousand dollars if you tried to sell of the pedals. …But that’s where I got the ‘wah wah’ sound on track twelve from the last record. And that happened all the way through the record. I had brought my whole rig down there, but I ended up saying ‘I need to listen to Ralph’ because he’s like the caddy of modern Rock guitar players (laughs). I would be like ‘Hey, Ralph! What should we do next?’”.
Todd: Once the recording process for The System Has Failed was completed, were you ultimately surprised that you didn’t end up touring with or perhaps even rejoining the group?
Chris: “Not at all. Dave knew I wasn’t gonna tour. He kinda hinted around about it here and there during the sessions. He’d be like ‘Come on, I know you miss me’. …But I’ve got way too much going on right now. I’ve got my own band that for the last four years I’ve sweated blood for. I didn’t go back and re-join the band because if I had, it would only have been for the money. Granted, the money would have been good, but…I don’t know. Plus, working with Dave…we’ve both gone through the throes of the worst times of our lives together. I could see us looking at each other and saying ‘Oh fuck it…let’s go down to Alphabet City and score some junk’. Know what I mean? It would happen just because that’s how it works.”
Todd: Overall, how much of a hindrance were everyone’s addictions to the creative process? How much would the finished recordings benefitted from everyone being clean and sober?
Chris: “Dave wrote the bulk of the material. All we really did was make suggestions for harmonies and arrangements. Gar made many large suggestions for arrangements. … I’m not gonna say that we actually wrote anything, but we did give our ideas and our sounds as Dave wrote the songs.” “Peace Sells” was originally over six minutes long when Dave first showed it to us. Gar suggested that we cut the song down and make it shorter. …I think it might have even been seven minutes long. I don’t remember exactly. It’s all kind of a daze, but I do remember Gar saying that we should cut it down. The weird thing is, when we were making that record, we had no idea. We were just trying to get through it, ya know? Tryin’ to make it sound good. It wasn’t until years later, after it had become a hit, that I realized that it was always going to have its place. I’m proud of that.”
Todd: What ultimately prompted the discernable sonic differences between the Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good and Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?
Chris: “…Randy Burns was a much better producer than Karat Faye. And we had twice as much money. We actually had three times the money. We had over seven thousand dollars to make the first Megadeth record. And with the next one, we had twenty five thousand dollars, so… That’s not a lot of money. You’re doin’ eighteen hour days and end up sayin’ ‘That’s good enough. Let’s move forward.’ And half the money was spent on drugs anyway on the first record. …Gar adapted a lot of the flow from our influences into the sound. The stuff we grew up listening to, the stuff we worshipped. When we hooked up with Dave, it was all about Diamond Head and all that type of shit. He was like ‘If anyone asks, tell ‘em you’re into (acclaimed former Scorpions guitarist/Michael Schenker group namesake) Michael Schenker’. Dave wouldn’t have known if I had played him something by Miles Davis that is was Miles Davis (laughs). But, then again, Dave did start a whole genre by himself, so what can I really say?”
Todd: Given your obviously unique relationship with Dave, do you feel his decision to move in a more Pop-orientated direction on Cryptic Writings and Risk was justified?
Chris: “When you all of sudden find yourself making a lot of money with your fourth record and start headlining shows, you start to listen to your record company. It makes sense to me, but if you look at the bands from that era that didn’t do that like Slayer, they didn’t go there…ever. …That’s the thing I think Dave should have done. I don’t think he should have caved in to the pressure. It’s their money, ya know? They’re trying to make money by planting that Pop music seed. There were a lot of rumors that (former Megadeth guitarist) Marty Friedman wanted to play Pop music. If you listen to what he’s doing now, he’s playing with a Pop artist from Japan. It’s totally Pop. But at the same time, it’s not easy to write a Pop song, either. I’m not saying that what he does is any less of a challenge. That’s just where he finds himself the most comfortable.”
Todd: In hindsight, what was it that ultimately forced you from the group? Was there a clear and defining moment where you realized your time with the group was coming to an end?
Chris: “The finals straw (laughs) was…and this is really terrible… At the time, we all had drug problems and I needed Dave to lend me some money so I could take care of my problem…my addiction at the time. For some reason, he wouldn’t lend me any money, but he gave everyone else in the band two hundred dollars to take care of their problems. So I said ‘Fuck you Dave. Why don’t you just fire me? I don’t even want to do this anymore’. I basically told him to fire me because I had said there wouldn’t be anyone else that could take my place. Of course, two days later, I get a letter in the mail and I was fired.”
Todd: Considering the arguably unavoidable stylistic similarities between the two, do you regard your playing on Return To Metalopolis to be an extension of your work with Megadeth?
Chris: “Absolutely. With that record, it was like ‘This is what I’ve got’. It was this whole scene…this underground thing. It was more of a way of life than a style. I don’t really know how to describe it. It was like a subculture. It was so heavy and so evil. …I played a gig with Megadeth and I was behind two full stacks of Marshall amps. We were playing “Am I Evil” by Diamond Head and the two thousand people we were playing to were all singing along. When I looked at that, as a Fusion player, that was the first time I realized how fucking insane it all was. I basically took all the heaviness of me playing on stage with Megadeth and decided to meld it with all of the Fusion that Gar and I grew up listening to. That’s how that record came about.”
Todd: In retrospect, what were the main contributing factor(s) behind the demise of Damn The Machine? From an outsider’s perspective, I can remember being deeply disappointed as I always felt the group seemed destined for greatness…
Chris: “It disappointed us, too. The then president of A&M Records took us into this secret little room that they would take Sting to dinner in and told us ‘We know you’re a three record band. We’ll be behind you the whole way’. We ate it all hook line and sinker. Six months later, we were dropped. It was a struggle to do that record anyway. Everyone was pushing so hard for their parts. It was more of a struggle than anything I had done in a real long time. Even though it was a great band, because they lied, I had to let it all go. …For a year straight, every single day I would say ‘You know what? I should hunt that guy down’. It was so bad. I felt so betrayed that every day I would think about how anybody can kill anybody. I was like ‘Who would know? The guy is going to work at ten o’clock in the morning and stops at a stop sign. I pull up alongside him and bam! It would have been over’. I remember one day when I woke up, it was just gone. All of my hatred for that whole experience was gone.”
Todd: At this point, are there any official recordings from the Damn The Machine sessions that have yet to be released? I’ve always heard rumors…
Chris: “Have you ever heard the B-Sides for that record? Oh, man! They’re killer. We did “I’d Love To Change The World” by Ten Years After, we did “Red House” by Jimi Hendrix, we did “Mr. Soul” by Neil Young, we did “Cat Food” by King Crimson… We did one more tune, but I can’t remember what it was. They are just all amazing. We did them live, but in a different sort of way. A&M paid for the sessions, so they own the rights to them. I don’t even have a copy of the thing anymore.”
Todd: Once your initial tenure with Megadeth came to an end and you began pursuing other styles of music, what equipment changes did you feel were necessary to complete the transition?
Chris: “Before I joined Megadeth, I basically had a King Crimson rig. I had a Roland 808 with a tremolo on it, the control on the floor, a JC half stack…like a 2 X 12 cabinet with a Sound City head that I would just drive on ten. I would use those together…it was a pretty cool setup. When I joined Megadeth, I sold everything and bought a half stack Marshall and never looked back. This time around, when I went down to do The System Has Failed…they had a Plexi Marshall that the engineer had brought in. I just decided that it would sound much more cohesive with the rest of the record if I used that amp. It turned out really good.”
Todd: What can you tell us about Ohm? It would seem the group doesn’t receive the recognition it rightfully deserves…
Chris: “…Robby Pagliari is a fretless six string bass player that I have been working with on and off since 1977.” …He’s been playing with me on and off for forever. …We played in a band when I first moved out to California, before I even knew who Dave Mustaine was. We had a Fusion band. It was me, Gar and Robert and Stu, Gar’s brother, played rhythm and lead guitar with me. We even had a horn section once in a while. Eventually, we got rid of the horn section and Stu and I did all the harmonies together. And then that band broke up and Gar joined Megadeth… …Robert knows what I’m going for when I come in with a song idea and I know what he’s going for when he brings in an idea. I had this group that I was playing in with my brother and (vocalist) Jizzy Pearl from Love/Hate and Ratt. It was a freaky band, man. I had my head shaved; I was dressed in all black. It was really creepy. I did it basically because my brother Mark challenged me try something different and it was fun. But again, there was no creative control happening. I was like ‘You know what? Fuck this’. Out of the blue, Robby calls me and asks me to start a band and I said ‘You know what? This is what I moved out here for. I met you, we did this band for five years and we only broke up because we couldn’t handle the rejection people were giving Fusion back then’. It was so not happening then, ya know? …I just ended up saying ‘Fuck everything else. Let’s just do what we want to do. I don’t even care if we make any money’. That’s what we did and that’s what we’re still doing. Basically, it’s everything we’ve all accumulated as influences.”
Todd: What can you tell us about Circus Of Sound? I understand the group’s line-up was supplemented by two additional drummers…
Chris: “…We have Kofi Baker (son of legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker) on drums, we have (ex-Allan Holdsworth veteran) Joel Taylor on drums and we have Frank Briggs on drums, also. But the lion’s share of it was Kofi. I think it really added to the record. It was real challenging to get the drums sets to blend in together without it being obvious, ya know? Every drummer is different and everybody’s drum set is different, so it just sounds different. Luckily, we pulled it off. I really like the record. I think it’s our strongest record so far and everybody in the band feels the same way, too. …We usually write the songs as a three piece and then play them out live before we record them so we already know what the live energy is like on a song. So when we come into the studio, we have a starting point of how it’s going to be. The only songs from the record that have never been played live are “Abracadabra” and “The Shortest Straw”. Those were both written in the studio. Those were the last two songs we did.”
Todd: Ideally, which recording process do you prefer? I would imagine they both have their pros and cons…
Chris: “I enjoy both, but it tends to work better to have it written, go out and play it in front of people and then go record it. I think a perfect example of that is Peace Sells... We toured for almost a year and a half before we recorded it. And when we did record it, we came off the road and went directly into the studio and made that record. We knew the energy levels on those songs and knew how it had to go and it worked out really well.”
Todd: What was the main inspiration behind the title Circus Of Sound? The first time I heard the title aloud, it immediately made me think of System Of A Down…
Chris: “…Circus Of Sound was the title of the song “Circus Of Sound first. And then all these other titles like “Abracadabra” and “Fun House” started to sound like we had a circus theme going. That’s when we named the last song “System Of A Clown”. We didn’t have a title for that song and we were like ‘Yeah, a circus theme.’ (laughs). It all just basically fell into place. When we saw the artwork, which we got off of the internet, we were like ‘This artwork looks perfect for the songs we have’. It just worked out that way.”
Todd: What are your current touring plans? Is it safe to assume that you’ll be touring as much as humanly possible in support of Circus Of Sound…
Chris: “There’ll probably be a lot of regional stuff. Maybe a ten day thing here and there. Ten days up the coast and possible down into Arizona. It’s hard to get to the East Coast right now. We actually would go there if we could get another act or two and do the safety in numbers thing. But with the economy the way it is right now, we’re kinda stickin’ close to home. We just wanna play it safe. The last time we went out, we did really well, but it was hard and gas was cheap back then. That was like four years ago and gas was pretty inexpensive at that time, especially outside of major cities. It was really cheap. But you never know what could happen. Out of nowhere, some TV show could pick up one of our songs and we could make a couple hundred thousand dollars so we could just go out on our own.”
Todd: As far as touring mates are concerned, do you feel as if you’d have to stick with other like-minded groups or do you feel the music Ohm creates would be well-received by a Rock or Metal audience?
Chris: “The first time I did instrumental music was on Return To Metalopolis and we opened for Death Angel until they had their accident out in the desert. The last time we went out as Ohm, we went out with Frank Grimaldi and we made money, but Frank didn’t make any money because he had to pay everyone a thousand dollars a week. His money was just gone then. We’ve talked to Frank about doin’ it again and he’s interested, so if we can find the right third act, I think we’ll do just fine.”
Todd: Once the touring process for Circus Of Sound actually begins, do you have any idea what type of set list you’ll be working with?
Chris: “…We have songs that we have to play like…“Where’s My Hat”. …Staple songs that people who like our band would expect us to play. We’ll grab a song from here and a song from there. Because Kofi is in the band, we always end the set with a Cream jam. That’s about it. …We used to do a version of “Alexandria” from Return To Metalopolis, but that was a long time ago. We’ve stopped doing that.”
Select Discography
Circus Of Sound (2008) *****
Return To Metalopolis: Live (2007) **
Amino Acid Flashback (2005) *****
Live At The New Brookland Tavern (DVD) (2006) ****
The System Has Failed (2004) *
Live On KPFK 90.7 FM (2004) *****
OHM (2003) *****
Rare Trax (2000) **
Chasing The Sun (2000) **
Excerpts From The Book Of Mumbo (1995) ****
Damn The Machine (1993) ***
Return To Metalopolis (1990) **
Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying (1986) *
Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good (1985) *
* as a member of Megadeth
** as a solo artist
*** as a member of Damn The Machine
**** as a member of Mumbo’s Brain
***** as a member of Ohm