Megadeth Reunion Happened Thanks to Dave Mustaine’s Christianity

With Van Halen hitting the road last year with David Lee Roth, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne reuniting countless times, and Judas Priest and Rob Halford making up metal fans have learned nothing is impossible -- save for maybe the classic Guns N' Roses lineup playing together again.

Still, when the relationship between Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine and bassist David Ellefson disintegrated into a failed lawsuit six years ago, with Ellefson suing Mustaine for back royalties and in a dispute over the band's name, the odds of the two best friends playing together again seemed about as likely as the Detroit Lions winning a Super Bowl.

Fast forward to 2010, and Ellefson is back in the band! What happened? "I'm a born-again Christian, and when I got saved one of the things I did was I forgave Dave for what happened," Mustaine recently told Noisecreep when we chatted at the announcement for the Revolver Golden Gods nominations. "We've got closure with that whole separation between the two of us. Now we're together again, I love him, he's my best friend, we've been together through a lot."

Clearly feeling good, Mustaine is preparing to kick ass through a busy 2010. "I've been approached by Marvel to work with them on something" in relation to 'The Punisher' he says, without elaborating. "My biography is coming out. We've got the 'Rust in Peace' anniversary tour that's coming up next month. After that, we're going down to South America to headline down there -- we've got a couple of soccer stadiums to play. Then we go to Europe to do the big four and several other festivals, and then a lot of one-off shows we're doing. Then we come back and we do the States and Canada with Slayer. Then we go and do the Pacific Rim, then we go back and do Europe again, so we're pretty busy for the whole year."

But Mustaine says the band is also looking ahead to next year and beyond by squeezing in writing on the next Megadeath album. "Then during the process of doing all that stuff, we're gonna be working on writing for the next record," he says. "We've already started assembling some music, so we're ahead of the schedule right now for what we're doing and I can't think of a better time in my career. So I think it's a really great time to be a Megadeth fan, it's a great time to be in Megadeth too."