Dave Mustaine got fired from Metallica in April 1983. The reason for this, according to James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, wasn't just the alcohol abuse, but the fact that Dave got very aggresive and destructive every time he was drunk. He also combined the use of alcohol with the use of different kinds of drugs. 

After being fired, Mustaine moved to a small appartment in Hollywood, not very into playing music at that time, until... Well, until he had a word with his neighbour living beneath him, a 18-year old guy from Minnesota, called David Ellefson. David: "At that time Dave had only one subject to talk about, and that was Metallica." 

As time went by Mustaine started to focus on other things, putting the thoughts regarding Metallica somewhere in the back of his mind. As soon as he started converting his negative energy into positive energy, Megadeth was formed quite fast. They recorded a demo-tape which was 'released' in the tapetraders circuit, spreading like fire. In the very beginning of the band, a drummer by the name of Lee Rash joined the two Dave's on their 'Megadeth trip'. They couldn't find a singer at that time, so after drinking quite a bit of alcohol, Dave took the microphone in his hand and tried to sing himself for the first time, on newyears eve 1983. 

Dave didn't feel very comfortable in his role as guitar player and singer at the same time, so he hired a friend of his, to play guitar on the first couple of concerts. This friend was Kerry King from Slayer. After some time King got replaced with Chris Poland, who brought a friend with him, by the name of Gar Samuelson, to replace Lee Rash. 

With this new line-up they got a call from Combat Records in 1984. When this happened they knew they were heading in the right direction. Their first album, 'Killing is my business... And business is good', was released in June 1985. It didn't get that much attention from the press, nor from the fans, which was probably due to the bad production. 

David Ellefson remembers the first tour, being support act for Exciter, as the 'tour from hell': "The tour took about six weeks, and during that time we wrecked three cars and four vans. The trouble already started on the first night, when our drummer showed up four hours late, so we had to perform after Exciter had already left, so the place was almost empty." He also remembers a concert on December 31 1985. "It was a special show for newyears eve in the Civic Center in San Francisco. We were opening for Metallica, Exodus and Metal Church. Our name wasn't even mentioned on the list, and the audience wasn't very nice. Especially Dave was very hurt by that." 

Despite Dave's problems with alcohol and drugs, which made him quite infamous in some parts of society, the band managed to release a second album, on Capitol Records this time. At the start of the recording of the second album, they were still signed to Combat, but Capitol payed Combat an amount of money for which Combat were willing to release Megadeth. Then Capitol gave Megadeth $15,000 to improve both the production and the artwork of the new album. Capitol also wanted a new title for the album ('Wake up dead') but Mustaine kept to his own beliefs and decided to leave the name 'Peace sells... But who's buying?'. The album was released in October 1986. The first tour, supporting Alice Cooper, wasn't a really big success. 

After that tour, they did a quite exhausting club tour, with Flotsam and Jetsam, Metal Church and Overkill, to name but a few. The title track could be seen on MTV at night, and 'I ain't superstitious' was used for a Japanese car commercial. The total tour for Peace sells... took about 70 weeks (!), but it was worth it, because by the time the third album, 'So far, so good... So what!' was about to be released, Peace sells... was sold over 500,000 times...! 

The third album wasn't done by the same band. Of course, the two Dave's were still in it, but Gar Samuelson was replaced by a guy by the name of Chuck Behler, and Chris Poland was replaced by Jeff Young. Ellefson: "Something had to happen. We got into a couple of fights, Dave and I were doing all the interviews, and most of the time it was Gar and Chris totally opposite to Dave and I, and since it's our band, they had to leave. Mustaine: "Junior and I had a drugsproblem, they had a HUGE drugsproblem. Especially Gar was living on the edge, doing heroin most of the time. 

So far, so good... So what! was released in January 1988. The reviews of the album were mostly positive, but it's in fact a small miracle that the album was finished. Despite the problems the ex-members had with drugs, Dave and David weren't very sober also. That's one of the reasons Jeff Young tried to get the band in his control, after the release of the third album. Dave didn't want that to happen of course, so Jeff Young had to leave the band. Chuck Behler had to go also, since Dave and David did their best to quit doing drugs, when Chuck was just using more and more. 

Another line-up down the drain. Mustaine got a little depressed after that period, but there were definitly also some positive things worth mentioning. 'Anarchy in the UK' was a big success, although (or maybe because...) shops like K-Mart refused to sell the album, just because of that punk cover. Another good thing to look back at was the performance at the 'Monsters of rock' festival (Castle Donington). They performed together with Kiss, David Lee Roth, Guns N' Roses and Iron Maiden. Ellefson: "I think that was the best line-up the festival has had so far."