Dave Mustaine is ‘fighting’ for the Grammys to add another metal category
Dave Mustaine says he’s fed up with the attitude the Grammy Awards have towards rock and metal, explaining he’s “fighting” for another category to be added.
It doesn’t take much research to learn that many categories for award shows can be quite divisive. Why, back in October, many music fans were confused as to how hip-hop trio Migos managed to take home an American Music Award in the pop/rock category.
Likewise, a similar controversy occurred back in 2014 when King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard had their record Quarters! nominated for Best Jazz Album at the ARIAs. Needless to say, genre classification can be a bit of a sore spot for many music fans.
However, as award show fans are aware, categories can change over time. Back in 2011, the Grammy Awards announced a bit of a shake-up, removing the Best Rock Instrumental Performance award, and combining the Best Hard Rock and Best Metal Performance awards into one solitary honour.
Now, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine says he’s fighting to right this wrong.
Speaking to US radio station 107.7 The Bone (via Blabbermouth), the 2017 Grammy Award-winner explained how the rock and metal genres aren’t properly acknowledged, and normally relegated to the pre-show. As such, Dave Mustaine says he’s “fighting” for the Grammys to add another category for metal.
“I joined the Grammy chapter out in Nashville to address that exact thing,” Mustaine explained. “I joined the Grammy chapter because we have one metal category and I think they’ve got a dozen polka categories.”
“I stopped going to the Grammys because you’d have to sit through, like, 30 Latin jazz records, and then you’d have to sit through another 30 jazz Latin records. And it’s, like, ‘What?'”
“So a couple of years ago, the guy that produced our record Th1rt3en, Johnny K, and a couple of other guys at the Grammys tried to get another category, and they were so close, but it failed,” Mustaine continued.
“And I called them up and I said, ‘We’re doing this.’ So 2020, we’re fighting — we’re getting all of the metal labels that we know, we’re trying to get them all together to petition the Grammys to give us another metal category.”
“My record was one of the Top 25 records of the year worldwide for Universal. Don’t tell me that we don’t deserve another category.”
Check out Megadeth’s ‘Fatal Illusion’:
In related news, Megadeth have recently revealed they’ve begun recording a follow-up to their Grammy Award-winning album, Dystopia, explaining new music will “absolutely” arrive in 2019.
“We’ve been putting new music up in my Dropbox. And the stuff that Dirk [Verbeuren]’s been playing along to it is scary” Mustaine explained back in November.
“We’ve never had any of those blast-beat kind of things in our music before… Some of the drumming on this is mind-blowing.”
“It’s making me a better guitar player again, which I love. But I never thought we were gonna be playing this fast or this aggressive again.”
Check out Megadeth’s ‘Hangar 18’:
This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.