The book i read for the "Writing Mentor Book" assignment was "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir." It is an autobiography of Dave Mustaine, founder, vocalists, and lead guitarist of the iconic thrash metal band "Megadeth." His story is shocking, intense, and inspiring.

This book describes the "fall and rise" of Dave Mustaine over the past three decades.

David Scott Mustaine was born on September 13, 1961. He was born to Emily and John Mustaine. He was born during a troubling time in his parents' marriage; his parents ended their marriage when he was four years old. Dave, his mother, and his three sisters were constantly on the run from his father, and he never had a consistent home. His sisters were much older than him, so when Dave was a teenager, his sisters were out of the house, and it was just him and his mother.

His mother was a maid, and money was tight. Dave got into drugs as a teenager; he started selling drugs to help bring in money. his mother, a devout Jehovah's Witness, did not approve of this, and it caused her to leave him on his own.

Dave Mustaine's first band as a teenager was a band called Panic. it was a short-lived band: they only played two shows together. After Panic disbanded, Dave help create the band Metallica in 1981. Mustaine found much success with Metallica; they released a very popular demo tape, which included some of Metallica's most popular songs today.

As the band grew in popularity, they were invited to record their debut album in New York, so they traveled across the country from southern California to New York. On April 11, 1983, while working and touring in New York, Dave was swiftly and abruptly kicked out of Metallica. The band later said that Mustaine had bad drug and alcohol addictions, which caused friction and tension in the band. They put him on a bus from New York back to California, which left him empty handed and broke. He was kicked out before Metallica's debut album was released, so he did not receive any loyalties from its success, although he was given credit for writing four of the songs on the album.

After Metallica, Mustaine formed the band Fallen Angels. Mustaine and the original line up did not work out, so his new found friends and apartment neighbors, David Ellefson (shown in picture), who played bass; and Greg Handevidt, who played guitar, were recruited and became the newest members of the Fallen Angels. They then recruited Lawrence "Lor" Renna for vocals and Dijon Carruthers on drums. Renna left the band shortly after, but he is accredited with suggesting changing the band name to Megadeth; he knew Mustaine wrote a song called Megadeth and liked it. Mustaine then took over the vocal duties along with lead guitarist.

The lineup of Mustaine, Handevidt, Ellefson, and Carruthers became the original lineup of Megadeth. Over the years, which included much drugs, alcohol, and fighting within the band, Mustaine and Ellefson are the only original members of the band.

Over the years, Megadeth has seen a large number of lineup changes. Today, Megadeth consists of Dave Mustaine, David Ellefson, Chris Broderick, and Shawn Drover. Megadeth continues to tour and perform around the world. They have released two new albums in the past year and a half.

Mustaine lives in California with his wife, Pam Mustaine, and two kids, Justis and Electra Mustaine. After a life of hard drug and alcohol use and roughly 17 stints in rehab, he is now sober.

The autobiography of Dave Mustaine gives us his life events in chronological order. It starts when he was a young kid growing up in southern California and gives an account of his story with his band, struggles of life, and adventures he had.

This book was very informal. He used a lot of slang throughout the book. for example, he referred to heroin as "smack" and marijuana as "weed" (pg 177).

Although he was informal, he seemed very sincere and earnest about his ideas, especially when he talked about his trials and struggles with addiction.

Despite his use of slang and curse words, he uses a wide range of vocabulary and language. His sentences are also well written. They flow very nicely and it makes it pleasant and easy to read.

One thing that I thought was unique about this book was all of the side notes he injects in the stories. He either does it when he is clarifying something, or when he is telling it how it is today; the latter is usually dealing with his relations with people he may have encountered in his past.

For example, on page 46, there is a picture of him, Lars Ulrich of Metallica, and his friend John Strednansky. it is captioned underneath the picture: "Backstage with Lars Ulrich and my longtime friend John Strednansky. Photograph by William Hale."

Another example of this is found on page 200: "We recorded a cover of Alice Cooper's 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' for the sound track of the Wes Craven film 'Shocker.'*" The asterisk directs us to the bottom of the page, which is in a black box with white lettering, which states," *This was the first and only time Megadeth went into the studio as a three-piece band: me, David Ellefson, and Nick Menza."

Another thing that stood out to me about this book was its use of pictures. The pictures helped me visualize what was going on and what they looked like at the time. It made the book feel more real and historical.