It is the golden rule of internet content creation: never read the comments. That way madness lies. But there are exceptions to the rule, like when you set up the camera, dial in a gnarly metal guitar tone, play your track, post it, and then find that a bona fide thrash legend has turned up in the comments.
And that’s exactly what happened to Los Angeles-based guitarist Zia Cyan a couple of weeks back. Cyan posted a cover of her favorite Megadeth track, Angry Again, that Grammy-nominated cult classic from the Last Action Hero soundtrack.
She played through the intro and the riff, and in the comments, yeah, you’ve got some requests – “You should play some Children of Bodom” – some off-topic questions, a bunch of GIFs, and wait... Who’s that? Only the guy who actually wrote the song, Dave Mustaine.
And not only did MegaDave offer his vote of approval, he also offered some advice on how to play it the way it was done on the record.
The Megadeth catalog is no gimme. The solos are off-the-charts, with Mustaine’s animalistic pentatonics facing off with the Friedman/Loureiro axis of exotic note choices, or the liquid legato of Chris Poland. They did not call them the state-of-the-art speed metal band for nothing.
But Mustaine says Cyan was making it harder for herself. Even he doesn’t play that many notes there.
“Good Job!” writes Mustaine. “The opening has less notes than you are playing. The opening riff is all quarter-notes. Like I said, Great job!”
Mustaine tells Cyan it’s just a matter of counting, “1,2,3,4 - 1,2,3,4 - 1,2,3,4 - 1,2,3,4. You are playing 1,2, and 3,4 - 1,2, and 3,4 - 1,2, and 3,4 - 1,2, and 3,4. Does that help?”
Well, in fact, it did. Cyan posted a second cover – take two – and with harmonized guitars. It just goes to show, one day you’re playing a rhythm cover, the next Dave Mustaine comments on it, and by the time you are through with the track... well, Cyan is pretty much Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman all in one. And yes, it sounds just as it does on the record.
We say record, but Angry Again was a weird one. It was written and recorded in 1993, a year after the epochal Countdown to Extinction was released. Mustaine was supposedly listening to the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go when he wrote the lyrics.
Angry Again was picked up for the Last Action Hero soundtrack, featured in the movie, and was arguably stronger than anything on 1994’s Youthanasia, and has been a staple of the live show, and yet it never made it onto a Megadeth album.
The question is: has Mustaine seen Cyan’s second take and what does he think about it? That’s what everyone in the comments wants to now. You can check out Zia Cyan’s playing by following her on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
