In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Kerry King revealed that he almost joined Megadeth while answering fan questions.
“I was almost in Megadeth,” the guitarist replied when asked which other band he would have liked to be a part of. “I think if myself and Dave Mustaine could have co-existed for four years, it would have been a very different band.”
He continued, “I’m not saying I’d have made them better – I’d have made them different. It’s funny, I was backstage at Mercyful Fate’s show in Las Vegas and got talking to [guitarist] Hank Shermann, and said to him, ‘I thought you guys might come knocking,’ and you could see his head explode.”
“‘It never f*cking occurred to me!’ I’m a huge Mercyful Fate fan so I’d have done that in a heartbeat,” King added.
He shared another band he wanted to join, “I’d also love to play with Judas Priest – that brief second where Richie [Faulkner] got sick and they suggested going out with one player, I thought if they called me and said, ‘Can you be that one guitarist?’, I honestly don’t think I could, because they’re such a dual guitar band.”
“Thankfully they never did it, but if they’d have asked, I think it would have been the hardest ‘no’ of my life!” Kerry lastly shared.
In a 2015 interview with Loudwire’s ‘Wikipedia: Fact Or Fiction?’ series, Kerry talked about his short time with Megadeth in the band’s early days. He played as their second guitarist for Megadeth’s first five shows.
The rocker explained at the time, “I was one of the lucky people — and there’s certainly no offense against [current Metallica guitarist] Kirk Hammett; Kirk’s a wonderful friend of mine — but I was lucky enough to see Metallica with Mustaine.”
King went on, “And I say that because it’s just a rare thing to be able to say that. I saw them play with Woodstock [in Los Angeles], and I was so intringued by Mustaine, because he was just ripping on guitar and looking out that way somewhere. And I can’t do that to this f*cking day. So I was just blown away at his guitar playing.”
“And to find out — I think it was through B.C. Rich, ’cause we all played B.C. Rich back then… I think it was through B.C. Rich I found out that Dave was inquiring if I would play [with Megadeth]. At the end of the day, I thought, ‘This is a gigantic learning situation.’ And I also thought people would see me and know me from Slayer,” Kerry shared.
He also said, “‘Cause, I mean, we only went to the Bay Area; we only got up there. So I think if people saw me, it would at least make ’em think, ‘Slayer.’ So I had Slayer’s best intentions in mind. I didn’t go and say, ‘Hey, I wanna be in Megadeth.’ I don’t know how anybody can be in Megadeth for more than a couple of hours, ’cause that guy’s crazy.”
King joined Megadeth on stage in October 2010 at the Gibson Amphitheater in California to play their ‘Rattlehead.’