There are finished Megadeth songs sitting somewhere that nobody outside the band has heard, and Dave Mustaine isn’t committing to doing anything about them. Speaking to Metal Hammer, he named at least two tracks that didn’t make the cut on the band’s self-titled final album — “Bloodlust” and “Farewell My Love” — plus a possible third. Possible, because he isn’t sure whether that one exists or whether he invented the title. The explanation he gives for that uncertainty is the part of this story that actually stops you.
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Scott Penfold digs into the Mustaine interview on today’s Metal Breakdown Daily — the two songs nobody’s heard, the third one he can’t verify, and why the reason he gives for not releasing them collides head-on with the reason the band is ending. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and get it every weekday morning.
The two songs — and the one he can’t vouch for
“Bloodlust.” “Farewell My Love.” Those are the confirmed ones, both left off the self-titled record that closed out the band’s career in January.
Then he offers a third: “When Robots Rule.”
And immediately walks it back. He might be mixing things up, he says — and then explains why. It’s a byproduct of the chemotherapy and radiation he went through for throat cancer in 2019. He calls it chemo brain. You have a really hard time remembering things.
Read that again, because it’s a hell of a thing to volunteer in a magazine interview. The man is trying to list his own unreleased music and can’t fully trust his own recall on whether one of the songs is real.
He says it completely matter-of-factly. No drama, no bid for sympathy. Just: this is what the treatment did, this is where I’m at.
Seven years clear of the diagnosis and it’s still shaping the way he talks about his own catalogue.
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Why he might never put them out
Here’s where it gets genuinely frustrating, and genuinely poignant, depending on how you look at it.
These tracks aren’t polished leftovers waiting on a mix. They’re part of a much larger pool of unfinished ideas that Megadeth have accumulated across 43 years — the sort of thing every long-running band has stacked up on hard drives and cassettes somewhere.
And Mustaine’s position on digging into them is straightforward. If he could play old songs, he asks, why wouldn’t he want to focus on new songs instead?
On its own, that’s the right answer. That’s the answer you want from a songwriter. It’s the instinct that produced seventeen albums and kept this band from becoming a nostalgia act — the same instinct behind him ruling out a full alumni reunion for the farewell run rather than turning the last lap into a victory parade.
Except.
The part that doesn’t sit right
He’s retiring. And the reason he’s retiring is that he’s losing the ability to do the thing he just said he’d rather be doing.
Mustaine announced the band’s wind-down last August, framing it as going out on their own terms and telling fans not to be mad or sad but to come and celebrate. In December he revealed the actual medical driver: Dupuytren’s contracture, a condition that pulls one or more fingers inward toward the palm. His words on it — it makes it really painful to play.
So the guy saying he’d rather write new material than revisit old material is watching the window for writing new material close. And there are at least two finished songs, maybe three, sitting in the vault.
That’s not a criticism of him. It’s just the shape of the situation, and it’s why this story lands heavier than a standard “unreleased tracks” headline. Every other band in this position is sitting on offcuts. This one is sitting on offcuts with a clock running.
If you’ve followed the full arc of this man’s career — the Metallica firing, the addiction, the 2002 arm injury that doctors said would end his playing, the cancer — you know he’s beaten longer odds than this. But the pattern with Mustaine has always been that he tells you exactly what’s happening rather than managing the message.
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The album he’s talking about
Worth remembering how the final record actually did, because it reframes the whole thing.
The self-titled Megadeth arrived January 23 via BLKIIBLK, and it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 73,000 units. Seventeen studio albums into a 43-year career, and it’s the only one that ever topped that chart. The closest they’d previously come was Countdown To Extinction at number two, back in 1992.
That’s a band going out at the absolute top, which almost never happens in this genre. It’s also the only Megadeth album featuring Finnish guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, and the first since 2009’s Endgame with James LoMenzo back on bass.
We ranked the complete Megadeth discography from worst to best earlier this year, final album included — and it lands higher than most farewell records deserve to.
The other thing that record gave us: Megadeth’s own version of “Ride The Lightning”, the Metallica track Mustaine co-wrote before he was thrown out, recorded as a tip of the hat to Hetfield and Ulrich and debuted live in Bogotá in April. Forty-three years to close that particular circle.
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Where the farewell goes next
The tour is nowhere near finished. Mustaine has said all along this would be a three-to-five-year global run rather than the usual eighteen-month lap.
North American dates resume Saturday, August 22 at the Alaska State Fair. From August 29 through September 29 they’re supporting Iron Maiden on the North American leg of Run For Your Lives, the 50th-anniversary tour, then joining them again for the Australia and New Zealand shows in November. A European headline run follows in March and April.
And his third memoir, In My Darkest Hour, lands September 8 via De Capo, co-written with Joe Layden. That one’s focused on the cancer fight — the squamous cell carcinoma diagnosed in February 2019, revealed to fans that June, and cleared by doctors in October of the same year.
Which means the chemo brain comment isn’t a one-off aside. It’s the subject he’s about to spend a whole book on.
TL;DR
- What’s new: Dave Mustaine has revealed at least two songs left over from Megadeth’s final album — “Bloodlust” and “Farewell My Love” — in an interview with Metal Hammer.
- The uncertain third: he named “When Robots Rule” and then said he may have made the title up, citing chemo brain from his 2019 throat cancer treatment affecting his memory.
- Will they come out? Unclear. His stated position is that he’d rather focus on new songs than revisit old ones.
- The complication: he’s retiring the band because Dupuytren’s contracture makes playing guitar painful — so the window for new songs is the thing that’s closing.
- The final album: self-titled, released January 23, 2026 via BLKIIBLK. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 73,000 units — the band’s only chart-topper in 17 albums.
- What’s next: farewell dates resume August 22, Iron Maiden support run from August 29, and his memoir In My Darkest Hour arrives September 8.
FAQ
What are Megadeth’s unreleased songs?
Dave Mustaine has named at least two tracks left over from the sessions for the band’s final self-titled album: “Bloodlust” and “Farewell My Love.” He also mentioned a possible third, “When Robots Rule,” while acknowledging he may have invented that title. All three are part of a wider pool of unfinished material the band has accumulated across 43 years.
Will Megadeth release the leftover songs?
Mustaine hasn’t committed to it. Asked about revisiting the material, his position was that if he could play old songs, he’d rather focus on new ones instead. No release plan has been announced for any of the unreleased tracks.
Why can’t Dave Mustaine remember the song titles?
He attributes it to what he calls chemo brain — a byproduct of the chemotherapy and radiation he underwent in 2019 for throat cancer, which he says makes it difficult to remember things. He was diagnosed with a squamous cell carcinoma at the back of his tongue in February 2019 and given the all-clear that October.
Why is Megadeth retiring?
Mustaine announced the band’s retirement in August 2025, saying he wanted them to go out on their own terms. In December he revealed he has Dupuytren’s contracture, a condition causing fingers to bend inward toward the palm, which he says makes playing guitar painful and was a major factor in the decision.
When is Megadeth’s farewell tour?
It’s ongoing and Mustaine has said it will run three to five years. North American dates resume August 22, 2026 at the Alaska State Fair, followed by a support run with Iron Maiden from August 29 to September 29, Australian and New Zealand dates with Maiden in November, and a European headline tour in March and April.
Two songs nobody’s heard, a third that might not exist, and a man who’d rather write new ones than release them. Do you want to hear them, or is a clean ending better? Tell us in the comments. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
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