Megadeth's Dave Mustaine Suffering From Medical Condition

12-24-2025

Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine revealed in a new interview that he suffers from a condition that prevents him from straightening his finger called Dupuytren contracture, as well as arthritis in his fingers, and that was one of the reasons that made him to decide to retire from music.

The thrash metal icon spoke with MariskalRockTV in Spain and they asked him if he remembered the moment he decided to launch Megadeth's retirement. He responded, "No. No, because I just brought it up. I didn't decide. We were working in the studio, and it just had been a really difficult few weeks.

"We were trying to get everything done, and it obviously was important to us to make sure that the record was done right. And we had a bunch of deadlines we ran up against that was making it hard and stuff like that.

"And my hands were hurting really bad. And then I just said one day to my management, 'You know, I don't know how much longer I'm gonna be able to do this.' I didn't say, 'Hey, I wanna retire right now.'"

Mustaine then explained the issues that were causing him the pain in his hands, "Yeah, you can look right here on this hand. There's a line right there that's sticking up. That's something called Dupuytren's contracture, and it's gonna make my finger come down like this. It's already started, where it's kind of bunching up a little bit. And then if you look at the tips of my fingers, they're severely arthritic. So, all those bumps makes it really painful to play."

Dave was then asked if he has considered surgery to address the issues and he responded,"I'm gonna wait for that until I'm ready to try it, because if I try it now and I'm 95 percent, and I do a surgery and it sets me back, that would've been a bad decision. If I wait until my hands are causing a problem and I try it and it doesn't work, well then I've toured everywhere, I've said farewell to everybody and I'm not leaving stuff unsaid or unfinished."

As we previous reported the band will be releasing their new self-titled final album on January 23rd and will be embarking on a lengthy farewell tour. Mustaine told Kerrang! of the tour plans, "We're easily talking about touring for another three to five years. And if we're going to be doing it for that long then, sh*t, I'll be looking at the birthday I don't even want to think about!"