Mustaine was on the cover of the May 07 issue of Guitar One I found while cleaning up my apartment (which I don't remember buying, only have GW subscription).
So here's the skinny.
Mustaine left ESP because ESP was not giving Gigantour in 06 the kind of sponsorship he expected of them and his contract expired at the end of 06. Mustaine was in touch with Grover Jackson and he was going to come back to Jackson and he was very excited about it.
A bit of back story, when Fender bought Jackson in 02, that's what drove Mustaine away. He had tried to buy the company on 3 different occasions but was outmaneuvered by Fender. His contract went from getting 11 guitars a year plus royalties (which he claims to have never seen a dime of in 17 years) to getting one guitar a year and zero royalties, so he left Jackson for ESP. Enter ESP debacle, now return to the story.
Jackson was going to give him a better contract than ever as Metal/Thrash was making a resurgence and all of the bands leading the charge typically site Megadeth/Metallica as inspirations, so that greatly ups Mustaine's stock. Jackson was going to offer him the whole KV line again w/ double necks and graphic models etc. Mustaine hears rumors about Schenker getting an obscene endorsement with Dean. Fantastic for Schenker, says Mustaine, but that's not going to stop him returning to Jackson. Dean approaches Mustaine with the most lucrative endorsement in their company and DM's history. Mustaine says, "OK, you got me" and now is Dean's flagship player.
So, the gear board wasn't the place for this thread where Dean guitar quality has been discussed ad nauseam but sounds like we all need to take a step back and look at why people really play for the companies they play for, and it's not always about quality, but who wants to part with the most cash. Mustaine and Schenker were bought out, plain and simple. That said though Mustaine still was beaming about his new VMNT series. What was funny though, in the same article he mentions his signature LiveWire pickup and then on the very next page is a full page ad for his strings, the GHS PRDM Progressives .10 - .52. I can vouch for both the pickups and the strings though, they're fantastic (especially the strings).
They also had a look at Mustaines custom Line 6 4-channel amp.
I'd be happy to scan the article and post it but I understand that is taboo.
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