Teemu Mäntysaari has spent the past three years as Megadeth’s lead guitarist, becoming a key force on the band’s final album by co-writing nine of its ten songs. Now, as Megadeth’s farewell tour rolls on, the next stop includes Finland.
“Well, I think it’s sort of true.”
Talking to Teemu Mäntysaari, the lead guitarist of Megadeth, he acknowledges what the frontman of the legendary metal group, Dave Mustaine, said in an interview: guitar is like an extension of Mäntysaari’s body.
“Sometimes I feel like that,” said the Finnish shredder to Finland Today. “Sometimes I play with my guitar and I have the pick in my hand.” Half an hour later, after laying the guitar down, “I realize that the pick is still in my hand.”
Mäntysaari has played in Megadeth for the past three years. He was recommended to join the band by their former guitarist Kiko Loureiro, who opted to focus on family life and had no other guitarist in mind than Mäntysaari when asked for suggestions.
Mäntysaari, 39, began playing the guitar at the age of 13 in his hometown of Tampere. The word among musicians in the know is that he’s a fast learner.
“I ask him to learn a song, he learns it. I ask him to learn a solo, he learns it. I ask him to learn a vocal part, he learns it,” Mustaine said in a video interview.
Mäntysaari’s input on the group’s final studio album Megadeth, released in January, is, in short, significant. The album comprises eleven songs, the eleventh being Megadeth’s interpretation of Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning,” which was co-written by Mustaine before he was ousted from the band in 1983.
“I have co-writing credits on nine out of ten songs,” Mäntysaari said to Finland Today.
Megadeth has been touring the world extensively this year on the so-called farewell tour.
From North America to Europe, Megadeth will say goodbye in Mäntysaari’s homeland as well.
Megadeth will perform at the Tuska metal festival on Friday.
“We’re concentrating on making every show as good as if it was the last,” said Mäntysaari.
