MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE On the 'Puppy Incident': 'JAMES Got Punched In The Mouth. He Kicked My Dog'

Summary

• Dave Mustaine recalls the moment James Hetfield kicked his dog, and caught a punch in the mouth for it.
• Mustaine claims his volatile behavior got him fired from Metallica, despite everyone drinking heavily.
• He says he’d still work with Hetfield and Ulrich, but makes it clear who he thinks the real talent is.

There’s no elegant way to introduce a story that ends with James Hetfield catching a mouthful of knuckles.

Especially when the instigating factor was a puppy. But here we are.

In one of the most bizarre, strangely on-brand chapters of thrash metal soap opera history, Dave Mustaine, founding member of Megadeth and former guitarist for Metallica, spilled a few gallons of tea on the Shawn Ryan Show (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET), revisiting the infamous puppy-punting incident that added yet another crack to an already unstable foundation.

The Puppy Incident

“[James] goes bang and kicked the dog. And I went, ‘What did you just do? What did you just do?’ And it went from the front yard into the house… And then James said the same thing: ‘If you hit him, you’re gonna have to hit me first.’ And I said, ‘Okay, you win.’ And bang, I hit James in the mouth, and then I hip-tossed Ron into his television set-up.”

No metaphor here. No parable about artistic temperament or band friction. Just a pissed-off guitarist, a bad decision involving a dog, and a literal punchline.

If you’re looking for the calm-before-the-storm moment, it was the puppy’s paws on a GTO quarter panel. James’s foot did the rest.

Violence And Why He Was Singled Out

“Because when I got drunk, I got violent… James did get a punch in the mouth from me. He kicked my puppy.”

Ok, Dave doesn’t tiptoe around it. He was volatile. The kind of guy you didn’t want handling bar negotiations after midnight.

He says the band drank like sailors, but he was the one who turned into the bouncer, not the bartender.

Getting Fired From Metallica

“They woke me up one morning and said, ‘Look, you’re out of the band.’ And I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘You’re out of the band.’ I said, ‘No warning? No second chance? You’re not gonna give me a warning? You’re just gonna kick me out?’ And I thought that was unfair. And it showed a grotesque lack of character.”

So, yeah, One minute you’re saving the sound guy from getting flattened by a truck. The next you’re getting booted out of a moving van.

Dave paints the whole ordeal as a cheap betrayal, delivered cold, with zero ceremony.

No dramatic send-off. Just a sudden drop and the dial tone of a career detour forming.

The Fallout And Moving On

“I went home and I contacted a friend of mine and I said, ‘I quit.’ She said, ‘No, you didn’t. You got fired.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I got fired. I quit. I got fired, whatever… Wrong word. [It’s] not changing the outcome.’”

He didn’t try to spin it. He just redirected. A burned bridge is still a bridge, and Dave walked off with his riffs, his bitterness, and an eventual career that would turn Megadeth into more than just a rebound project.

On Working With Metallica Again

“I would love to work with James. I’d like to work with Lars again, too, but I think the real talent in Metallica has always been around the guitar, everybody makes fun of the drums.”

That’s about as close to a compliment as you’ll get. Mustaine still throws side-eye at Ulrich’s percussion, but leaves the door cracked open for Hetfield.

Now, is that nostalgia? Unfinished business? Or just the kind of thing you say after four decades of lawsuits and passive-aggressive liner notes? Who knows.

One thing’s clear here, Mustaine still believes his fingerprints are all over Metallica’s skeleton.

Songs, solos, riffs, even that early tape stash that supposedly fueled Ride the Lightning. And to this day, he remembers the precise moment where things really broke:

When James [Hetfield] kicked his dog.

The full interview 👇

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