The manager had called him a "pussy" for choosing to pull out of a show to have the surgery Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine once walked out of emergency neck surgery because Metallica ’s manager had insulted him. READ MORE: Metallica live in Amsterdam: still the greatest heavy metal band around The singer and guitarist shared the story during an appearance on Steve-O ‘s Wild Ride! podcast, revealing that the situation arose during the 2010-2011 ‘Big Four’ tour that included the two bands, as well as Anthrax and Slayer . “I remember we were scheduled to play Yankee Stadium [in New York] with the Big Four concert the day that they found out I needed my neck to be fused together,” Mustaine explained.
“And so I’m laying on the emergency table and my manager says, ‘Oh, Metallica’s manager called you a pussy because you’re going to get your neck fused together and you’re not going to come out here and play instead.’” Describing the comment as “a gutless thing to say”, Mustaine sat up from the surgeon’s table at the last possible moment, asked to be injected with “steroids and shit”, and went to play the show. “But it turned out great as far as healing is concerned,” he added.
Mustaine required the surgery on two vertebrae after sustaining stenosis, which he attributes to decades of headbanging. “I don’t plan on headbanging for another 30 years,” he said. “I’m already 63, so I figure, you know, if I play another five to 10 years, 1.