 Hi, I'm Chris Poland, and you're watching the Metal Boys. This is Neil Turbin. We're here at the downtown rehearsal with the one and only Chris Poland, formerly of Megadeth. But in our hearts of music, you know, you're still a Megadeth on the vinyl and on the songs and we can still listen to you and still learn about what you're up to these days and what's going on here and ask you a few questions. Whatever you want to know. Cool. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. It's a pleasure for putting it all together for us here and you know, I rehearsed in your building here. I just didn't, I never got to go into the secret room here. Everybody has. Earlier on, you had a hand injury. Oh yeah. And what exactly happened and how did that affect, you know, your playing and your technique and kind of, because it's like Tony Iommi in a sense, right? Because he had certainly a hand injury, but it didn't stop him and in fact it propelled him in a further direction and it kind of defined heavy music really. It was an accident that happened at school. There was like a nine-pane oak door with frosty glasses and have a safety wire in it. And something happened, you know, in the hallway, all my books got knocked down, the guy ran and like, you know, we did it on purpose so I chased him and he went to run into, I think it was the lab and he slammed the door but the hydraulic was not working on the door. And I put my hands up and this hand hit the wood and this hand hit the glass and it broke and then he opened the door up really quick to see if I was all right and it just shredded my hand. Yikes. Yeah, so it's just, you know, it's like my pinky and my pointer finger are a little jacked up. So how does that affect how you approach playing and how you... I can only play the way I play, you know, I play everything like this. Okay. So I do triads like this and my fingers always up and if I start thinking about what my hand looks like when I'm playing, I freak out. So I never, I don't look at my hand while I'm playing in that way. I don't go, hey, your finger's hanging out in the middle, you know. But it does and it's just a weird thing and that's how I get around it. And I don't want to, you know, ask questions that are painful or things that, you know... Oh, I don't care. Disturbing to you but it's just, you know, kind of the... Oh, and there's no fixing it. You know, doctors have told me, you know, if we do anything, you'll never, might not even be able to bend your finger. So I just deal with it. And this is all in school. This is way before Megadeth. Oh, yeah, this is before I even lived in California. Now, were you playing a lot of guitar in those days? Oh, yeah, I just bought a Mahavishna orchestra, Birds of Fire. I was learning stuff off that. I had some blues band. I can't remember what it was. But I was learning all this stuff. And then I came home, you know, from the hospital in a huge cast where my hand was like this with a cast around it. So it was just this huge block. And that was on there for a long time. And then it went smaller and smaller. And then finally when they took the cast off, my right, my left arm was all atrophied. And the first thing I did was tried to play guitar. And I realized I couldn't bend my finger. Ouch. And, you know, the doctor told my mom I'd never be able to play guitar again. So I was like, well, I'm going to try. And then once I tried, I said, well, I can still play. I just can't play like I did before. And I just learned a different way. So you had to reinvent your style of playing? Yeah, it's weird. And the only thing that's affecting me now because I've gotten older is my thumb has been in a strange position for so long that my knuckle right here every once in a while tells on me. But that's about it. Well, you just got to keep on rocking, man. Yeah, no, yeah, exactly. The more I play, the less it hurts. So as far as other styles of music, other types of influences, I know you had Ohm. And just some of the other. Influences for me are when I was a kid, it was Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Leslie West, Hendricks. Then it was Jeff Beck into McLaughlin. And then for a long time, all I listened to was Fusion. But I still would go back and listen to rock stuff. But I wasn't a real heavy metal fan. I was exposed to a lot of it from Dave. Like Dave turned me on to Merciful Fate and stuff like that. And I really liked it. But if I hadn't met Dave, I would have never even. I learned a lot from the stain on guitar-wise, rhythm-wise, and how to do spider chords. And there's a lot that I took from that experience. So I know I'm going off a little bit backwards. But back on Dave Mustaine, I was just wondering in terms of the metallic influence in him, did you find that he was kind of moving away in some aspects? In other words, he brought a lot to Metallica in the first place. So obviously, Metallica is a representation of what he put in, his input. But as we all grow and learn things and maybe change a bit from our influences or our surroundings, would you say that there was definitely a way where he was kind of moving into the Dave Mustaine mode versus the Metallica mode? In other words, they were young when they were doing that. I mean, I think Dave was probably writing probably more than half of the stuff when they were together. So I think they had their idea of how things should be. And Dave had his idea. And that's why the bands are so different. And it's obvious that even the fans, I mean, there's fans like I like Metallica as much as I like Megadeth. But they are different animals. Dave's music is a little bit more complicated, but not in difficulty to play, just idea-wise, at least at the beginning. I mean, well, there got to a point where it seemed like Dave was trying to maybe get more radio play. But then I think on the last record, I think he kind of said, fuck it. If I'm radio or no. So that last record, I thought was really good. There was a lot of really good songs on it. And there was a lot of good songs on the system as fail, too. But then there were those songs where you would never hear that on, like, say, piece cells. There's a ballad on that song. It's a beautiful song, but it's really not a Megadeth song. But it is, because Dave wrote it. So there's that point where even Metallica did it. And they started to lean towards playing more of what everybody might like. And there's nothing wrong with that. I have a hard time doing that. I can only write what comes to me. I can't sit down and go, yeah, I'm going to write this song because it might get played on radio. If I pick up a guitar or something happens, that's what I write. I don't go, let me see. How did that song go? I'll write a song. I just like it. I don't do that. Well, so much work and try. I'm not saying those guys do that either. But I just only write what I write, and that's it. That's why I'm kind of an obscure musician. Well, so much more contrived when you're trying to write a hit song or a journey song or something that, hey, we'll get a radio play versus something that's like, this is what I'm feeling. And here's a riff I have or here's some idea or a thought or a vibration or whatever it is. I'm sure my wife and daughter wish that I would do that more. And maybe I will on this record. I don't know. I have a lot of stuff that's been in my head and on my phone. Oh, cool. So by the way, I do the same thing Kurt Hammett does. Every idea I have is on my phone. Oh, that's awesome. And so I'm not going to set up every turn everything on, get mic levels, and I just put my phone out there and I get the idea down and then it's over. So do you go back to some of these ideas that you had, let's say, six years ago, 18 years ago? I have a song that I wrote long before I was in Megadeth that I'm going to show Carlos and Peg. That's great. With Megadeth, when you guys got your album advance, I guess when, I don't know if that would be the first album that you got an advance for, but maybe one of the future albums. I just wonder, did all the money go for substances or did most of it go for that or the band? First of all, when we got any money, it was in Dave's account. Nobody got a per diem where we got a couple hundred bucks a week to live on. So Dave got the money. Dave got the money. And you guys got payment. This myth that the first record was spent on drugs is bullshit. We only had, I think it was six or $8,000 to make a record. And we made it in a couple of weeks. And drugs aren't that expensive. It's like, we weren't even like that far gone then. It was just, we had Cliff Caltieri was up there from, he actually brought amps up there for us. If it wasn't for Cliff Caltieri, I wouldn't have gotten solos on the first record. He asked Dave to give me solos, because I wasn't going to get a bunch of solos. I thank Cliff for that rest in peace. And even if there's no money to spend. Even peace solos, I think our budget was $26,000. But we were in really nice studios. It cost money. And it cost money. And you guys got to eat food while you're in the studio? And plus we were still getting our bills paid. We still had our $200 a week from that we lived on. And it's not like we were going, Dave, I needed $5,000 to say, hey, I need money to go pick up. We would never ask Dave for that. Unless it was during the week, and if you're out of money, hey, Dave, can you front me $20 until payday? I don't even remember ever doing that. So here we are inside of Chris Pollan's studio. Pretty awesome to be here. And there's Chris. This is what we'd get stuff into the computer with. And then we'd use some new stuff over here for the kick and snare. Got some fancy pants stuff and nice sound. It's OK. But this is pretty nice. I had an Owensmart C2, and I did some research on this. And even Carlos agrees. It's as good as that without the crush. But this thing I'm really proud of. I love these little boards, man. SSL, the X-Panda, because you can sum everything, and it gives you that SSL headroom. We're not probably going to mix in here, but we could. That's amazing. We wanted to. But I like to go through when I go to tape. I like to go through this so that I get this vibe of this thing being pushed almost into the red, going into the computer. And that way it gives it a little bit more juice. I was reading about when you left Megadeth and just trying to fathom the similarities between some things that you might have went through and perhaps myself. But the money thing, I didn't have any money from what I was doing until later on. I mean, I just didn't get paid when I was in the band. I was in. I mean, it just didn't exist. $5 to go to Denny's would be. They put the $5. Yeah, $5 in my hand would be like, wow. That's a lot. Speaking of Denny's, I was busing tables from midnight to 8 AM at Denny's after I left Megadeth. And I would be busing tables on a weekend. And some guy would go, dude, you're Chris Poem. And I'd have to go, yeah, I am. And it was so weird because he just looked at me like, dude, what the fuck are you doing here? And I would just say, hey, man, I got to eat. Doing what you got to do. I got to pee the rent. There's no shame in working hard. But when you think of it now, it is pretty crazy because at that time, Megadeth was beyond gold. Peace cells are really like a train. And here I am, busing tables in the middle of the night at Denny's. Yeah, but you worked hard. And now you're in the awesome studio. Oh, yeah, I mean, no, I somewhat got it together. I mean, we're still struggling to. But that was a time where it was a struggle, a real struggle. Oh, yeah, it was terrible. And it was also like, of course, Megadeth was a well-known band and doing well. And all the inner workings and all the intricacies and all that, the relationships. I also had shit happen where I'd be at the beach with my girlfriend. And there'd be like six guys walking down the boardwalk in Venice wearing Megadeth shirts. And at the time, my girlfriend said, hey, you guys, you know who this is? This is Chris Pollan from Megadeth. And they would just go, yeah, right, fuck off, and then walk away. So I've had every little version of weirdness from being in that band. Let me tell you. So looking back, do you think you made the right decision when you left Megadeth? And I guess that's the question that's, did you leave or did things happen in such a way that it didn't really give you a choice? It got to the point where it was just time that it wasn't working for anybody anymore. So who knows what would happen if I stayed in the band? It was probably best that I didn't. And I can understand. I mean, relationships, I mean, there's people that stayed married for 50 years and want to kill each other. And then there's ones that love each other and never argue. Well, I think that wouldn't have been the issue. Probably drugs would have killed somebody or all of us. Who knows? So in the time that you left Megadeth, would you say that the people in the band were still into the drugs and even yourself? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's all documented in books. So it was chaos. Yeah, it was. It's crazy when everybody's not in their right mind. And I mean, things can be happy one day and not unhappy the next day or the next moment. Yeah, that was any given day. And that's not just alcohol, but that's like a bad trip or a bad experience or, oh, don't have something withdrawal? Oh, yeah. Don't have the money? Yeah, well, it's not that you don't have the money. You're just in a strange city. And what are you going to do? Are you going to ask somebody at 7-Eleven? Right. I know it's a hard topic to even really discuss, but in that respect, do you find that while you guys were in that state of mind or in that state of existence on the road, was there certain unique challenges that you experienced because everyone was, or some of the band were using? And to a point where, when someone's drinking a little too much and I mean, I know it's different than that, but if someone's drinking a little too much and they're having to get on stage and play in front of some people and they went a little too far, or maybe they had a few too many. Well, that's, I mean. And then they can't even stand up and they're falling backwards. Yeah, that was the show at the Ritz. That's pretty famous that everybody already knows about. But the main thing was is you had to time your buzz. If you're going to go on stage sick, you had to drink a lot right before you went on and you wouldn't get drunk. You just would be able to stand up and do it. And that was what was terrible. It's like that would go on for a couple of weeks until everybody dried out. So is that something you had to do personally? And is that something that other members had to do in the band? In other words, you're doing it at the same time? You're kind of on the same wavelength with that? Some were worse than others. But at the time, that time, Ellison, he was pretty much OK. I mean, he'd have the sniffles a couple of days and that was it. And what about Gar Samuelson? Yeah, Gar and me, it would take a couple of weeks to get over what we had been doing before we'd go out on the road. Hey, so Neil, I just want to say we were just talking about all the crazy fighting and stuff that went on in Megadeth. It was kind of like when you fight with your brother or something. I mean, there wasn't a lot of grudges held when we would do that because we were not in our right minds. And I never ever was, there were days where I was pissed for a day. But it's not like we were, when we knew we had to do shit, we just got our things done. And things like that didn't happen all the time. But when they did, it was a pretty big deal. You like Bruce Lee too? Oh, yeah. Everybody likes Bruce Lee. Me too. Wow, well, this is such a cool place. And here's your old school Ampex tape. Yeah, we used that machine to make a record called Chasing the Sun. Nice. Well, it wasn't exactly that machine. That machine was way older than this one, but that's the same machine I used. That's why I have that one just in case. If you, it wouldn't believe it. If you take the two track from the computer and run it into that and play it after it's hit the tape, you wouldn't believe what it adds to the two track. And over here is Chasing the Sun, right? That's what this is right here. Yeah, that's the first artwork. Beautiful. It's changed since then. Wow, you got such cool stuff in here. And then over here, I noticed this. That's why I wanted to come into the room as well, because we have these gold wards. This is all just for piece cells though. That's all right. Yeah. I'm pretty sure we should have one for killing by now. It's just so cool to be in here and to hang out with you. The relationship that you have today with Dave Mustaine or Megadeth, do you guys communicate at all? Nope, not since the system has failed. Has anyone in the Megadeth camp, whether it be managers or publicists or anyone ever reached out or nothing like that? I can relate. Yeah. Yeah. But eventually I got reached out to you for some little video thing, but it wasn't like, hey man, let's get the party back together. Would you ever consider going back to Megadeth if they called you up and said, hey Chris, we're doing something and you'd like to? I don't think so. Would you like to throw some money at you? No, I mean, if Dave did a solo thing, maybe, but I'm not, I don't wanna learn all those Megadeth songs. No way. And then how am I gonna do Marty Friedman solos, you know? Yeah, Marty's pretty awesome, but you're pretty awesome too, so I don't think you'd have a problem. I'm sure you're aware that Dave Ellison and Jeff Young, I've recently reunited together outside of Megadeth. Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I just saw actually great people. I just saw Dave, I just did a gig with Dave over at the Ultimate Jam Night at the Whiskey. Oh, cool. And they were doing a tribute to the Big Four, so Dave Ellison and Jeff Young were both playing. And I thought to myself right at that moment when I saw them in the dressing room, the Whiskey, like, why isn't Chris Poland in this room with us? Oh no, I'm doing, I think it's in November. I'm doing a thing with those guys in November in Chicago. Wow, you just answered my question already. So I was gonna ask you if you would consider joining up with Dave Ellison and Jeff Young. So you're already doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so cool. Yeah, Dave sent me a text and said, hey, you wanna do this? I said, yeah. From being in Megadeth, would you say that, you know, your writing, your perspective, your approach to music, your life experience? I mean, would you say that? Before and after, you were a completely different person? Made a big difference. Just, I mean, musically it did, you know, even financially it's helped, you know. So it was the right thing to do and it lasted just as long as it was supposed to, you know. And I'm really proud of all that, you know, music. All three of the records I played on, so. What's going on today and what music you're working on? Because, you know, we know you've moved on a long time ago from Megadeth, but of course the fans wanna always ask the questions and of course everybody wants to know all the intimate, juicy details. Yeah, yeah, we have Carlos Cruz from Warbringer, is our drummer. Oh wow, great drummer, great guy. Really good. Was just fit right in and he actually, he got us together after Nick passed just to get us out of our funk because it was a long time before we even, you know, felt like playing and one day he just, you know, suggested that we get together and we did and then it started, he came in, he knew like 10 of our songs, like better than we knew him. That's great. And so we've been going from there and he's right now, he's on the road right now for a couple of weeks, but when he gets back we're gonna finish a record that we have a record deal with M Theory Audio. And they released a song called Exit Stage Left which I had forgotten when I named it that there was a rush song called that. But yeah, but it was in my mind, it was a song that we had worked on with Nick and I just felt like I wanna, you know, that song is definitely about Nick for me and anyway, so they released that as a kind of a teaser for the record that's been online, you can look it up and listen to it. But yeah, we have to finish the record when Carlos gets back and we have a lot of material so it should go well. That's great and are you recording that here? Yeah. But what's the name of your recording studio? It's called Glass House. And you're telling me a little story, someone named it? Yeah, I think Donnie Serian named it and I just never named it so that's what it's been called ever since. How cool. Well thank you Chris, it's a real honor for me and a privilege and I'm really, you know, appreciative to finally come and meet up with you in your studio and in your- My hideaway. You're abode here, humble abode in the beautiful downtown Los Angeles and you know, it's just so cool to talk about these times that you experienced and these experiences, because you know, no one else was there that can really explain it this way. I appreciate it.