THE BEAST

MEGADETH   mainman   Dave Mustaine   says that he would love play a "Big Four" show where all the bands "got treated fairly" instead of   METALLICA   performing a longer set and getting more stage space than the other groups on the bill.

The so-called "Big Four" of 1980s thrash metal —   METALLICA ,   MEGADETH ,   SLAYER   and   ANTHRAX   — played together for the first time in history on June 16, 2010 in front of 81,000 fans at the   Sonisphere   festival at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw, Poland and shared a bill again for six more shows as part of the   Sonisphere   series that same year. They reunited again for several dates in 2011, including the last "Big Four" concert, which was held on September 14, 2011 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. Since then,   METALLICA ,   SLAYER   and   ANTHRAX have played a number of shows together, including the 2013   Soundwave   festival in Australia. They also performed at the 2014   Heavy MTL   festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

During a brand new interview with   SiriusXM 's   Eddie Trunk ,   Mustaine   was asked if   MEGADETH   and the other bands would be interested in playing more "Big Four" shows before   SLAYER   finally pulls the plug on its touring career.

"I think if you asked the three of us [ MEGADETH ,   SLAYER   and   ANTHRAX ] that our camps would probably say yes," he responded (hear audio below). "If   ANTHRAX ,   SLAYER   and   MEGADETH   all wanna do it, and   METALLICA   doesn't, then what do we do? The 'Big Three'? I'm sure that a lot of people would like to see that, and that may be what it is. You know, you may end up having it be the 'Big Three' plus No. 5, if we have   EXODUS   play with it.

"But it's not about just doing concerts for the sake of concerts — it was about the movement, it was about what we did together as a group,"   Mustaine   continued. "And excluding   ANTHRAX , we were all like neighbors almost, 'cause we all lived so close; it was just a half hour to an hour at the most between each other's houses on the freeway.

"So I think it would be great to do more 'Big Four' stuff. [We could] do one in Japan, do one in South America — we never did one in South America, we haven't done one in Asia. Give the people an opportunity to see it before it goes away forever."

Asked by   Trunk   if there was a highlight moment for him at any of the previous "Big Four" shows that made the experience "extra special,"   Mustaine   said: "Not really. They all had significance to it. I think that the playing at the end was fun too. But I think it always kind of soured to me when you watch [ METALLICA   guitarist]   Kirk Hammett   say on the DVD [ 'The Big Four: Live From Sofia, Bulgaria' ], when they're praying, and he says that 'we're the Big One.' That just kind of shows you how the mentality was there — that it really wasn't the 'Big Four'; it was   METALLICA   and then the three of us."

Mustaine   added: "I would love to see it done in a way where we all got treated fairly and we all played together, same amount of time, same kind of stage situation, but I don't think that's gonna happen. And it's cool, because   SLAYER 's gonna down in history, and they don't need the 'Big Four' to make them any more legendary than they already are. Nor do I."

SLAYER   announced last week that it will embark on one "final" world tour before calling it quits as a touring act.

Hammett   said last year that he believed that the "Big Four" idea would be revisited again. He explained: "I see those shows as kind of like a celebration — a real celebration of each other, and a real celebration of the music that we all make, and a real celebration of the audience embracing [what] we've done. And why not have more of that?"

Five years ago,   SLAYER   frontman   Tom Araya   said that the only thing that was standing in the way of further "Big Four" shows was "the politics of character in one particular band," with some fans speculating that he was talking about   Mustaine   and   MEGADETH .

In his autobiography,   "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir" ,   Mustaine   addressed the issue of where his band fit in the "Big Four" order. According to   The New York Times , he assured the reader that he was not offended by being put behind   SLAYER . But he added an interior monologue: "O.K., we'll play ahead of you guys on this trip, and God willing we'll do it again sometime in the near future and we can flip things around."

Mustaine   was a member of   METALLICA   for less than two years, from 1981 to 1983, before being dismissed and replaced by   Kirk Hammett . He went on to form   MEGADETH   and achieve worldwide success on his own.

Mustaine   feuded with the members of   METALLICA   for more than two decades before finally patching things up over the last few years. He has jammed with his ex-bandmates on several occasions during "Big Four" shows and at   METALLICA 's 30th-anniversary concerts in 2011.