Chris Poland, the guitarist for Megadeth, has expressed his belief that the band’s second album, Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?, could have sounded better, though he has come to appreciate it over time.
Megadeth, founded by Dave Mustaine in 1983, always featured top-tier musicians, and Poland was a key member of the early lineup, alongside bassist David Ellefson and drummer Gar Samuelson. Together, they recorded two albums, Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good! and Peace Sells, the latter of which is widely regarded as one of the most significant albums in metal music history.
In a recent interview, Poland reflected on this early period of thrash metal, offering his thoughts on the genre and the sound of Peace Sells.
The year 1986 was particularly notable for classic metal albums, with releases such as Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Megadeth’s Peace Sells, and Slayer’s Reign in Blood. Poland commented on the explosive growth of the genre during this time: “That genre exploded. And it was the bands you just mentioned that started that genre. Once it caught on, it triggered an avalanche of bands like that. And then all the heavy bands today came out of that.”
Looking back on the early days of playing thrash metal, Poland recalled how he and Gar Samuelson approached their music: “When me and Gar first started playing, Gar told me, ‘This stuff’s super challenging, so you’re gonna really like it.’ And I did. It was fun to play. It was challenging.”
However, Poland admitted that he wished the band had paid more attention to their “tone game” when recording Peace Sells. Despite this, he noted that fans often disagreed with him on this point: “People argue with me about that all the time. They’re like, ‘No, man, you couldn’t have made that record sound any better.’ I finally just say, ‘Yeah, I guess so.'” Although he appreciates the original version, Poland also shared his fondness for the remastered and re-recorded version of the album by Dave Mustaine, saying, “I do like that, too.”
When asked about competition between early thrash metal bands, Poland responded, “I never got that vibe. Everybody I ever met, everybody was cool.”
Reflecting on the Peace Sells lineup and whether anything could have been done differently to keep the band together, Poland explained, “I think what it was, was everybody in the band was good at their… Like, Ellefson was probably the best bass player in that genre. And he had his ego. And me and Gar had our egos. And Dave had his ego, which was the ego that ran everything.”
He continued, “And there was this clash. Everybody had their idea of what they wanted to do or be. I think Ellefson was in the same camp as Mustaine, where me and Gar weren’t really in that camp. We were playing it because we could play it and enjoyed it, but it wasn’t really our ‘wheelhouse,’ you know?”
Poland also humorously suggested that the band’s struggles might have been eased if they had avoided substance abuse, stating, “Maybe if we never drank and did drugs, I don’t know. That shit didn’t help, that’s for sure.”
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