Megadeth's Dave Mustaine diagnosed with throat cancer

Dave Mustaine, lead guitarist and vocalist of the band Megadeth, has been diagnosed with throat cancer. This was confirmed by Dave himself when he took to social media to share his grief with his loyal fans and the world.

“I've been diagnosed with throat cancer”, Dave wrote. “It’s clearly something to be respected and faced head on—but I’ve faced obstacles before. I’m working closely with my doctors, and we’ve mapped out a treatment plan which they feel has a 90% success rate...”

The 57-year-old added that treatment for his ailment was already underway, confirming that his band would be forced to cancel most of their shows this year. However, they would still participate in the 2019 "Megacruise" scheduled for October “in some form.”

Dave was an early member of Metallica, joining the band in 1981. There, he was credited in the albums Kill em All (1983) and Ride the Lightning (1984). However, after many fights with the band, he was evicted for his drug and alcohol use. Famously, the Metallica founders put Mustaine on a greyhound bus to Los Angeles, where he founded Megadeth with David Ellefson and Greg Handevidt.

In the ensuing years, Megadeth and Metallica became part of the “Big Four” of Thrash Metal. Megadeth went on to win 12 Grammy nominations, with the most recent being in 2017 for the title track 'Dystopia' in the 'Best Metal Performance' category.

The southern Californian's brainchild, Megadeth, is one of the most influential metal bands of all time, with 38 million albums sold worldwide since its inception nearly four decades ago. The band came to be associated with what is known as 'Thrash metal', with their music being incredibly faster than the that of the rest—Mustaine's supersonic guitar skills making it all possible.

Guitar World magazine ranked Dave Mustaine at the #19 spot along with then fellow Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman on the 2004 '100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time' list. In 2012, Guitar World bumped him up to the #12 position.

In 2009, Dave featured as the #1 player in Joel Mclever's Book 'The 100 greatest Metal Guitarists'. before Guitar World improved his ranking to the 12^th greatest guitarist of all time through a reader's poll in 2012.

Many celebrities responded to Mustaine’s tweet with heartfelt support, from Slash of Guns N Roses to Trivium’s Paolo Gregoletto.