Background
In 1988, Megadeth appeared at the Monsters of Rock festival at Donington Park in the UK, alongside Iron Maiden, Kiss, Helloween, Guns N' Roses, and David Lee Roth, performing to an audience of more than 100,000 people. The band was soon added to the "Monsters of Rock" European tour, but dropped out after the first show due to bassist Dave Ellefson's drug problems. Due to further issues within the band, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine fired both drummer Chuck Behler and guitarist Jeff Young, and canceled their scheduled 1988 Australian tour. The following year the band had hired drummer Nick Menza and guitarist Marty Friedman to join the band, creating what would become the band's first stable line-up. Dave Ellefson along with Mustaine were the only remaining members from the original line-up from 1983.
The title "Rust in Peace" was inspired by a bumper sticker that Dave Mustaine saw on the back of a vehicle. In an interview from 1990, Mustaine remarked, "I was driving home from Elsinore... um, Lake Elsinore. I was tailgating somebody, racing down the freeway, and I saw this bumper sticker on their car and it said... you know, this tongue in cheek stuff like, 'One nuclear bomb could ruin your whole day' and then I looked on the other side and it said, 'May all your nuclear weapons rust in peace' and I'm goin', Rust in Peace. Damn, that's a good title. And I'm thinkin' like, what do they mean, rust in peace? I could just see it now―all these warheads sittin' there, stockpiled somewhere like Seal Beach, you know, all covered with rust 'n' stuff with kids out there spray painting the stuff, you know." A revitalized Megadeth entered Rumbo Studios in March 1990. They were joined with producer Mike Clink, who had previously produced albums with Whitesnake, Guns N' Roses and Metallica.
The album's artwork was created by longtime Megadeth artist Ed Repka, who previously had designed the cover for Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?. The album's two singles, "Hangar 18" and "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" had promotional art created by Repka as well. The cover features band mascot Vic Rattlehead and the leaders of the "five major world powers" of the early 90's. The world leaders, from left to right, are former British Prime Minister John Major, former Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, former Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, and former American President George H. W. Bush.
Read more about this topic: Rust In Peace
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“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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