Megadeth legend Dave Mustaine got the “all-clear” on his battle with throat cancer less than a year ago, but before he emerged victorious from fighting the disease, Mustaine made a phone call to another metal icon who beat throat cancer — Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson.

Mustaine felt compelled to call Bruce shortly after the Megadeth frontman was informed of his diagnosis. “I was pretty proud of Bruce after speaking with him,” Mustaine tells Forbes. “Although we’re not super close, I consider him to be someone I look up to. He basically told me the same thing I just told you: surround yourself with good, upbeat, positive people, places and things and try not to cause any unnecessary stress on yourself.”

“When you’re a frontman in one of the biggest bands in the galaxy, you don’t really have to tolerate the frontman of the other bands very much, but he’s always been super kind to me and very, I don’t want to say ‘gentlemanly,’ because I don’t want anyone to think that he’s not a bad motherfucker!”

In January of this year, Mustaine announced to a packed crowd that he was “100 percent free of cancer,” which brought a huge reaction from relieved metalheads.

Mustaine just released a new memoir, Rust in Peace, which recounts the events surrounding the landmark thrash album. “I’d be bullshitting you if I said [cocaine] did not influence [Rust in Peace] because we were all under the influence of the drug at the time,” Mustaine told Loudwire. “I didn’t really like coke that much. I liked the way that it tasted, but I didn’t like the way it made me feel. It never ended well, put it that way.”

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