MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine and his wife Pam held a press conference yesterday (Friday, October 10) at the Sheriff’s Department headquarters in San Diego to ask the public for help in finding his mother-in-law, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and has been missing for a week.
75-year-old Sally Estabrook was last seen at a campground near Julian, California on October 4. Her husband noticed she was gone when he returned from a shower and couldn't find her.
Said Dave Mustaine: "Sally Estabrook went missing Saturday at 4 p.m. up at the Pinezanita Campground up in Julian. She has Alzheimer's, severe, [and] she's not communicative. And we're just asking everybody right now, because of the search and how extensively that it's gone, we're looking outside of the camp area now. And we're just asking everybody that may have been up there to take a look in your sheds, in your garages, any of the thick brush around your house. A lot of times, people that wander that have Alzheimer's are found very close to their home. They just take shelter underneath bushes and stuff. So we're asking that you look there. Also, anybody that's working in the medical field, in the hospitals and shelters, any of the senior citizens, adult homes, stuff like that, look at your patients. Maybe there's somebody there that's not supposed to be there. We need your help. For any of you that are watching this right now, we're just asking that if you see Sally — we call her nana — she's probably not gonna answer to you, just call 911 and then we'll go from there."
Added Pam Mustaine: "There's been some sightings in a couple of cities off the mountain, and I'm just wondering, even the fast-food restaurants, if she's with homeless people, travelling around, I don't know that they would know the situation right now, but that they'd be around the fast-food restaurants or taking shelter in places where they can get food. Just looking more into those areas. And again, she wouldn't know how to put two words together. And she may look like a homeless person at this point. But just keeping an eye out maybe in those areas also or even the freeway ramps or however she could be surviving right now on her own."
Search-and-rescue teams from four counties and the U.S. Border Patrol and more than 300 volunteers have taken part in the search for Sally Estabrook.
Estabrook is 5 feet 4 inches tall, about 145 pounds with shoulder-length, blond hair. She was last seen wearing a teal top and white, Capri pants.
Because Estabrook suffers from Alzheimer's, she isn't very communicative, but might respond to her name.
Anyone who sees Estabrook should call 911 or the sheriff's department at (858) 565-5200.
Mustaine revealed last year that a lot of the songwriting process for MEGADETH's 2013 album, "Super Collider", was affected by the fact that he had just found out his mother-in-law had Alzheimer's disease. He told Loudwire: "Until it happens to you, you really have no idea. And I think that when I saw how upset our family became and yet how we are able to provide the resources for her, it made me think about all the families going through this that don't have the resources to take care of a loved one. It also made me really appreciate our fans, because without them, I would not be able to take care of things the way I am. It really brings it all home. And then beyond that, I just did what any good artist does. I put my emotions into my music. That's the pain you hear in the music. It's real. People can say, 'We don’t want to hear this kind of shit,' but to me, this shit is important."
According to Mustaine, the "Super Collider" track "Forget To Remember" was written specifically about some experiences with memory and forgetting that have come very close to home.
"The sad thing about Alzheimer's disease is it's like watching an ice sculpture of somebody you love melt in front of your eyes; it's really, really painful," he told the "Shockwaves" podcast. "So the song has a double entendre where there's a guy and he talks to a girl in the song and it's kind of like the movie 'The Notebook' where the character in the movie, the female, comes in and out of Alzheimer's and she is present and she is back in La La Land again. So you don't really know in this song if it's a girl that is intentionally trying to forget a relationship with a guy or if it's somebody who has Alzheimer's disease, which, really, is what it's about. I worded it so that it could be either way."
SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph says that "people are cowards behind their computers," explaining that social media has made it possible for everyone to speak with virtually no accountability because they can hide behind false names and identities.
Asked by AndrewHaug.com, Australia's first-ever dedicated 24/7 rock and metal online radio station launched by Andrew Haug, the former host of Triple J Australia's "The Racket" radio show (originally "Full Metal Racket"; 2001-2011), what he thinks about people like former METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted opting out of social media and whether he feels that fans and artists are getting overwhelmed with information overload, Bostaph said: "Social media is interesting, because I'm just now trying to… I've been on and off social media, just because I'm kind of a private person. I see people posting pictures of what they eat for dinner, and I'm, like, that just doesn't appeal to me. Unless I feel it's something interesting, which… I look at my life as these are the things I do, and I can't manufacture something I think is interesting in my life. So it's kind of one of those things where I've just gotta get used to putting something out there that I feel comfortable with."
He continued: "Say, for instance, if social media was around in the '70s, which it wasn't, I would have loved to have seen what Alex Van Halen was doing today, you know what I mean?! But I never had the opportunity. And maybe the opportunity to, maybe, [if] one person gets a response back from that individual [that he or she admires], [like] if I would have had one of my favorite drummers of all time reach out to me and say, 'Hey, thanks for this compliment,' just one thing, [I would have been, like,] 'Oh, my God, this guy got back in touch with me.'"
"I think, to a certain degree, social media is… It's gonna be one of those things where… I think it's gonna go by the wayside, like everything else… I could be wrong. But I think people are just gonna get too much of it, or it's gonna grow into something else. But right now, it's one of those things…"
He went on to say: "I never thought of [social media] as a necessary evil. I think the way I'm looking at it is, now, for myself, if you've really got something you wanna share with people, then you do. I also think that there's a lot of bad things out there in terms of, not just social media but the Internet, because people have no accountability.
"When I grew up, if certain people said things about me on the streets where I grew up, if you said it to my face, certain things, you would have gotten a knuckle sandwich. That's how it was. You don't talk trash about people. If you've got something to say to me, you come up to my face. That's not the world we live in. People are cowards behind their computers. Or they're 'brave.' I'd say they're brave behind their computers, and that makes them a coward.
"Look, if you can't say something [to a] person [if he or she] was in the room, don't [go online and] say it. So I don't blame certain individuals for opting out of [social media], because after a while, you're, like, 'Man, what is this? It's just a bunch of crap anyway.' Other people utilize it. They say you have to have thick skin. So, it depends on how thick your skin is. If you have thick skin, you can deal with it. For other people, it becomes social drama.
"It's an interesting question. I don't know if there's one… There's not a right answer to it. Shoot, there's idiots driving cars out there, so I guess there can be idiots on the Internet."
Bostaph rejoined SLAYER last year following the band's latest split with its original drummer, Dave Lombardo.
Paul was SLAYER's drummer from 1992 until 2001 and recorded four albums with the band — the gold-certified "Divine Intervention" (1994), the 1996 punk covers album "Undisputed Attitude", "Diabolus In Musica" (1998), "God Hates Us All" (2001) that received a Grammy nomination for "Best Metal Performance", as well as the DVD "War At The Warfield" (2001), also certified gold. In addition to SLAYER, Bostaph has been a member of FORBIDDEN, EXODUS, SYSTEMATIC and TESTAMENT.
SLAYER has returned to the studio to resume recording its new album for a tentative early 2015 release. Helming the sessions is Terry Date, who previously worked with the band on the song "Implode", which was made available as a free download as a "thank you" to the band's fans for their continued support following SLAYER's surprise performance at this past April's Revolver Golden Gods awards in Los Angeles.
Joining guitarist Kerry King and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya in the studio for SLAYER's new album are returning drummer Paul Bostaph, who replaced Dave Lombardo last year, and guitarist Gary Holt (also of EXODUS), who has been filling in for Jeff Hanneman on tour for the past four and a half years.
Speaking to Jose Mangin, SiriusXM director of programming and on-air host (Liquid Metal, Ozzy's Boneyard, Octane), Araya stated about the progress of the recording sessions for the new CD: "We're just getting started, man. We're laying down drum tracks at the moment, but yeah, we're just getting started. I'd say we're two weeks into doing stuff."
Regarding the direction of the new SLAYER material, Araya said: "There's stuff that Kerry has been working on for the past almost two years, two and a half years.
"We started this whole process of writing a new album several years ago — three or four years ago — so it's been a long process; it's something that we've been doing for a while. So a lot of these songs have been around for a bit and now we're just trying to figure them out and make them good."
Araya also talked about SLAYER's collaboration with Date, saying, "He's awesome, dude. He's really, really good.
"We actually finished up a song that we're doing for somebody and we put that together in five days, and we went in and recorded it, we did all our parts, and then Terry mixed it and we presented it and it fuckin' sounds really heavy, man. [It] sounds awesome, sounds real fuckin' heavy."
SLAYER's next CD will be released on Nuclear Blast Records through the band's own label imprint, closing out a 28-year relationship with Rick Rubin and American Recordings. It will also be SLAYER's first album without the group's co-founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who passed away in May 2013 from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver. He is credited for writing many of SLAYER's classic songs, including "Angel Of Death" and "South Of Heaven".
"I never go online and see what people are talking about because people are ten foot tall behind a computer screen, you know?!" King told ARTE Concert at last month's Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany. "But, you know, a lot of [the reaction to 'Implode'] was positive, a lot of people said, 'For anybody that was worried about what SLAYER was gonna sound like post-Hanneman, don't worry about it.'"
He continued: "I know people are gonna think that [we can't make another quality album], people are gonna expect us to fail because it's the first record without Jeff; I get it. But I'm also very proud of what of we've done so far towards new material. It's fast, the slow stuff's heavy. I mean, it's… Everything that people liked SLAYER for in the past is on this record."
Bostaph was SLAYER's drummer from 1992 until 2001 and recorded four albums with the band — the gold-certified "Divine Intervention" (1994), the 1996 punk covers album "Undisputed Attitude", "Diabolus In Musica" (1998), "God Hates Us All" (2001) that received a Grammy nomination for "Best Metal Performance", as well as the DVD "War At The Warfield" (2001), also certified gold. In addition to SLAYER, Bostaph has been a member of FORBIDDEN, EXODUS, SYSTEMATIC and TESTAMENT.
Original SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo was effectively fired from SLAYER after sitting out the band's Australian tour in February/March 2013 due to a contract dispute with the other members of the group. Filling in for him was Jon Dette (TESTAMENT, ANTHRAX).
Former PANTERA drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott says that he has "found peace" 10 years after witnessing the murder of his brother while they were both playing at a club in Ohio.
Dimebag was shot dead on December 8, 2004 while performing with his band DAMAGEPLAN at Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio. The shooting that night claimed three other lives and seven more were injured as the mad gunman opened fire on the crowd at the small club north of downtown Columbus.
One of heavy metal's most influential and beloved figures, Dimebag was a larger-than-life guitarist and a genuine, amusing human being who was rarely spotted without his favorite drink, the "black tooth grin" — a splash of Coca-Cola and two shots of whisky.
During a recent chat with WWE wrestling superstar and FOZZY singer Chris Jericho for the "Talk Is Jericho" podcast, Vinnie spoke about how he feels that Dimebag's spirit and energy is always with him and inspires him to be the best that he can be.
"The funniest thing that's ever happened to me… I turned 50 this year, and it was the best birthday party I ever had in my entire life. It was absolutely incredible," Vinnie said.
"I still feel like a 19-year-old kid, man. Everything I do, I approach the same way. I'm not married. I don't have any kids. I've been married to music my entire life. I've been dedicated to it. I know what it takes to do it. And ever since my brother has been taken from me, I feel like I have to live for both of us. And I bring it everywhere I go, everything I do, and I think he's here with us, watching us and enjoying everything that's going on, man."
Vinnie also talked about how his brother cherished being a rock star, was always "on," and lived to have a raucous good time. And he always made sure everyone around him was as pumped up, comfortable and/or inebriated as he was.
"The thing that turned him on the most in this world was putting a smile on other people's faces," Vinnie said. "It didn't matter where it was, when it was, how it was, whether it was playing his guitar, whether it was shaking a hand, signing an autograph, giving him a pick, just saying hi. That was the most important thing in his life — making other people smile."
He continued: "I remember the last show we ever played together with DAMAGEPLAN, we played in Buffalo, New York, and I wanted to… Actually, we wanted to go to the casino in Niagara Falls and he was really smoked. We had two more shows left. We were gonna do Mancow's show in Chicago the next day. And I said, 'Dime, man, let's go to the casino, man.' And he was, like, 'Man, Vinnie, I'm really, really tired. I wanna kill these last two shows. I'm gonna go home and make the next DAMAGEPLAN record. I wanna kill this.' He goes, 'You go have a good time, man. I'll see you in a little bit.' So me and Mayhem, our security guy that got killed that night [in Columbus], went with me, and we went to the casino and we had a great time. And the bus pulled up about 3 o'clock in the morning to get us, and I came on the bus, and there was a full party going on in the front lounge. And I'm, like, 'What is going on in here?' It was Dime and there was, like, 12 people I'd never seen in my life. And I said, 'Dime, I thought you were [tired].' And he goes, 'Dude, I couldn't let these people down, man. They wanted to party tonight, man.' And that's how my brother was. He just would not let people down."
Asked if he always shared his brother's fun-loving approach to life, Vinnie replied: "I always had that attitude, he always had that attitude. That American Express commercial, 'You can't take it with you,' was always special, but it never was real until that happened."
He continued; "Me and [Dimebag] used to joke with each other all the time. We'd be on a plane and [we'd say], 'Hey, man, if we're going down, we're going down in a plane crash together.' It was always, 'We're gonna do this together.' 'Cause we did everything together. And we didn't get to do that together [that night in Columbus]. And… when I say 'we didn't get to,' I don't mean to say that.
"It was a really hardcore, tragic event, and the guy [Nathan Gale] wanted to kill me too. And somehow or another, I was lucky enough to escape that, and I'm still here, and I will do everything and anything I can to carry on the legacy and the tradition that my brother always had."
Even though it's been a decade since his brother's murder, Vinnie still gets flashbacks of the day's events "every night." He says: "I don't wanna remember it, I don't wanna think about it, I don't want anybody saying, 'Hey, man…' You know…
"It's hard. It's hard. But I've found peace.
"I'm really happy with what I do with [my current band HELLYEAH], and I'm glad that we're moving forward and things are really good, man. Really good."
