On tour in Auckland on Monday, Megadeth lead singer Dave Mustaine says he is making amends with old enemies from over the years. Photo / Supplied by Roadrunner

On tour in Auckland on Monday, Megadeth lead singer Dave Mustaine says he is making amends with old enemies from over the years. Photo / Supplied by Roadrunner

It takes a lot of guts for a heavy metal guitar hero like Dave Mustaine to say sorry.

Over the years the Megadeth founder has had quarrels, harsh words, and, especially back in the early thrash metal days of the 80s, punch ups with his many foes.

He's warred with fellow Megadeth band mates, Pantera, and Slayer. But it is his ongoing 25-year war of words with Metallica - the band he got kicked out of in 1983 for boozing and general bad behaviour - which remains his most famous stoush.

Now though, it seems, it is time to make up and say sorry. Or, as Mustaine puts it, "make right".

On the phone from his studio in San Diego, he admits that he has no real regrets about what has gone down over the years.

"The only thing that is regrettable is when people die and you don't have a chance to say everything you need to say before they pass away," he says. "And I'm getting older and people who are in my age group, they're getting older too. That's why I've really been trying to make right with the people I've had differences with over the years because people die."

In a recent interview, he even acknowledged Metallica's James Hetfield's guitar prowess, and at the beginning of the year he congratulated Metallica for being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

And he has obviously made up with Kerry King and Tom Araya of Slayer because Megadeth play a double-bill with the band at the Logan Campbell Centre in Auckland on Monday night.

His substance abuse and boozing days - he calls it "getting a bender on" - are over too. He went through a sober stage, being a regular at AA meetings, but now he likes to have a few wines on show night.

He also became a Christian in 2004 and decided to "believe in myself".

"The music is better too," he concludes.

While finding God might sound like a rock 'n' roll cliche, Mustaine says he has always been a believer and references the line, "What do you mean I don't believe in God, I talk to him every day" in the title track of the band's 1986 album, Peace Sells ... But Who's Buying?.

"So, for people who think I've been this godless, terrible kid my whole life, sorry."

He was baptised when he was 4, but his mother became a Jehovah's Witness, which he dismisses as "a full-on cult", and it led him to rebel against religion.

He proceeded to get into witchcraft, black magic, and "got hold of the Satanic Bible" and carried out blood brother pacts with the members of fellow Californian thrash metallers Exodus in the early 80s (a band that incidentally was founded by Kirk Hammett who would later join Metallica).