How Megadeth created the first artist website 30 years ago this month

Thirty years ago, when Megadeth were the first music artist to ever participate in a “chat room” on their “Internet” “website,” an anonymous troll posted a word over and over again, to the point of driving Dave Mustaine crazy. . “I looked at it like, 'How do I get rid of this thing?' says the metal band's frontman and guitarist Bulletin board. “I still, to this day, don't know who the guy was. There was no one else, so this guy saw it as an opportunity.”

What was the word?

“S—,” Mustaine recalls.

Such were the predicaments of Megadeth's virtual hometown of Arizona in October 1994. As envisioned Robin Bechtel — then director of sales for Megadeth's label, Capitol Records — Megadeth, Arizona, based on the location of the band's new studio in Phoenix, was the idea for the first artist website. In addition to the chat room, called Megadiner, the site featured a repository of art and digital postcards, Vic's Cactus Hut and Souvenir Shop, a newspaper called Horrorscopes, and links to videos and internet radio pieces. It was designed to promote the Megadeth album euthanasia, but his legacy ultimately became “getting people on the Web,” according to Bechtel, now an angel investor in Uber, Everlane and others, “which is crazy to think about.”

Bechtel, a digital music pioneer who later worked at Warner, first envisioned the idea for Megadeth while touring a Los Angeles media studio and learning about the use of Macromedia software on videos and websites. She signed up for CompuServe dial-up service and installed a modem in her apartment. At the Capitol, he wrote a proposal for the Megadeth website and asked for a budget of $30,000. Her boss, Lou Mannsenior vice president of sales and marketing, agreed, even if other Capitol employees had no idea what he was talking about. Earlier that year, Tim Berners-Lee had invented the World Wide Weband it was catching on among techies and early adopters, but the concept would take years to catch on with music fans — and record executives.

“I wrote a sentence. It’s hysterical — trying to explain what a website would be,” Bechtel recalls. “We had a Megadeth record out. I was invited to the meeting. No one knew what the Internet was. Everyone was focused on who was going to do the album cover and whether the cover would make the poster and the cover and the poster would be in record stores.”

It was the first of many times in Bechtel's career that she would be told that the Internet was a fad.

“He gave a big presentation about it, and there were maybe 10 people in the room. Nine of the people didn't even understand what he was talking about: “What is this fake city?” recalls Mann, now CEO of StageIt, which streams live performances online. “There were a lot of traditionalists in our industry. You play it on the radio, you get it in the shops. But this was a new way of marketing. It was tough. It was questionable and affected other things.”

Mann believes that the industry's skepticism of Arizona's Megadeth represented a broader general skepticism about the new technology threatening the music business model, based largely on marketing and selling CDs. This attitude, within the labels, remained until the late 90s. For example, Capitol released a Duran Duran single online, and old-school record sellers didn't take kindly to it. Later, when Napster came along and threatened the business model of selling CDs in stores, record executives fearful of piracy ignored the opportunity to create a new business model. “It was a whole industry education that was taking place,” Mann recalls. “No one wanted it, because it challenged the protocol. On the other hand, that was his beauty.”

Megadeth, Arizona, launched with a gray background and Times Roman fonts — “That's how limited it was back then,” says Bechtel. And while the site may not have moved the needle Euthanasia sales, generated a lot of attention in newspapers and magazines. “Once Megadeth got involved, it took off,” he adds. “The band was always there and connected at the Megadiner. They saw it, I think, as a modern film trade. They totally got it.”

Soon other artists were demanding websites. Mustaine heard Gene Simmons of KISS say, “I want a website like Mustaine's,” and contacted the band's manager to confirm the rumor. An hour later, he received a call from Simmons himself. “There was nothing like this before,” says Mustaine. “It's such an unfathomable idea: there was no Internet back then.”

Mustaine, who is once again planning to release a new Megadeth album, is now the focus of an official website, megadeth.com, which contains the usual features such as tour dates, videos, online t-shirt stores and member bios of the complex. On social media, of course. But he maintains a fondness for the Megadeth natives of Arizona, “If you go to a Megadeth concert and you find someone who was a part of the Megadiner,” he says, “that's real street cred.”