David Scott Mustaine (born September 13, 1961) is an American musician. He is the co-founder, frontman, primary songwriter and sole consistent member of the thrash metal band Megadeth and was the lead guitarist of Metallica from 1981 to 1983. Megadeth has released seventeen studio albums, sold over 50 million records worldwide, with five albums platinum-certified, and won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2017 at the 59th Grammy Awards, for the title track of their fifteenth studio album, Dystopia. Prior to forming Megadeth, Mustaine was the lead guitarist of Metallica but did not appear on any albums. He was credited as a writer on four songs from Kill 'Em All and two songs from Ride the Lightning. Mustaine was born into a family of Jehovah's Witnesses. He now identifies as a born-again Christian. He has experienced alcohol and drug problems throughout his life, and briefly battled throat cancer in 2019. Mustaine has been married to Pamela Anne Casselberry since 1991, with whom he has two children, Electra and Justis Mustaine. In a vote on the internet forum of Ultimate Guitar, Mustaine was ranked third in the top 25 rhythm guitarists of all time, first in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists, tenth in Loudwire's "66 Best Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time", and third in their "10 Greatest Rhythm Guitarists in Rock + Metal".