MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine says that he is "fighting" to get another heavy metal category added to the Grammy Awards. In an effort to continuously evolve its Grammy Awards process, The Recording Academy announced in April 2011 that it had restructured the Grammy categories across all genres and fields, bringing the total number of categories to be recognized at the 54th Grammy Awards in 2012 to 78 from 109. As a result, instead of separate "Best Metal" and "Best Hard Rock" performance prizes, there is now a single "Best Metal Performance" award. In addition, "Metal" remains one of the 70 or so categories that aren't televised during the performance-heavy broadcast. Mustaine, who landed his first-ever Grammy back in 2017 when he took home the trophy for "Best Metal Performance" for the title track of MEGADETH's latest album, "Dystopia", told the San Francisco's 107.7 The Bone radio station that heavy metal "deserves" to have another category at the annual event. "I joined the Grammy chapter out in Nashville to address that exact thing," Mustaine said (hear audio below). I joined the Grammy chapter because we have one metal category and I think they've got a dozen polka categories. I stopped going to the Grammys because you'd have to sit through, like, 30 Latin jazz records, and then you'd have to sit through another 30 jazz Latin records. And it's, like, 'What?' So a couple of years ago, the guy that produced our record 'Th1rt3en', Johnny K, and a couple of other guys at the Grammys tried to get another [heavy metal] category, and they were so close, but it failed. And I called them up and I said, 'We're doing this.' So 2020, we're fighting — we're getting all of the metal labels that we know, we're trying to get them all together to petition the Grammys to give us another metal category." He added: "My record was one of the Top 25 records of the year worldwide for Universal. Don't tell me that we don't deserve another category." MEGADETH's "Dystopia" nod marked the band's twelfth Grammy nomination in the "Metal" category (including nominations in the discontinued "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance" category). Even so, Mustaine told The Columbus Dispatch in a 2017 interview that he won't be fully satisfied until he has a Grammy with his own name on it. "As crazy as I am, I was thinking about the Grammy the other day and [how] it was given to MEGADETH," he said. "I was thinking it would surely be a lot better if it was given to Dave Mustaine and not to MEGADETH. I guess you've got to keep the fire burning." MEGADETH is currently working on the follow-up to "Dystopia" for a 2019 release. The band will support OZZY OSBOURNE on the next North American leg of the BLACK SABBATH singer's "No More Tours 2" in May, June and July 2019.
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