Megadeth’s new LP The Sick, The Dying… And the Dead! is out now, and in a recent conversation with Eddie Trunk on his SiriusXM show, Dave Mustaine and the host spoke about the songwriting process within the band today, noting that guitarist Kiko Loureiro has 8 co-writing credits on the new LP.

“I think a lot of that had to do with my being willing to open up my songwriting process to allow another player to get inside that circle,” Mustaine said. “There’s my songwriting process and then there’s his and then what we do together. And sometimes I don’t want anybody coming into my songwriting process and changing a riff.” [via Blabbermouth]

Even still, Mustaine noted that the songwriting process ultimately varies from album to album and track to track. Randomly, though, Mustaine told a story about former bassist David Ellefson trying to “poach” one of Mustaine‘s songs, the track “Kingmaker” which opens Megadeth‘s 2013 Super Collider LP.

“I came in one morning and [producer] Johnny K was in there [working on] a song named ‘Kingmaker,'” said Mustaine. “[The song] was [already] done and I came in there, and I heard Ellefson and Johnny K in there recording a part at the beginning of the song. And it was nothing to do with the song; it had nothing… the riff wasn’t in the record anywhere. And I came in and I said, ‘What are you two doing?’

The pair apparently then tried to explain that, in Mustaine‘s words, “‘I’m gonna fucking poach your song and I’m going to put one of my riffs in front of the song.’ And it was so pathetic. I just felt so sorry for the two of them. I just said, ‘Go ahead. Leave it in there.’ But if you listen to ‘Kingmaker’ tonight when you go home, you’re gonna hear the beginning of the song, there’s a really dumbass part in there. And that’s it.”

The Sick, The Dying… and the Dead! is available everywhere today. You can read our album review here.