In the age of bands like Greta Van Fleet, modern listeners are yearning to experience the magic of yesteryear’s rock and roll. Even Dave Mustaine has noticed plenty of youngsters in the crowd at Megadeth’s final tour, keep to soak up some old school metal. And, if you ask the legendary thrash frontman, there’s a reason why: music nowadays has become less “genuine”.

In a new interview with Chris Jericho, Mustaine hints that the industry took a turn when the lines between genres began to become too blurry. In particular, Mustaine seems to take a jab at nu-metal. “Our generation of metal… I think that the music was more genuine,” he says. “I think that there came a time – not saying that any of these bands were responsible for it – but around the Linkin Park era… bands were doing metal with keyboards and stuff like that.”

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He notes that Linkin Park’s influence on the charts is comparable to how Billboard Top 200 changing how they calculated their sales figures in the ’90s “ruined the charts”.

Mustaine has made his stance on nu-metal very clear in the past. Speaking to LifeMinute last year, he blasted 2000s nu-metallers, simply believing that they relied on keyboards and rapping as a way of disguising a lack of skill. As he puts it, they “didn’t do any solos” because they “couldn’t do any solos”.

“Thank God that genre went away – people started to learn how to do solos!” he added.

He also hinted at how he didn’t feel the acts were ‘genuine’. To him, the high reliance on tech and production was essentially cheating: “When people do things for their own art, that’s great, but when you start seeing these manufactured records that band members didn’t play on, that’s fraud!”

Nu-metal acts at the time certainly felt the sting of Mustaine’s distain. In 2011, ExploreMusic interviewed Korn frontman Jonathan Davis about opening for Megadeth on tour – and Davis clearly felt Mustaine’s cold shoulder. “It was hard touring with Megadeth because at that time Dave Mustaine was really mean and just had attitude,” Jonathan recalled [via Blabbermouth]. “It was scary being on there… I respected him and everything, but I kind of got my feelings hurt, because he was mean at times.”

However, Mustaine is by no means closed minded. While he likes to keep his metal more pure, he does reveal that his sound is a product of many different sounds. In particular, he tells Jericho about his love of German electro-synth innovators, Kraftwerk.

“Listening to that kind of music gave me a lot of ‘tangled creation’ in my head when it comes down to music,” Mustaine says. “Instead of making everything 4/4 – you know, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, an outro – I don’t think like that.”

His eclectic palette has served him well over the years, even slipping into some of his work with Metallica. While remembering bassist Cliff Burton, who passed away 40 years ago in a fatal tour bus crash in 1986, Mustaine recalls how Burton essentially brainwashed him into putting Sweet Home Alabama into Metallica’s 1983 track, The Four Horseman.

“Cliff was a very, very, very sweet man… there was only one thing that I couldn’t stand about him,” Mustaine says. “It was how much he listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd… one day, we got to rehearsal, and we’d been listening to that song, Sweet Home Alabama, over and over and over… Lars goes, ‘We need a slow part for The Four Horseman Man’, and I said, ‘Oh, really? Okay. And I picked up my guitar and I [basically played Sweet Home Alabama].”

For more info on Megadeth’s ongoing final world tour, head to Megadeth’s official website.