Dave Mustaine said he had 500 riffs to choose from when writing the follow-up to Megadeth's Dystopia.

Speaking with uDiscover Music (video below), Mustaine commented on his riff library and how he translates those ideas into complete songs. "You can go through there and handpick the best of the best," he explained. "And it’s not like I have to struggle to come up with something really good. It’s there — I just have to pick it. And I’m so excited about doing that and getting something out into the listeners’ hands."

The band has been working on the new record in the studio and it will be the first to feature drummer Dirk Verbeuren, who may be the first to implement blast beats in Megadeth's sound. Hear a teaser of what the drummer has been laying down here.

There's no way Mustaine can use all of those riffs on the new record and — just putting this out there — we'd be stoked if he released the leftover riffs as is. That is, unless, he's trying to double Dark Angel's efforts on 1991's Time Does Not Heal, which proudly boasted that it contained a staggering 246 riffs.

On a personal level, the Megadeth mainman has also spent the last couple years repairing connections. "We started something about three years ago when I went to 5B Management. We had talked about doing something called the 'Dave Mustaine charm offensive,'" he commented.

"And we’re just going out and rekindling old relationships and making sure people who thought that they knew who I was, because they’d only heard about me, get a chance to actually meet me and to repair any of the damage that I may knowingly, or unknowingly, have done," Mustaine added, noting, "So that really helped a lot."

After this next album cycle, Mustaine's recording contract, publishing contract and merchandising contract expire. "I have the world by the short hairs right now. I’m so excited about it too," he remarked.

While the world awaits the next Megadeth album, there's a 35-track remastered greatest hits set, Warheads on Foreheads, coming out March 22.