About a month ago, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine sent Bill O’Reilly a tweet encouraging him to listen to the band’s latest album, Dystopia, which had just dropped at the end of January. In said tweet, he included a photo of several of O’Reilly’s books, saying that since he had absorbed O’Reilly’s work, perhaps he should reciprocate:

@oreillyfactor bill, dave here. I bought all of your books. How about you get my new album #Dystopia by @Megadeth? pic.twitter.com/BdBUPEIY7p — Dave Mustaine (@DaveMustaine) January 27, 2016

Okay, a few things here. First off, that’s not all of O’Reilly’s books; I don’t see Those Who Trespass or Culture Warrior anywhere, not to mention the immortal O’Reilly Factor For Kids. Secondly, begging Bill O’Reilly to listen to your album has to be the least metal thing of all-time. Congratulations, Vince Neil doing the chicken dance, you’re off the hook.

Of course, Mustaine’s love for O’Reilly shouldn’t be too shocking; he’s been a well-known far-right conservative for quite some time. In 2012, he endorsed Rick Santorum for President, he’s stated his opposition to same-sex marriage, and in one truly cringe-inducing rant, seemed to suggest that the mass shooting in Aurora, Colo. was a hoax done to artificially increase support for gun control legislation. In short, we’ve been through this before.

But if you’re a Megadeth fan, it all can be a bit much to take in because, well, it wasn’t always like this. Megadeth’s work has always had political overtones, and while I don’t know if it would be quite accurate to refer to their early work as “liberal,” you certainly wouldn’t call it conservative either. Consider 1990’s Rust In Peace, often considered to be the band’s masterpiece. Throughout this album, there are anti-war themes that would make the Fox News crowd cringe. “Rust In Peace…Polaris” is a rant against the proliferation of nuclear arms, “Holy Wars….The Punishment Due” admonishes killing in the name of religion, while “Hangar 18” features the immortal line “military intelligence/two words combined that can’t make sense,” which wouldn’t exactly sit well with the “support our troops” crowd.

And it’s not like that album was a fluke. The immortal “Peace Sells” from the album of the same name was a rant against every element of society that that irritates Mustaine in which he posits himself as both an outsider and an everyman (“what do you mean I don’t support your system?/I go to court when I have to”), while the title track of 1992’s Countdown to Extinction was a treatise against the act of canned hunting. The ladder is certainly a far cry from the virulently pro-gun stance Mustaine takes now. Not because one couldn’t oppose canned hunting while supporting gun rights — many do — but because Mustaine has so thoroughly moved to the other side of the debate table. There’s just nothing about Megadeth’s early classics that would give you the impression of “wow, I bet this guy is a pretty staunch Conservative!”

Although, if we’re being fair, notes of right-wing politics did permeate Mustaine’s views even in Megadeth’s early years. In a 1988 interview, Mustaine criticized homosexuality, saying the Bible was against it, and in another interview the same year, he stated his proto-Trump plan to “build a giant wall” along the Mexican border. So, despite the anti-war themes of some classic Megadeth songs, he was never exactly a dyed-in-the-wool leftist. That said, he’s definitely shifted further to the right in the past decade or so.