Music Pioneer Megadeth's Dave Mustaine has always been an innovator, breaking musical barriers and leading the way to his own unique blend of symphonic thrash metal. So, it's no surprise that Dave and his equally as creative family have incorporated that intrepid spirit into a family business. They call it House of Mustaine--blending music, culture, and the art of fine winemaking. But this is not your ordinary name on a label. The Mustaines have dived deep, establishing their own vineyards, currently in the wine capitals of the world, both Italy and California, pouring their heart and soul into every bottle with a passion and deep respect for tradition, sustainability, and innovation in every pour. Inspired by Megadeth's groundbreaking collaboration with the San Diego Symphony and wanting to offer both traditional Megadeth fans and symphony patrons alike with fine wine, it has since expanded its portfolio to include ten small-batch, limited-edition wines grown in its sustainable vineyards across the globe. Each wine is a celebration of authenticity and artistry, named after one of Dave's iconic songs and stamped with the Mustaine family crest. Just as every song has a story through its lyrics and melody, so does every wine through its culture and craftsmanship. Each bottle is a statement, making it just as bold, uncompromising, and unforgettable as the rock'n'roll legacy it was founded on. House of Mustaine offers a flexible, subscription-based wine club that includes access to exclusive events and curated luxury travel experiences, first dibs on new releases, special pricing, access to all wines, and customizable monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual shipments of its current offerings. House of Mustaine Wine Club members will also have private access to once-in-a-lifetime trips across the globe, with monthly luxury travel experiences being offered throughout 2025, starting with a February adventure to Thailand. The six-day trek will adventure through northern Thailand, blending high-energy outdoor activities (i.e., zip-lining, elephant safaris, white-water rafting) with authentic cultural and local culinary experiences, and stays in unique luxury accommodations. Find out more about the House of Mustaine Wine Club and join today at houseofmustaine.com/wineclub. It's literally music to your mouth. LifeMinute was fortunate enough to be invited into the home of Dave, his wife Pamela, and their daughter Electra to hear all about the wine, get a fabulous tour of their beautiful house, and, of course, get the scoop on the latest Megadeth news.
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00:00Music pioneer Megadeth's Dave Mustaine has always been an innovator, breaking musical
00:13boundaries and leading the way to his own unique blend of symphonic thrash metal.
00:18So it's no surprise that Dave and his equally as creative family have incorporated that
00:23intrepid spirit into a family business they call the House of Mustaine.
00:29Combining music and culture into the art of fine winemaking.
00:33Basically music to your mouth.
00:35We were fortunate to be invited into their beautiful home in Tennessee recently to hear
00:40all about it, get a fabulous tour, and of course get the scoop on the latest Megadeth
00:45news.
00:46This is a Life Minute with the mighty Mustaine family.
00:49Alright guys, I have to say I was not prepared for this house.
00:54We are at the House of Mustaine with the Mustaines.
00:57Thanks for joining us on Life Minute.
00:59Absolutely.
01:00I walked in here and this house wasn't ready for this.
01:04I know we're talking about wine, we're talking about music, we're talking about life, but
01:07this house is insane.
01:09And I hear it's your baby.
01:12It's what I do when he's on the road, yes.
01:15Note to self, don't tour anymore.
01:18This is absolutely gorgeous.
01:20How are you guys?
01:22Busy, but loving every minute of it I would say.
01:25I don't think we'd have it any other way.
01:27We don't do nothing very well, so.
01:30I think we're used to just a constant flow and then when that's out of sync we're like,
01:35we don't know what to do with ourselves.
01:36But it's been great, it's been a good journey, especially with the wines.
01:42Entertainers, entrepreneurs, evangelists.
01:45So tell us about the House of Mustaine, the wine.
01:47How does a metal god get a wine business, how does that get going?
01:51Well, it started with him doing something out of the ordinary.
01:56And he ended up doing a symphony in San Diego about, now about what, 11 years ago?
02:0113.
02:02It was in 2012.
02:08I was talking to somebody about classical music and they said, they're great.
02:14And I said, you know what, guitar players today, if they knew how to play violin or
02:22if the greats from the past didn't play violin and they played guitar, they'd be the same.
02:27I said, I could do that and inside I was going like, what did you just say?
02:32So then it became a challenge and the San Diego Symphony had been run by a guy that
02:40I was friends with, he was an MMA guy, and his mom was one of the executives down in
02:47San Diego.
02:48So the concert happened with me, we did Vivaldi, Bach, and Wagner.
02:55And it was challenging because I'm self-taught, so I had to go count the strings and count
03:00the notes and I was going crazy trying to learn Vivaldi because he's such a great.
03:05And through all that stuff we said, we need something to blend our fans together with
03:11the subscribers to the symphony, because people have those memberships.
03:17And long story boring, we said we need something to help everybody get some social lubricant.
03:23I thought, well, you know, we don't really want beer and we don't really want hard liquor
03:29and we decided, since we lived in the wine country in Falbrook, to do wine.
03:36And Pam and I had a friend who took us to a nearby vineyard that was right on the other
03:42side of the hill we lived on.
03:44And we started tasting it and it was fun and we had no idea, because I hate to taste
03:49the booze.
03:50If I drink and it's like, you know, that's not me.
03:54If I take a sip of something, it's like, ooh, that's nice.
03:58That is a good wine.
03:59That's a good blend.
04:00That's a good winemaker.
04:03And we had a good winemaker there, the two, was it two pallets or what?
04:07It was two, right?
04:08One at the time.
04:09Yeah, the first one.
04:10And we sold it for $10,000, which was a pretty big accomplishment for somebody who's never
04:14sold wine, never made wine, barely drinks wine.
04:17And it crashed their site, so we had some things to figure out.
04:22And the rest was history.
04:24We decided we were going to go into doing this.
04:26It took a while.
04:28Electra was still pursuing her music career, so she wasn't involved at that point.
04:34But something clicked inside her and she's been going full bore on this now.
04:40And she's our vice president and a sommelier, I think, one of the youngest, if not the youngest
04:44female sommeliers in the world.
04:46I'm not one of the youngest anymore.
04:48When I did pass, I was definitely one of the youngest in America, I would say, female.
04:52When you think of sommeliers, you usually think of old men with skirts and a spoon on
04:57his lap, you know?
04:58Yeah, he has a little tray.
04:59Yeah.
05:00Amazing.
05:01And so you're loving it too, Electra?
05:03Did you ever know you'd be doing this?
05:05No.
05:06I remember I was 15 and we were helping to pack the first wine in the boxes to take them
05:12to the symphony.
05:13I had so much fun.
05:15But it wasn't until we kind of did a relaunch where I saw how much she loved it.
05:22I had a bit of know-how, at least from the marketing side and just from doing my own
05:26career in music, of how to do a little rebrand and a relaunch.
05:31So I wanted to help her do that.
05:33And then I accidentally fell in love with it and you could not ask me to do anything
05:39else now.
05:40It's beautiful.
05:41It's amazing.
05:42Yeah.
05:43And I needed help.
05:44It was not easy just to do it.
05:45It's too much for one person.
05:46Yeah.
05:47I had a team out in California, but when she joined me, it just took it to where it needed
05:50to go.
05:52And Pam, you were saying before that you're kind of out of the spotlight and these guys
05:56are like, you know, the entertainers.
05:57They're the entertainers in the family.
05:59Yes.
06:00I guess that dynamic just kind of works.
06:03I love how close you are.
06:04You guys are like, it's just so evident and it's rare, especially in this business.
06:08Yeah.
06:09Yeah.
06:10We have a really good time.
06:11We're a little wild and undone at times.
06:13We get each other.
06:14Yeah.
06:15It doesn't mean it's always smooth, but that's family and we get each other and that's our
06:20usual.
06:21Justice is involved in this too, our son.
06:25But because he's in the entertainment business, he's kind of a heavy hitter and the girls
06:29don't use him unless they need some manpower.
06:33He's got stuff that the three of us don't have, he adds.
06:38So while he's not packing or designing, Electra also designs the labels.
06:44We use song titles for my career.
06:46It really is a family thing.
06:48All of us are doing it.
06:49I think even Justice's wife has helped us too.
06:52Yeah, we all pitch in.
06:54He runs Megadeth, so he's got a big, big job.
06:57But they merge together in a lot of ways because it's the entertainment business and
07:02we've learned a lot, actually, from the entertainment business that we do use with the wine business.
07:08I bet.
07:09The good, the bad, and the ugly.
07:10Justice has a good way of bridging the two worlds.
07:12He mainly is in the Megadeth world, but he has a way of seeing angles of how they can
07:17come together.
07:18Right.
07:19And he really understands the fans, whereas us two, I think we understand more the wine
07:23and those two boys understand the fans.
07:26Yeah.
07:27Tell me a little bit more about the wine.
07:29What's your favorite?
07:30You make all the varieties.
07:31We know the one that is our favorite.
07:32We know which one we're going to say.
07:34And I have not been truly fond of the sparkling reds, but this one just stole my heart.
07:40I thought it was hers in the beginning.
07:43So we have a wine called Vernaccia from San Genesio.
07:46It's a DOP.
07:47DOP is a certification of a designated area, a protected zone.
07:52We fell in love with this wine.
07:54I initially tasted it and said, can we name this Electra?
07:58If I could be a wine, I would want to be this one.
08:00And it happens to be one of the rarest in the world, just being that there's only 27
08:04acres that have these grapes growing and that they are produced from.
08:10It's a touch sweet, which typically sweet wines have a connotation to them to some people.
08:17But this is something that happens naturally.
08:20So what we do is we'll harvest half of the grapes, make the cuvee, and then we'll leave
08:26another half on the vines to compound their sweetness.
08:29So they'll stay on longer, they'll almost raisin-like, I would say.
08:33And then we'll harvest those and blend them all together, ferment it twice.
08:37And now you have this excellent semi-sweet wine that's just so unique.
08:40All our Italian wines are organic, sustainable, very low intervention.
08:46We try to do it how the Benedictine monks did it, who founded our vineyard.
08:50We took an oath, actually, when we got there, which was in Italian, but it meant to preserve
08:55all that is beautiful.
08:56And so that is part of our organic practices, why we do things by hand.
09:00We're thinking of the next vintage.
09:02We're thinking of the culture, sustainability.
09:04We even leave every four rows, we'll leave one vine unharvested for the animals.
09:09Because you're taking a part of the ecosystem.
09:12So we feed the birds, you know, the birds come and the animals get a little bit.
09:16We also got to see the books that the monks had used on that land for years.
09:20I mean, hundreds of years.
09:22It's a secret.
09:23They keep referring to this monk stuff and the Benedictine monk stuff.
09:26So evidently the vineyards where we're at is 1,200 years old.
09:30They had either planted it or had someone plant it.
09:34So that's what we're talking about.
09:36And where is it exactly?
09:38So this is in Le Marche, it's the central east coast of Italy.
09:41So facing the Adriatic Sea, very close to the sea, probably five, eight minutes away.
09:47Where all the best wines are.
09:48Yes.
09:49And we actually just secured our next plot.
09:52We always are expanding and it just kind of comes our way and we're like, say yes.
09:57So we found another plot that we actually are going to be designing, she's going to
10:01be designing.
10:02The next winery, a place for us to stay out there.
10:05And then we're going to be planting in a couple weeks, a new very extreme type of planting
10:10of our Montepulciano and our Pecorino.
10:13And a place where we can bring our wine club members so they can enjoy it too.
10:17And it happens to be in a blue zone.
10:19Everything is just pure high quality and it's on a cliff facing the ocean and we're like,
10:23who wouldn't want to have wine here?
10:25A blue zone is just a pocket of the world where it has the highest capacity of centurions
10:29that live there, people living over a hundred.
10:32It's just known for longevity.
10:33So you know they have something that we don't know about.
10:37Yes, the Italians do.
10:39So if I want to drink wine, I want to drink wine from a place like that.
10:42Amazing, I can't believe how educated you are about it.
10:45We also had found an Etruscan tomb on our property when we were doing the vineyards.
10:52We just closed on the property and they called us and they said, by the way, I'm thinking
10:56thank God we just closed on it.
10:58By the way, they were digging and they discovered an Etruscan tomb from 700 BC.
11:04So now this site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
11:07And we had to stop everything while the government came in and decided.
11:11And I told her...
11:12I said, did they take the tomb?
11:13I don't know that I want a tomb on the property.
11:15No, I said, unless it's Jesus Christ, you know, we're good.
11:18But they did take it and put it in the museum.
11:22I can sleep in it.
11:23Yeah, it's wild.
11:24It was wild.
11:25It's beautiful.
11:26Oh my God.
11:27And then what does it sell?
11:28Online and then in Nashville, just because we're locals here.
11:31At the moment, we mainly focus on our wine club.
11:34So a lot of our wines, we keep members only for our club members, which is a commitment
11:38to the wines in general.
11:41There's no fees or anything.
11:42We just want them to be part of a community with us, you know, enjoy the wines on a regular
11:46basis.
11:47And then we curate experiences for that.
11:49We have a few that we have on our website that people can try before they decide.
11:55And then we go into select restaurant partners here in Nashville so far, which we just did
12:00an event last night.
12:01So we kind of try to focus on events, things like that, and then mainly online wine club.
12:05How many different varietals do you have?
12:08I think we're at 10 now.
12:11We'll keep going because that's what we do.
12:13And are they really all Megadeth song names or album names?
12:17Did you get your Electra?
12:18I haven't yet.
12:19We kept that one.
12:20What?
12:21It's in my master scheme eventually.
12:23I'll convince them.
12:24Each family member will probably do one that reminds us of what we would be if we were
12:29a wine.
12:31And do the Megadeth fans, are there a lot of Megadeth fans that are in the club?
12:35Was it the social?
12:36There really are.
12:37You know, going for it?
12:38Yeah, from the beginning.
12:39Yeah.
12:40They've been a huge support.
12:41We just had some of them there last night and we're starting to recognize faces and
12:44their story and it's been fun getting to know them.
12:48And recently just added the travel experiences.
12:51So hopefully we see some of the wine club people.
12:53The travel experiences are things that we would want to do ourselves.
12:59So we just want to bring people along.
13:00But one of them is the Orient Express.
13:04We've got the Belmont train in London.
13:06That's a murder mystery experience.
13:09So this is high end stuff.
13:12We did one that was an elephant sanctuary over in Thailand.
13:16So it's just stuff that we would really enjoy.
13:19Essentially the membership would have our, we have like a club concierge and she puts
13:24together travel experiences because that's our background.
13:28We're not generational winemakers yet, I guess there's two here.
13:33We do know travel from him being on tour and we've gone all the time.
13:38So we were like, how do we bring people along in this life that we got to live and give
13:43recommendations?
13:44We have people ask us all the time, like, where do we go when we go to London?
13:47Where do we eat?
13:48What do we do?
13:49So we were like, how do we put that all together?
13:50Because wine is essentially, it's very similar to that whole world.
13:54It's very regional oriented.
13:56So we decided, you know what, let's put together kind of like bucket list style stuff because
14:00that's what we love.
14:02So this year we released a few of those and we're excited to see people on it.
14:05That's great.
14:06That's great.
14:07And you know what I love that, you know, you don't necessarily maybe would think of Megadeth
14:12fans like to be wine connoisseurs, but that's not true, is it?
14:17Definitely not what we've seen.
14:18I think that's because on the outside, most people, when they think of a band called Megadeth,
14:24they think that it's going to be screamo music.
14:28And we appeal to all walks of life.
14:31I remember meeting a neonatal cardiologist who did surgery on babies while the mom was
14:37still pregnant.
14:39And he came up and he goes, yeah, I listen to Megadeth while I do surgeries.
14:43And I thought, not if you're doing something on my kids, you're not.
14:48That's amazing.
14:49Oh, by the way, my wine that I like is the Shiraz.
14:53What's that one called?
14:54The Shiraz.
14:55That was Blood of Heroes.
14:56Yeah.
14:57That was a nice one.
14:582017.
14:59That was our first one.
15:00Tell me all the names.
15:01Can you tell me all the names?
15:03Currently we have Elysian Fields, Two She-Wolves, a Rosato and a Tempranillo Rosé.
15:16Wanderlust Pecorino, A Two in the Morn, Holy Wars, Peace Sells, Almost Honest, I feel like
15:44our children love it.
15:46We have several others coming out too, which I can't disclose, but there's a lot of them.
15:49Yeah, we've got the one we just made last year.
15:52We actually get in, the first, oh boy, we brought two Italian Garbalatas over and that
15:59was our first.
16:00It's a huge wooden fermentation bag.
16:02Like Lucy.
16:03Like on Lucy where she's in it.
16:04It's like a barrel.
16:05That was us.
16:06We were in it.
16:07Like that.
16:08Yeah.
16:09And somebody, a friend of mine in winemaking had told me that you got to be careful.
16:11And I used to see him in there with straps and I thought, that is so weird.
16:15And they're foot stomping.
16:16Yeah.
16:17These guys.
16:18In like the nicest wineries in Tuscany.
16:20And we were in there.
16:21So it is.
16:22They do it.
16:23There's a gas too that it gives off and I didn't really take them serious.
16:27So I come back and I'm flat out.
16:29I thought I was drugged.
16:30We're scooping all the must out.
16:33And I was so close to it and it was so, I'm like, she's down there for a little while.
16:40Maybe I didn't need it.
16:41Maybe I did need straps on.
16:42Maybe.
16:43Yeah.
16:44You were hands on.
16:45No doubt about it.
16:46I mean, it's surreal.
16:47We are used to getting dirty just from being equestrians for most of our life.
16:52So it's all, it all goes together.
16:55How did you guys meet?
16:56Pam and I?
16:57Yeah.
16:58I went to this place and I was in there with guys from my band and I look across this venue
17:05and I see her with her girlfriends playing.
17:09And I said to my friend, go tell that girl I want to meet her.
17:14And so he goes over there and he was dark skinned and had enormous teeth.
17:19So he smiled and I went, okay, that's a good sign or maybe a bad sign.
17:25And he came back and he said, she said, if you want to meet her, you need to go over
17:29there yourself.
17:30And I, and I thought, all right, well, that's, that's kind of spicy.
17:34And I went over there and I said, hi, I'm Dave.
17:36I know who you are.
17:38Okay.
17:39Well, I'll be leaving.
17:42And I told her, I said, look, I got to go and I'd really like to take you out to lunch.
17:47And I left.
17:48And I guess that made a very odd impression on her.
17:52And we started dating and we got married shortly after that.
17:56And, and then about a half a year later we got pregnant and then six years later we were
18:03in Paris and we got pregnant again with this one.
18:06Yeah.
18:07It was, it's been, it's been really great.
18:08All these little steps along the way, how these things happen.
18:12You know, when I met her parents, her mom was still alive and her stepfather was alive
18:18and, and I met her brother, really liked the family.
18:23So it just seemed like, you know, this might work.
18:27We broke up for a while too.
18:29So I, I, I forced myself to break up with her so that I would know if I could live without
18:33her.
18:34And I went to Hawaii and I was miserable.
18:35I was so miserable because I missed her and I knew I was falling for her.
18:40We started dating again and the rest is history.
18:43We went to, back to Hawaii.
18:45I had a concert I had to do there and I invited her and her family and all my family and she
18:49didn't know.
18:50No, I didn't.
18:51Thankfully she was paying very close attention at the time.
18:56But I had secretly bought a nice diamond for her.
19:00We got married at the base of Punchbowl Diamond Head, the big volcano in Hawaii.
19:07We're on the side of the water, we're in the grass, it was beautiful.
19:10All our families were there and the rest is history.
19:13The problem was trying to find a wedding dress for someone like her in an island like Hawaii
19:20where most people are a little bit different sizes.
19:25They don't have real tiny outfits and stuff.
19:29The only thing that surpassed her trying to find something to fit her was what I had to
19:35wear.
19:36It looked like it was a suit made out of Reynolds wrap, aluminum foil.
19:41It was shiny and it was the only thing that fit me and I looked like, I could have been
19:46the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz because it was so reflective.
19:50We had four days to do it and then he was back on the road, so it was real quick.
19:55And then we had our reception, I think it was a month later when we got back.
19:59So what did you wear?
20:00I found a dress.
20:01It was pretty too.
20:02Thankfully, yeah.
20:03My brother walked me down the aisle and he had secretly brought out my whole family including
20:10my 98-year-old grandmother.
20:13Before he even asked you, right, to marry him?
20:15No, I had no idea.
20:18So he came up and he showed up at the hotel room and he said, what are you doing?
20:23I think he said this Thursday and I started boiling like from my feet all the way up to
20:28my head like, what do you mean?
20:30You asked me to come out here and I'm just supposed to know what I'm doing this week?
20:34Like I'm on my own?
20:36And then he can read me so well, so he knew and he quick then got down on his knees and
20:40posed the question.
20:41Knee.
20:42Not knees.
20:43On your knee.
20:44Yeah, so I had to quick just cool down a little bit and focus on what was going on because
20:50I had no idea.
20:51How many years ago was that?
20:52How long have you been married?
20:5333.
20:54Wow, wow.
20:55Beautiful.
20:56Another thing that's rare, you know?
20:57Yeah, very much so.
20:58I love it.
20:59We've seen all the seasons.
21:00Alright, let's talk a little Megadeth.
21:01What's new with Megadeth?
21:02We just finished a world tour at the end of last year.
21:03It was one of our probably funnest tours.
21:15Things were clicking, you know?
21:19We changed our management.
21:20We hired a management company to help us do branding, not manage us.
21:25And now the guys who were doing the branding are doing everything.
21:29And it's time, right now, we're making a new record.
21:3317th record. I've got over 200 songs, so they're gonna have a lot of bottles of
21:38wine. They'll have enough names to last a couple generations. I started asking
21:44you to have the wines in mind when you're writing the songs, which is very
21:49backwards. I need something that passes legally that we can use. If you look at the new
21:54record and it says Elektra on there, you know what happened. Yeah, we got to get
22:00them past the TTB, you guys, so we've got to have some names that'll pass. What is
22:06TTB? It's like the government board that decides if the name is okay to be on a
22:12bottle. There's certain things that we're not inciting. I'm like, I don't know if this is gonna pass. Some of the
22:19morbid titles. Holy Wars passed. Blood of Heroes. What's your all-favorite
22:29Megadeth song? Train of Consequences, maybe. That's one of my favorite, too. And that's not 30 years,
22:34that album, right? That was a 30-year anniversary? Which one? Train of Consequences? That was on
22:41Euthanasia. Euthanasia. That was in 1994, so that's 30 years, yeah. 30 years old soon, right? Yeah. Well, I am responsible for world
22:50premiering that at WWOR-TV, Channel 9. I was assistant to the news director. It was
22:56hard news, local, but it was a national show. I loved music, and my boss, Oz Young, at the time
23:01says, I'm gonna make you responsible for premiering world premiere videos. I know
23:05you love music. They'll run at the end of the show, at the very end, and I did Train
23:09of Consequences, but that's the right one. With the babies on the hanger, and it
23:13did not go well for me. I got in trouble. Oh, I bet. But I loved it. It was like the best thing I can say that I world
23:20premiered that video. I worked with, I guess it was Castle, who was the label at the time.
23:24The baby idea came from Hugh Signs, who was a photographer, artist, and if you remember back in that period, in the 90s, Jack
23:36Kevorkian was prominent in the news for assisted suicide. I thought, God, you know,
23:43this is so insane. People should have the right to terminate their life if
23:49they have an inoperable disease and they're suffering. I don't think that
23:54that's fair to keep them in their suffering, because I had, I've been through a lot with my
24:00cancer and other things that I've had from my work, so that's a whole other story.
24:05How are you doing? With the cancer? Yeah. I've been in remission for five years, but you
24:11never know. So I take care of myself. I see my doctors regularly, and for my
24:17age, I take pretty good care of myself. Guys my age usually don't. The generation
24:22I come from, guys get my age, they start getting fat and bald.
24:25Definitely still have the hair. Yeah. Did you all tell me what your favorite song was?
24:29Yours was Train of Consequences. Yeah. What about yours, Pam? And Dave, do you have a favorite?
24:34I would say Trust.
24:39I like the melodies in it. I don't have a favorite song.
24:43You have a favorite to play live, or not really?
24:45I don't have a favorite song. They're all like my babies. There are songs that I don't like as
24:50much as the other ones, but those will remain a secret, because I don't like giving energy into
24:58something that I'm not happy with. A song will let the writer know when it's done,
25:03if he's a good writer. Some people, when they're writing songs, they stop too soon,
25:09or they go too far, and you got to know when to stop. That's a very unique talent that a lot of
25:16musicians do not possess. You know it, and I was thinking of this earlier too, and it's interesting
25:22how you started the wine with the symphony. You really started that too. I think Metallica gets
25:28a lot of credit for doing a concert with a symphony, but you did it way before. That's
25:32different. They did their songs with the symphony, which is no large feat, you know.
25:41It was also years later, but just the idea of mixing all of that, like you did that before
25:47anybody was doing it, not just them, but anybody was doing it, you know? I would say he's pioneered
25:52a lot. Pam, you kind of stay not in the spotlight, and that's why it all works. I'm shy, so it's
25:59never been my desire, and I think that's helped a lot. We've got two entertainers in the family,
26:06which would be Elektra, and Dave, and Justice, and I like the business side of everything,
26:11and the strategy, and the ideas more similar, and don't care to be in the spotlight as much,
26:18but they are really good at being in the spotlight. Yeah, because Elektra, you had a music
26:23career as well. Talented with that, too. Thank you.
26:36But now Wine took you over. It won my heart. I never thought I would end up doing it, but there
26:42was just something about agriculture that's totally opposite of the music industry, and
26:49way I felt like it just fed my soul at the time. The grapes do not try to rip you off.
26:56It's very grounding, too, and just being outside. We've ridden horses our whole life, so we're
27:02outside, and it just feels good, and being out in the vineyards is just a complete joy.
27:08It was interesting, because music, you are the product, but now we have a product that we get to
27:14harness its story, and that we believe in, and stand behind, and just felt good in a way for it
27:21not to be me, but something that we believed in, and we loved. Now I have to go out and do sales,
27:27which I never thought I would be doing, to some of these restaurants, and time and time again,
27:32thank God I was in the music industry, because you get the door slammed in your face a lot,
27:35so you have to have fortitude, but I know that I know that I know that the wine is excellent,
27:42and so if they say no, it's on to the next. If you love something and believe in it,
27:48it's not sales anymore, you're just passionate about it. It was no longer me being the product,
27:54but now it was something that was like my kid. Yeah, and we're not really in control either,
28:00so every year it's a new harvest, and it's so exciting. You get to see what happened this last
28:05year, and try it, and compare it to the last harvest. It's very dependent on nature, and it's
28:10unlike beer. Beer is a recipe. This is not a recipe, so it's endlessly fascinating.
28:17When I became a sommelier, I finished my course. I literally thought I knew,
28:22and after I finished my course, I realized I know nothing, and it was very exciting,
28:27because I love a challenge, and I want to keep going, and wine is just that way. Whenever you
28:32think you know, you realize you just tap into the next layer. We've had to adapt to a lot just by
28:38going over to Italy, but when we went over there, we were just two women. We ended up in some dry
28:43lakes. We ended up in the hotel that we had a chain barred against. We were in castle towns
28:50that were so ancient, the car wouldn't fit, so we had all these little hurdles in the beginning.
28:54So many stories. It was like a reality show. That part, yes. What are we doing here?
28:59But that's part of being in a new place, and I always say this. With what he did,
29:04and why we went to the Marche instead of Tuscany or a typical region, was his spirit is, I think,
29:10we share all of us as Mustangs, but I mean, he became known for pioneering a whole new genre,
29:17and then becoming one of the best in the world at it, so we decided we wanted to do that in wine,
29:22which didn't mean going to the predictable place, but going somewhere which had authenticity and
29:27rich culture that we felt like we could really have a story and deserve to be heard. Kind of like
29:33an opening act, you said, that nobody's heard before. You feel like you found the one,
29:39so that's how we feel. It's my band. Indies. I love it. It's beautiful. I love you guys. You're
29:44awesome. Thank you so much. It's so good. Thanks for being here. I have a music one. What does
29:49music do for people? It depends. If you believe all of the colloquies about music, there's all
29:57kinds of sayings and stuff. The one that comes to mind first with your question is music soothes
30:04the savage beast, and I don't know who coined that phrase, but it's pretty accurate depending
30:10on the type of music. Now, if you play modern metal with the guys that can't sing and they
30:17do the screaming bit, that's really understandable to me because they can't sing, and they're making
30:23the best of what they can do. There was a period in 2000 where we had these bands called,
30:30I think it was Nu Metal, and they didn't do any solos. Why didn't they do any solos?
30:36They couldn't do solos, and thank God that genre went away. People started to learn how to do solos.
30:42I would say if you're in a Nu Metal band, you probably would be challenged even playing Johnny
30:48B. Goode, so I'm glad that went away. Any bands you particularly like right now?
30:55That I like? Yeah. Well, I like some of the older music because new stuff, I mean,
31:00all the good chords are taken. If you think back when I started 40 years ago,
31:07the music playing field didn't have millions of kids sitting at home doing guitar riffs into
31:14their computer and then posting it online. There's good and bad with everything, and when
31:19people do things for their own art, that's great. But when you start seeing these manufactured
31:27records that band members didn't play on, that's fraud. So I like bands that really play what they
31:35do. One of my favorite guitar players is one of the simplest guys in the world. It's the guy from
31:40Pink Floyd, David Gilmour. He could do more with one note than some of the guys playing nowadays
31:46can do with 12. And it's just a matter of feeling, feeling. The guitar, you're touching it, so
31:54it's an extension of your spirit, your soul, and how you make it sound. If it's like squint, crunch,
32:00crunch, that kind of stuff, well, you probably haven't bonded with the instrument yet.
32:07Playing a violin, violin has got to be one of the most dreadful sounds ever when you're
32:13learning it, because the sound of it and rosining the bow and all that stuff, and
32:19almost as bad as having someone practice on a wind instrument like a sax or clarinet.
32:25Awesome. All right, can we walk around and show me this beautiful house a little bit? Okay.
32:29A little bit of Europe throughout all the houses. That was a French piece that I love. This was
32:39also a French piece that I found out here. I like to mix the old and the new constantly, so we do.
32:48Look at this. I love it. I love it. These lights I brought over from England. I love England.
32:55Is that your favorite for design? Yeah, I mean, London, when he's on the road, that's always
33:00where I pull in, and that's been a very familiar place for 33 years I've been going, so I love it.
33:06This was like a bistro type idea that I just wanted from being over in France. You see a lot
33:11of this in the restaurants. These doors also were from France. You can close off everything if you want,
33:18and I just, I was in South America, and I was in one of the hotels, so you get, I get a lot
33:23of ideas from hotels, too, so this was one of them. Wine, of course. Some of your wines. Yeah, wines,
33:30wines. This was a sparkling, our sparkling pecorino that's amazing. This also was a piece
33:39that I had, and I just redid and put the marble top on it. This is a French piece. The greenhouse
33:44we're working on, hopefully I can grow something and it will live, so that's the greenhouse. Oh,
33:51that's great. But a lot of my influence is French, I would say equestrian, and English.
33:58It's all a lot of pieces that I pick up. I don't like matchy-matchy, so I usually grab things that
34:03don't necessarily go, but I love it. This is more equestrian room. One day I am going to do a barn.
34:11I'm a visionary, so I always believe if you can see it, you can create it. So that's an old safe,
34:16Wells Fargo safe. You should have seen them trying to get that in. Did you do this before,
34:21or no? You just... I mean, we used to move every two years, so each house has its own personality,
34:27so I just wait and live in it for a minute until it starts, you know, giving me some ideas.
34:32I usually gut everything. These floors also were all taken up. They were a red
34:38wood poplar before, and these are French oak, so we brought these over, too.
34:43But that's the ceiling I did with the mop. Oh my gosh. I just took them off. We did it with a
34:48Swiffer. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Unbelievable. What did you do? Just take a
34:53Swiffer mop and dip it, and then do it? It was with a glaze. They just used a glaze on it.
34:59We're those type that if you're determined, it just has no... We don't do the method correctly,
35:04but we're like, we're just gonna do it. Yeah, I love it. This is screaming Paris flea market.
35:10Look at this.
35:16This is the exact replication of my relationship with her dog.
35:22She is queen, and she stares at me like this every day, so I'm her least favorite sibling.
35:29Her mother is all hers, not mine as well. These are the plans to the Italy winery. Oh, wow. We're
35:37just getting a little bit of the 3D. That's where it started. Wow. She's using all local materials,
35:46and the property is all ancient stones and everything. It was original, but they washed it
35:54and put it all back together. It's crazy. I can't believe how you guys just fell into this.
36:01That's our life. I feel like we do. We just fall into things, but we're pretty game just to
36:07why not? You live once, and when you figure out what it is you love, you just have to go after it
36:14because you don't have a lot of time sometimes, so we just go for it.
36:22All right, here's Dave. Let's go before you go. Come with us before you have to go.
36:25Most beautiful room in the house that Pam didn't do. The house that Dave built. He's got his koi
36:30pond out the balcony there, which is one of his favorite things. He could open the doors wet, but
36:36there is a koi pond. This is beautiful.
36:46Oh, look at the Alice in Chains. Why do you have that one?
36:50We took them out on a tour. Oh my gosh. I didn't know that. Oh, and there's the infamous video.
36:56That world premiere for Channel 9. This one right there. That's the one. The babies. Yeah,
37:00but the baby's on the hanger. Yeah, they did that. They had, if you look close at it,
37:05the babies, if you look at them, they look like they're hanging from the clothesline,
37:10but they're really laying on a sheet of glass, and their mothers are right there,
37:18and the mothers were told to grab their toe and pull their foot, so the baby's got his foot being
37:24pulled like this. You're kidding. Which is why they all look like they're hanging from their
37:30feet. Some are laying on their side. That's amazing. Some are on their back, and we did a
37:36release party in London back in 94, and they had set that up at the place where we had the party,
37:45and I walked up and I saw that, and I went, now this is going to be a party.
37:49This is amazing. Can you imagine this?
37:55This is our guest room. This was our blood, sweat, and tears when I was a kid.
37:59We just, we did the mirrors. We got these mirrors. I think I had this idea,
38:05and I was like, let's just do it ourselves, DIY completely, so mom and I glued these on. We were
38:10cutting these little strips of glass. We did all the molding, which was gold leaf, and then we
38:18aged the cracks and crevices and stuff as well. Can you do my house?
38:24We're very creative anyway, but me and her really flow together, so I'm so glad I had a daughter
38:31too. My son and I, with the business side, we connect in a big way, and she's my right hand,
38:38literally, and she could answer anything for me. If I wasn't there, she would answer exactly the
38:44way I would. She would do it exactly the way I would. Yeah, so she knows.
38:51We're leaving to go make the next Megadeth masterpiece. Dave's going in the studio.
38:57He's literally going into the studio right now.
39:00Thank you for the interview. I'm coming out this way, away from New York.
39:04Safe journey back home.
39:05Go make a good one.
39:08To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast,
39:10Life Minute TV, on iTunes and all streaming podcast platforms.