“My hand hit the glass and it broke. It got totally trashed. I can’t feel my pinky from nerve damage”: The freak injury that changed the way Chris Poland played guitar – and ended up informing the sound of Megadeth’s Rattlehead

Consult any “most influential metal albums of all time” list, and you’ll probably come across Megadeth’s debut album, Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! Likewise, ask anyone for their favorite cut from the 1985 record, and Rattlehead will receive considerable support.

With a distinct riff and thrash feel that introduced listeners to the early Megadeth sound, Rattlehead was pieced together by an electric guitar double act comprising Dave Mustaine and Chris Poland – but, according to the latter, it got its specific six-string swagger thanks to a freak injury that Poland suffered when he was still at school.

In the new issue of Guitar World, which looks back on some of the greatest guitar records of 1985, Poland sits down to reflect on the making of Megadeth’s explosive debut, and notes how tracks such as Rattlehead got their unique style – which was a result of a horrific accident. Squeamish readers, look away now.

“I cut my hand on the glass of a 200lb oak door coming at me,” he says. “I put both my hands up, my hand hit the glass, and it broke. My hand got totally trashed.

“I looked down and could see the bone of my pointer finger. I lost the ability to bend that, and I can’t feel my pinky from nerve damage. It drove me to play how I play.”

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It sounds unimaginably painful, and perhaps one of the worst injuries that a guitar player could endure, but Poland insists that having his hand destroyed by the glass panel of a solid oak door eventually gave him some playing quirks that others can’t emulate.

As Poland’s Artist page on Yamaha notes, for example, “Chris' clean, overdriven tone, and legato phrasing make him instantly recognizable. His unique style can be partially attributed to an injury to his index finger on his fret hand.

“This injury forced him to develop a style that includes smoothly phrased passages and wide intervallic leaps.”

This intervallic approach heavily informed the solos he was instructed to play across Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good, but as Poland explains to Guitar World, he needed a mutual friend of the band to step in and fight his corner in order to get an appropriate number of lead efforts.

“I kind of knew the songs,” Poland says. “Dave took care of the rhythm parts, and mostly, I just did solos. But if it wasn’t for a friend of the band who took Dave aside and said, ‘You need to give Chris more solos,’ I wouldn’t have had those solos!”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the newest issue of Guitar World, which also includes interviews with Jim Babjak, Kiki Wong, Nancy Wilson, Jimmie Vaughan and more.