Vic Rattlehead is the mascot for the American thrash-metal band Megadeth. Along with being the mascot, most of the band’s songs actually revolve around him and his mysterious and violent past. He is also usually the star of the band’s music videos. He first appeared on the band’s first album “Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good!“. Although at that point he was merely a skull. His true first appearance was in “Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?“.
Vic Rattlehead’s main appearance is that of a skeleton with a steel visor across his eyes, two large caps on his ears, and four long staples over his mouth. He mainly wears a suit although he is also shown wearing a black trench coat, a black jacket, military attire, and a cloth robe. In Dystopia, he is much more cybernetic and resembles that of a robot. His skeletal figure embodies the phrase “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” as well as a symbol of censorship.
Dave Mustaine sketched the original drawing of Vic for the album’s front cover. However, Combat Records lost the artwork and improvised a completely different concept. The original artwork was recovered and placed on the reissue of Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good!. The name of Vic stands for “victim” and Rattlehead comes from what Mustaine’s mother used to say to him when he was headbanging: “Don’t do that or you’ll rattle something loose up there!” This then led to the expression “to rattle one’s head” meaning head-bang. According to Mustaine, the mascot represents his feelings about religious repression and freedom of expression.
01 - Cover of “Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?”, 1986.
02 - Cover of “Rust in Peace”, 1990.
03 - Cover of “The System Has Failed”, 2004.
04 - Cover of “Killing is My Business… And Business Is Good!”, 1085.
05 - Vic in the music video of “Killing Time”, 2022.
