The last 'Big 4' concert -- featuring thrash metal's four most successful and enduring bands, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax -- was held in September of 2011 and with Slayer's announcement that they're bowing out with one final tour, Megadeth mainman Dave Mustaine is hoping thrash's four biggest bands can reunite once more. But what if one band isn't willing to bite? Mustaine has a solution: round up the 'Big 3' and tack Exodus on the bill.

"I think if you asked the three of us [Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax] that [question] our camps would probably say yes," the Megadeth icon told Eddie Trunk (transcription via Blabbermouth) when asked if the other groups in the 'Big 4' would be interested in playing another show together. "If Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth all want to do it, and Metallica [don't], then what do we do," he pondered, "The 'Big 3'?"

"I'm sure that a lot of people would like to see that," he continued. "And that may be what it is. You know, you may end up having it be the 'Big 3' plus number five, if we have Exodus play with it."

Could "The Big 4" be expanded to "The Big 8?" When Exodus and Slayer guitarist Gary Holt spoke with Full Metal Jackie last year, he addressed that subject, rallying for German thrash bands to get some recognition in that scenario. "Kreator, Destruction and Sodom were there in the very beginning too, and they were there before a lot of the American thrash bands that people like throwing in these hypothetical arguments. I don’t limit it strictly to United States soil. I think the Germans have should have a voice in this as well."

There you have it. Who is in your 'Big 8'?

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