In a new interview with Jose Mangin on Sirius XM’s Liquid Metal former Megadeth guitarist Chris Broderick spoke about his departure from the legendary band and what the future has in store for him. Here’s some of what he had to say:

Regarding his decision to leave Megadeth, offered:

“Well, it’s not gonna be as exciting as anybody would want. It’s not gonna be some huge drama thing or anything like that. It was simply time [for me to leave]. I’d been in [Megadeth] for seven years and I really wanted to just be able to have that kind of creative freedom to write anything I wanted to, to go anywhere with it that I wanted to and just kind of direct my own course.

The way I kind of think of it is it’s kind of not unlike a chef that works at a restaurant that decides that he wants to open up his own restaurant or maybe a lawyer that wants to start his own firm or something like that. It was a great time to move on. And I think, talking with Shawn, Shawn was in the exact same place. We had talked about it and we had thought about it for a little bit. And so when Shawn quit, it was, like, ‘Whoah! What happened?’ I mean, I knew that we had talked about it, but he did it; he actually just left the band…

[Shawn and I] talk all the time, and so I knew that he had thought about it and I had been thinking about it. But as soon as he quit, I knew he had made the right decision. Because Megadeth is going to be ramping up for their next CD recording cycle, and if you’ve got trepidation about being a part of something, you don’t wanna commit to that process, the writing process, and then bail on ‘em. And so when Shawn quit, that instantly became clear to me.

So I talked to Ellefson and then I went and I talked to Jackson Guitars, my endorsement, and Fractal Audio Systems, and they were all so supportive. They were, like, ‘Dude, we’ve got your back. You do what you’ve gotta do.’ So I decided that night after Shawn did it, I was, like, ‘It is the right time,’ because Megadeth is getting ready to move into their next recording cycle. I mean, if there is a good time to leave, that was it.”

During the interview, the guitarist also revealed that he and ex-Megadeth drummer Shawn Drover are working on putting a band together. Here’s what he had to say about it:

“Well, one of the things that I’ve always wanted to do is a solo CD, so I’m definitely gonna be working on that in 2015. But one of the things that I’ve really recently become very excited about is, through talking with Shawn Drover, we’ve talked about how we had all this material that was never gonna get released, all these killer, heavy riffs that we had written and stuff, and so we just decided, ‘Hey, why don’t we put the stuff out? Why don’t we form a band and get out these killer riffs, just to see what people think?’ So we formed a band, we’re working with a killer singer — he’s awesome — and we’ve got record labels that have made some good offers on the table, and we’re really excited about where that’s gonna go.”

You can read a transcribed version of the interview over at Blabbermouth.