Metalheads unite! (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign isn’t just surging in the polls of late, apparently, it’s also been turned up to 11. In an interview with MusicRadar.com yesterday, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine endorsed the Republican candidate, lending ear-splitting, soul-crushing, rapid-fire noise to Santorum’s family-friendly bid.

It’s a little unfortunate that Mustaine’s endorsement comes after last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference—Megadeth would have been a much better get than the lousy band that played that bloggers’ party.

Still, Mustaine’s foray into presidential politics isn’t a new habit. In 1992, MTV recruited him to report live from the Democratic National Convention; he voted for Bill Clinton that year. But he’s grown more conservative over time, it seems, and in seeking a Republican candidate to back this year, Mustaine came late to the Santorum party. He tells MusicRadar:

“Earlier in the election, I was completely oblivious as to who Rick Santorum was, but when the dude went home to be with his daughter when she was sick, that was very commendable. Also, just watching how he hasn’t gotten into doing these horrible, horrible attack ads like Mitt Romney’s done against Newt Gingrich, and then the volume at which Newt has gone back at Romney… You know, I think Santorum has some presidential qualities, and I’m hoping that if it does come down to it, we’ll see a Republican in the White House… and that it’s Rick Santorum.”

Even if he was late to settle, Mustaine’s recent lyrics make his choice pretty obvious. “We the People,” the fourth track off Megadeth’s most recent album, last year’s Thirt3en, is full of Tea Party jingoisms that Santorum has latched on to in his neck-and-neck contest with Romney.

“Violate your rights, no more equality / Surrender freedom, your Social Security / We, the people face unconstitutional lies / In greed we trust, in revolution we die,” Mustaine sings.

Perhaps the Santorum campaign is already borrowing from Mustaine’s aggressive, warlike songwriting. Its latest ad features an AK-47-wielding Romney impersonator firing mud pellets all over an abandoned warehouse. The marching band music makes it a bit silly. Perhaps for his next ad buy Santorum can use something of Mustaine’s, perhaps “Symphony of Destruction”?