David Ellefson opens door to Megadeth reunion for band’s final bow

Megadeth made the unexpected announcement little over a week ago that they would be ending their career after completing a farewell tour around the world that will start the following year. Their final studio album, the release of which is still awaiting, will coincide with that tour from one of the cornerstones of thrash metal. Megadeth has mostly focused on the choices and creations of frontman/guitarist Dave Mustaine for the last 20 years. Although the current Megadeth is full of experienced members, aside from Mustaine, none of them had any connection to the numerous platinum albums that solidify the band’s reputation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Countless musicians have come and gone from the group. However, one person, former bassist and singer David Ellefson, would wish to take part in this farewell. He and Mustaine have had a difficult relationship since he joined the band in 1983. Despite the well-known animosity, Ellefson acknowledged in a recently released edition of “The David Ellefson Show” that he would like to at least be included in Megadeth‘s goodbye, even if it is doubtful. As reported by theprp, here’s what he said.

So, there’s a lot of history here with [Megadeth]. This band started with a resentment. It started with a ‘fuck you’, Dave‘s sort of revenge against Metallica. And it wasn’t entirely that. I mean, that gets a little blown out of proportion. To some degree, Dave was his own artist away from Metallica. He had ‘Mechanix‘ and some songs before Metallica, and he certainly wrote songs after. So I think that that’s a little unfair to paint that entirely on Dave that Megadeth was just this revenge toward Metallica. It may have been often fueled by it, but how could it not be? He was not a founding member of Metallica. He was there for, as I always call it, a year and a half in the life of Metallica. And [he] certainly changed the course of what they did. But they went on and had their own successes. But, look, for Dave to call it quits or to retire, I should say… Farewell… I don’t even know if he’s retiring. He’s just basically saying Megadeth‘s over… Would I like to be a part of it? Yeah, of course. Who wouldn’t? I’m a founding member of it. I’m a 30-plus-year member of it. Is that gonna happen? Who knows? It’s too early to tell. I don’t know what they have planned. I have no idea what it is. They just made an announcement about it. Do I think there should be some sort of farewell that everybody gets to participate in? I mean, look, ‘Back To The Beginning‘ with Black Sabbath. Look, they made nice. They brought all four of Black Sabbath. They brought everybody back. You had Jake. Now, was everybody there? No. There were some key people — Bob Daisley — some people that weren’t there. But for the most part, they brought a lot of the people back. And just speaking of Black Sabbath, they brought the original, the core four back, and they said goodbye. Not only did they say goodbye, everybody got to say goodbye to them. And I think when you’re doing a farewell, that’s important, that you get to say goodbye and everybody gets to say goodbye to you. I think that that’s an important part of it. But that’s me. I’m not in the band anymore. I have no say in it. So that’s just me. That’s just one guy with an opinion, quite honestly.

Ellefson responded as follows to co-host Josh Toomey’s statement that “everyone that was ever in Megadeth should also be able to say their farewell too.”

Well, I strongly stand against the notion that Megadeth was only Dave Mustaine, ’cause it wasn’t. And everybody knows that. So, if Dave needs to retire, wants to retire, I get it. I understand. He’s given a lot. It’s taken a lot out of him. It’s taken certainly a toll on him, as anyone can imagine. So, look, God bless you, brother. If you’re done, this is it, you wanna go do something else with your life, spend time with your family, just not play guitar, I get it. I mean, dude, believe me, I’m 60. There’s some days I just kind of go, ‘God, really? Should I write another album, another song? Do I really wanna go on stage?’ And the answer always comes back to yes, I do. So I do. So I can’t speak for him, and I’m not gonna speak for him. But, look, again, I haven’t talked to the guy now in four and a half years, so I have no idea what his reasoning is, what the thinking is behind it.