Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson discussed the band’s 2022 album “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!” in a recent interview with Argentina’s César Fuentes Rodríguez, as per Blabbermouth. Ellefson recorded the initial bass parts for the album in May 2020 at a Nashville, Tennessee studio. Days after the bassist’s obscene video footage and sexually suggestive comments were shared on Twitter, Ellefson was let go from Megadeth a year later. During an episode of his Gimme Radio show “The Dave Mustaine Show” in July 2021, Dave Mustaine, the leader of Megadeth, declared that Ellefson‘s bass tracks will not be featured on the album. UMe published “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!” in September 2020.
Former Megadeth bassist James LoMenzo returned to the band as part of “The Metal Tour Of The Year” in the summer of 2021, just months after Steve DiGiorgio of Testament recorded his contributions for the endeavor. If it was “necessary” for Mustaine to have Ellefson‘s bass tracks from “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!” erased and rerecorded by someone else, David responded when asked by Rodríguez.
It was stupid. There was never any legal trouble [stemming from the explicit videos which were posted online]. There was never any — there was nothing. And I said that: this is nothing at all. Dave chose to make that decision — for whatever reason or whatever influences he had behind him that made him make that decision, that is entirely on him. His own lawyer on the phone said, ‘Don’t fire David. It doesn’t seem necessary.’ … So, for whatever reason, but it certainly wasn’t from anything on my side. In fact, if anything, I felt like when someone tried to cause trouble for me, I stepped up at the handle and then I dealt with it. I don’t fucking back down from it. I fucking deal with it. I don’t wait or hire a publicist. No — you just fucking deal with it. You deal with your stuff and you make it right. So, again, it was, to me, unwarranted, unfair and unnecessary. But with that said, Dave made his decision about it. I haven’t talked to him since. And to me, that was not a very friendly thing to do, and how it was handled afterwards, the statement that was made [by Mustaine announcing that I had been fired from Megadeth] — not cool. Again, I watched the same kind of things happen to Chris Poland, to Jeff Young, so why not me? So it seems to be a pattern, but whatever. So, no, I have not talked to Dave. Who knows if I’ll ever talk to him? And it’s sad, and it’s too bad.
Ellefson went on to mention that Megadeth had just begun what is being marketed as the band’s “farewell” tour.
I put it out there to the fans: hey, if I got the call to be part of a reunion, to celebrate with the fans, the farewell, the end, of course I would do it. Because we would do it for that very reason. These songs are gonna outlive us. They are. They’re gonna be around long after we’re gone. So why not perform them together every chance you can? That’s why I’m here [in Argentina] with [my] ‘Basstory’ [show]. It’s why I do Kings Of Thrash. It’s why I do these things. When people ask me, Metal Allegiance, ‘Hey, let’s play ‘Hangar 18′.’ It’s, like, what a treat. What an honor. You get to perform a song that has meant so much to so many people for so many years. That is a beautiful thing to have. But, again, Dave owns Megadeth and he will do whatever he wants. So, again, that’s why I don’t fight my way out the door. It’s, like, ‘Bye.’ Even in my statement, it’s, like, ‘Well, too bad for that. I wish you well.’
Ellefson responded as follows when asked if he was shocked to learn that Megadeth’s last album featured a cover of “Ride The Lightning” by Metallica, a song Mustaine co-wrote while he was a member of the band.
I was — very much. Well, here’s the thing… I’ve said this before. This was a real falling out between me and Dave. It’s kind of where it started. In 2018 when he comes into the tour in Oslo, Norway, we were gonna start [touring again] that summer, he announces [to the rest of us], ‘Hey, I wanna re-record the Metallica ‘No Life ‘Til Leather’ demo’ [on which Mustaine played on while he was briefly a member of Metallica]. I was, like, ‘What?’ I mean, me and Dirk and Kiko were definitely [taken aback]. ‘What? We’re supposed to be writing a new album.’ And to me, Megadeth doesn’t cover Metallica songs because — just because of the history [between Mustaine and Metallica], number one, but because they’re Megadeth and they’re Metallica. [Metallica are] not covering Megadeth songs, and you don’t cover their [songs]. Iron Maiden doesn’t cover Saxon and Judas Priest. These are separate lanes, if you will. So I let it go for a while, and I was hoping it would go away. It didn’t… Finally, I stood up and said, ‘Dave, we are not doing that. You can’t do this. Especially since they offered it to you [to have ‘No Life ‘Til Leather’ officially released] after the ‘Big Four’ [shows], and you didn’t get on board and they took it off the table.’ I said, ‘It’s extremely disrespectful to those guys.’ After all that they did for us, I felt, for him and for everything else, it’s, like, ‘Leave it alone, man. Just leave it alone.’ And I love ‘No Life ‘Til Leather’… So that was really the beginning. Dave didn’t talk to me for six months after that. He didn’t talk to me for the rest of the year. And I could tell he sort of begrudgingly he invited me to participate in songwriting on what became ‘The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!’ Everything I wrote, he would take off — everything that I participated [in]. But, however, I did write one song. I came up something that was a nice arpeggio thing on acoustic guitar. I didn’t expect that that would be the thing that he would like. And I wrote some really good stuff. There was really good stuff that could have easily gone on that album, but [this particular song was] a ballad. And so I wrote this ballad, I sang on it, I wrote the vocal lines, and Kiko played the guitar and made it sound great. And people were telling me, ‘Dude, this is the best song on the album. This is amazing.’ Kind of like ‘Beth’ on the ‘Destroyer’ [album from] KISS. You’re, like, ‘Oh, here did this come from? This is amazing.’ Made ’em all millionaires. And I could tell that probably didn’t go over so good either. I always felt, like, the only thing worse than writing the worst song is if you write the best stuff. So, then just a matter of circumstance and convenience, suddenly [I was fired from the band].
