DAVID ELLEFSON On Iconic Bass Intro To MEGADETH's 'Peace Sells': 'It Started As A Guitar Riff'

In a new interview with That Fuzzing Rock Show, former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson once again spoke about the creation of the bass intro to the song "Peace Sells", from the band's 1986 album "Peace Sells… But Who's Buying?". He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It started as a guitar riff. Dave [Mustaine, MEGADETH leader and main songwriter] was writing a riff, and we had a bass. Me and Dave were essentially homeless. This was after the 'Killing Is My Business' [tour]. So we were living with the guy that engineered and co-produced 'Killing Is My Business'; his name is Karat Faye. And so we were basically squatting in his house up in Laurel Canyon. And I had this bass. It was a B.C. Rich bass. I'd ripped the frets out of it and so it was fretless and stained like a natural color. And Dave picked it up and was playing it. He goes, 'Hey, Junior. Come here. Play this riff.' So we were working this riff out. And we went to rehearsal. And he's, like, 'Play that riff.' So he started playing it, and Gar [Samuelson, then-MEGADETH drummer] jumps in, and then Dave and Chris [Poland, then-MEGADETH guitarist] started playing the riff, the verse."

Ellefson continued: "That was a song that really wrote itself in the band room within a couple hours. And it's funny, the songs that did that — 'Symphony Of Destruction', '99 Ways To Die', 'Sweating Bullets'. I guess 'Angry Again' was kind of put together in an afternoon in the studio here in Phoenix. So it's funny that a lot of the biggest MEGADETH songs that became hits, like the singles and the hits, were the ones that just sort of fell out right in front of us in the band room. And, of course, time went into kind of detailing them up a little more, but the basic core of the song was there. So that's kind of the history of that one and how that came together."

According to Ellefson, he and the rest of MEGADETH knew almost from the beginning that "Peace Sells" would become one of the band's most popular songs.

"It's funny 'cause we went out and we did a tour," he recalled. "So this was probably late 1985. We were just writing tunes. We had our deal with Combat Records at the time. And so then in early 1986, we went out and we did a one-month tour around the East Coast… And we played every song we had — we played the entire 'Killing Is My Business' record, we played what would become the 'Peace Sells' album. And that tour was like our pre-production for the 'Peace Sells' album. And, of course, pre-iPhones and -YouTube, you could play stuff and people wouldn't bootleg it. But we could tell every night, man, when we started that song, Gar would start with the kick drum and I'd start with the bass [intro], and you could just read the body language in the room that everybody was just grooving on that. And we knew. We go, 'You know what? I think we got a hit here.' And that was a cool feeling. 'Cause everything else — 'The Conjuring', 'Devil's Island', all this stuff — was pretty thrashing and pretty menacing, and so [it was nice] to change the tempo, sort of change the mood…"

In 2006, VH1 ranked "Peace Sells" at No. 11 on its list of the "40 Greatest Metal Songs" of all time. The opening bassline was also used as the theme for MTV News, but Mustaine has repeatedly claimed he never received any royalties for MTV's usage of the song.

In 2018, Mustaine brought up the "Peace Sells" bassline while discussing Ellefson's contributions to MEGADETH. He told mxdwn: "David's got moments of greatness where he goes from being a star to a superstar; most notably is the riff I wrote for 'Peace Sells…But Who's Buying?' When I showed that to him, he embraced it and people fell in love with his playing and the rest is history."

Back in 2015, Ellefson told Songfacts that the "Peace Sells" bassline was "definitely one of the most recognizable" basslines ever in rock. "The reason the song stands out is the melody, for sure," he said. "But also because it's the tone, it's the sound. Like, you hear [Jimi] Hendrix play, it's not just him, but it's the sound that they captured of him back in those days that is part of the character. When I hear a [BLACK] SABBATH tune, you instantly know it's SABBATH, because you are so familiar with the recording. And I think 'Peace Sells' is that thing. It's the bassline, but also, our ear is trained now to hear that recording that we captured in 1986, when we put that down to tape. I think it really speaks to that line being used on MTV for all those years [as part of the theme for MTV News]. It was something that was almost subliminally piped into everybody's house for 10 years, and it's amazing what an effect it has on people. And also, it's just a really cool song. And it's a really tricky bass line. When people tell me that they just learned how to play the bass and this is the first line they're trying to learn, I'm, like, 'You might want to learn something a little bit easier.' That's a very tricky song to play."

Mustaine told Rolling Stone that he knew when he first wrote "Peace Sells" that it was something special. "Prior to that song, everything was just shred-festing and just playing really fast, aggressive stuff," he said. "But as soon as 'Peace Sells' came out, it was like, 'Wow, this is really a song-song,' something that, unbeknownst to myself, would stand the test of time, something that would be my friend forever. Never had I gotten that feeling from our previous songs. I never thought, 'Hey, you're gonna be playing this song every night for the rest of your life.'"

Ellefson was fired from MEGADETH by Dave Mustaine in May 2021, just days after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving the bassist were posted on Twitter.

In 2004, Ellefson filed an $18.5-million lawsuit against Mustaine, alleging the frontman shortchanged him on profits and backed out of a deal to turn Megadeth Inc. over to him when the band broke up in 2002. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed and Ellefson rejoined MEGADETH in 2010.

Ellefson was in MEGADETH from the band's inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest exit.