DAVID ELLEFSON: 'With My Return Back, It Really Looks And Sounds Like MEGADETH Again'

Jeb Wright of Classic Rock Revisited recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Classic Rock Revisited: The last time we talked you were just rejoining MEGADETH. Things have been over the top with MEGADETH since you've been back. How does it feel?

Dave: It feels great. There is a really powerful thrust behind what is happening right now. Momentum feeds momentum and the hardest thing to get going is momentum. Any musician who reads this will understand that to try to get that mojo going is difficult. 2010 was kind of the return of MEGADETH. MEGADETH had been working, making records and touring but the stars really aligned for us last year. It was a great time for me to come back and I think that was just the exclamation point on an already big sentence for us. With the "Big Four", the 20th anniversary of "Rust In Peace" and SLAYER and MEGADETH back touring together, it has been something. Ultimately, the Clash Of The Titans tour was really great. We didn't call it that because officially it was the Jgermeister Tour, but it was SLAYER, ANTHRAX and MEGADETH all on tour together. If you're a headbanger, it was a "die and go to heaven" sort of year.

Classic Rock Revisited: Things have happened in thrash that fans only dreamed about happening. MEGADETH is firing on all cylinders. Chris Broderick is the best guitar player since Marty Friedman, in my book.

Dave: When Marty stepped away from the band it was a big blow to the MEGADETH family. The fans really admired that lineup. It was hard when we had to make the change with Nick Menza. Jimmy [DeGrasso] was a fantastic drummer and came in under some difficult circumstances. When Marty stepped away, though, that was really rough. It is interesting; when we made the "Rust In Peace" album, it was essentially a reformation of the band. It was Dave [Mustaine] and me and we brought in Nick and Marty, and that was really a reformation of the band. We didn't consciously think about it that way, but we had stopped, and we were off the road for a year and a half. The cycle of events that happened this time really reformed the group, as well. Oddly enough, that is almost exactly what happened now.

Classic Rock Revisited: I've never thought about it that way.

Dave: I actually didn't think about it either, until you brought it up. The only difference is that we launched a brand new record in "Rust In Peace" with that lineup of the band. This time we got a whole year to take this around the track and tour together with this current lineup. The fans love Chris Broderick. He looks good in MEGADETH and he sounds good in MEGADETH. With my return back, it really looks and sounds like MEGADETH again.

Classic Rock Revisited: You were with Dave Mustaine more than anyone back in the day. Did you ever think that METALLICA and MEGADETH could play together in harmony?

Dave: We played shows with METALLICA in the past. The first one we did was at the San Francisco Civic Center on New Year's Eve, 1985. We were getting ready to go in and record "Peace Sells" and METALLICA had just recorded "Master Of Puppets". It was METALLICA, EXODUS, METAL CHURCH and MEGADETH. At the time, that was a huge show. EXODUS was huge back in the Bay area at that time. We did some stadium shows with METALLICA back in 1993, which was the "black" album for them and "Countdown To Extinction" for us. Those were huge shows. If everything had worked out differently than we would have done more of them, but we both had set schedules where we couldn't work it out. We've done shows with them, but the key is too really to do something that is more of a brotherhood. METALLICA does not treat the "Big Four" shows like it is METALLICA with three other bands. They have really come into it and operated under the mindset that they are just one of the four bands on the show. That is so cool of them to do because they, obviously, got so popular over the years. It is so respectful the way that this has run, everyone has acknowledged that these are the four bands that the fans hail, and these are the bands that the fans see as the significant members of a movement that probably wouldn't exist without them. For everyone to come together as brothers of the tribe is a remarkable thing to see.

Read the entire interview from Classic Rock Revisited.

Photo below by Stephanie Cabral