MEGADETH Bassist Checks In From The Studio

MEGADETH recently resumed recording its new album at mainman Dave Mustaine's Vic's Garage studio in San Marcos, California after the sessions were briefly "halted" when producer Johnny K (full name: John Karkazis; DISTURBED, SEVENDUST, MACHINE HEAD, STAIND) was "suddenly struck ill."

In a new video update (see below),MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson takes us through some of the Jackson bass guitars he's been using in the studio.

Mustaine was asked in a recent interview with Pure Grain Audio how the new MEGADETH is sonically different to that of its predecessor, 2009's "Endgame". "[It's] different, a hundred percent different, unlike anything we've ever done before because the guitar sounds are different; it sounds really super-modern," he said.

"If I was going to say it sounds like a particular band, I would say it sounds like really old classic [BLACK] SABBATH and with a little bit of a modern edge of QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE kind of thing. But then again, with the twists and turns of music that MEGADETH has been famous for over the years, you never know how it'll turn out.

"When we started this record, I had the eleven new songs that I was going to do that's on my contract and then the twelfth song that's due to the Japanese audience, and that was it. And then Johnny said, 'Yeah, but the record company said they'd like you to get to fifteen songs.' And I said, 'That's great, but my contract says twelve, so that's what we're doing.' So we got all the way done with the twelfth song and we started arranging the twelfth song and halfway through it I just started writing this other thing and we're calling it 'song 13' right now. It just came out of nowhere. It's probably the most melodic, most-geared-for-success song out of the whole record based on what makes a song successful and stuff like that, because, you know, it's got really open picking and some acoustic parts and, you know, melodic things and stuff like that. There's some heaviness on it, too."