MEGADETH's DAVE MUSTAINE: DAVID ELLEFSON 'Is My Best Friend; I Love Him'

Artisan News Service conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine at the February 17 press conference held at the Rainbow Bar & Grill on the world famous Sunset Strip in Los Angeles to announce the nominees for the second annual Revolver Golden Gods Awards. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On reuniting with bassist David Ellefson six years after Ellefson filed suit against Mustaine, claiming, among other things, breach of fiduciary obligation, libel and emotional distress:

"I'm a born-again Christian — I got saved in 2002 — and part of me getting saved was that I had a lot of stuff that I'd done in my career and my life that wasn't really great stuff, and one of the things that I realized was that I had been forgiven for a lot of this stuff. And with that, if I had been forgiven, I need to forgive, too. So I met with Dave, we were Arizona, we were talking, and the next thing I know, we talked about the lawsuit and I said, 'I forgive you,' and he said, 'I'm sorry,' and that was all that needed to be said. He's my best friend; I love him."

On his excitement about playing with David Ellefson again:

"I think it's really great because if you look at the way that we work together, when he came in and we started playing, the very first song, it just sounded right, it just sounded magic. I looked at Shawn [Drover, drums] and Shawn was smiling. He didn't want anybody to know he was smiling, but I saw. I looked at Chris [Broderick, guitar]. Chris is a really reserved guy. He didn't want anybody to know that he was excited, but he was excited. I looked at Dave — he was excited. I was excited. I think the fans are gonna be excited."

On whether the reunion with Ellefson will last beyond the current "Rust In Peace 20th Anniversary Tour":

"I'm hoping it's longer than the 'Rust In Peace' tour. I really am. I hope it's permanent. I could see that Dave would have some reservations, because of what led him to sue me in the past. There was some stuff that he believes. And I told him that I'd like to be able to clear it up and make amends for the stuff that I've done that's wrong, 'cause a lot of the things that happened, I can tell you right now, honestly, I never intentionally tried to hurt him. There may have been some stuff that went wrong, and we're gonna work through it, we'll get it behind us, but it's gonna take a little bit of time. And the most important thing is that I'm willing to make it right.

Video footage of Mustaine talking to the Artisan News Service about playing with David Ellefson again can be viewed at this location.