MEGADETH's DAVID ELLEFSON: 'I've Never Been A SPOTIFY Guy'

MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson isn't a fan of streaming music services such as Spotify and Apple Music. "I've never been a Spotify guy," he tells the "Nod To The Old School" podcast (hear audio below). "For some reason, it never resonated with me. I've tried it, I tried Apple Music for a while, but I'm old-school and I buy everything. I feel it's important to support my friends and the bands that I'm a fan of; I feel it's important to support the cause, support our business. So I'll pay the $1.29 on iTunes and buy it, and that way I have it when I'm flying in an airplane, which is when I listen to a lot of my music — when I'm traveling. I don't have to be, like, 'Oh, shit. I don't have wifi. I can't listen to my music.' [Laughs] I want my music on my terms, and I think that's probably ultimately why we made mix tapes in the first place [back in the day] — 'cause I want my music on my terms whenever I wanna hear it."

A year and a half ago, Ellefson lamented Spotify's meager artist payouts, telling Graspop Metal Meeting: "As great as the digital streaming is as a promotional thing, it's extremely unfair to us. They've built entire massive fortunes on the backs of our music that we don't get paid for. And that, fortunately, is gonna change… Now, as far as the fans, the user? My daughter, my kids, I don't think they hardly bought any music — they always get everything… My daughter, for sure, gets things off Spotify, so I pay attention. And certainly YouTube and all that stuff, so, of course, it's important. Because if we're not on our drums and guitars, we're probably on our phones. So it's important that we pay attention to it, because our fans are a part of it. So if we wanna connect to our fans, we need to be there.

"Thank goodness, again, like I said, the middle is getting connected better as far as the fairness of the royalty and everything, which, of course, makes us feel better, because we feel like we're being compensated for a lot of hard work," he added. "And somebody had to pay to make those records, so it's nice that everybody now starts to get a fair take on that."

MEGADETH will join FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH as special guest on the latter band's 2020 European winter tour, with BAD WOLVES in the opening slot. The trek will visit 14 European countries starting on January 20 at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland and ending on February 20 at the Budapest Sportarena in Budapest, Hungary.

MEGADETH's tour with FIVE FINGER will mark the first shows since frontman Dave Mustaine announced his throat cancer diagnosis this past spring.