The Big Four Interview: Megadeth’s David Ellefson
What have your Sonisphere highlights been so far?
The first day in Warsaw Poland was a huge highlight. Just the fact it had all come together. The four bands had dinner together the night before, which was a really nice way to ease into it. And the fact that there were people as far as the eye could see in Poland was great.
Coming over to Switzerland we got flags thrown up to us on stage. It’s kind of cool because there were a lot of people from neighbouring countries in Switzerland, which seems to be the case with all Sonispheres. People are flying in from all over the world to see the Big Four playing together.
Scott Ian sang on stage with you in Switzerland. How did that come about?
It surprised the crap out of me. All of a sudden I heard someone bellowing really loud and I thought ‘Man, Chris Broderick is singing really loud today’ and I turn around and Scott’s on my mike singing. That was unplanned unless Dave mentioned it to him, but with ‘Peace Sells’ that’s sort of our come-one, come-all singalong sort of song, so anybody who might be out there watching in the wings, we’re like ‘come on, get on out here’. Scott happened to be that guy in Switzerland
How’s the relationship with Metallica now?
Very good. I’ve always got along well with them. I was never in Metallica so I like them. I think they’re great. I’ve always liked them as guys, I thought they were cool, their band rocks, their records are great. They’re just a ferocious live band.
As far as the obvious with our whole band and all the bands, honestly, it’s great. Metallica have risen to such huge success, it’s very cool of them that they would move themselves off of their perch of iconic celebrity to just come back down to this scene of metal, which we’ve all created together. Because they’ve been able to move far away from this scene many years ago through the records they made and the songs that they wrote, which I always admired because most bands can’t.
Megadeth was able to for a while. Slayer never did. Anthrax did some things that were creative and cool. Now all four of us have a very different sound even though we all came out of the same gene pool musically and to some degree we all kind of end up as a branch off the Metallica family tree. I mean Dave was in Metallica, I played with Dave, Kerry King played with Megadeth. We’re all part of the Metallica fist in some shape or form. It’s cool. It’s sort of like a family reunion, which is very healthy and a lot of fun.
How did rejoining Megadeth come about?
In 2002 the group ended and then when Dave put it back together he was originally looking for it to be a solo record, but it ended up of morphing into a Megadeth record. At that point I stayed with what I was doing, but Dave and I had been in touch over the years and we had talked and he and I both wanted this to happen. It was just at that point we were long ways away from each other – not geography-wise, but just in our lives. We had moved to much different places.
Looking back on it, that time apart was great for both of us. It was good for us as men, husbands, as fathers, musicians, songwriters. On every level of our lives, it turned out to be a good time away. We talked last year right around this exact same time and I could tell this was going to happen and my thought was that it would happen this year.
And then once they announced the ‘Rust in Peace’ 20th anniversary tour and the Big Four tour and the American carnage tour with Megadeth, Slayer and Testament. The drummer Shaun Drover reached out to me and said ‘Man, you really need to talk to Dave this very second’. So I did and within two minutes we were like ‘yep let’s do it’, , so I drove over we rehearsed and you could tell, as soon as we played ‘Symphony for Destruction’, okay this is a no-brainer.”
‘End Game’ only came out last year. Is it too early to start talking about a new album?
A little bit. It’s funny because people are happy that I’m back and the first thing is ‘how about the Big Four?’ and then it’s ‘hey when are you going to do a new album?’ It’s because people are excited. People say they can’t wait to hear new material with me and Dave playing together. We have one track called ‘Sudden Death’, which is on Guitar Hero VI, which is coming out and as soon as I played on it, right away it sounded like Megadeth. That’s the chemistry that Dave and I have playing together and it was really, really cool for that to happen. That’ll be the first thing and then next year before we get to look seriously at the new record.
Trying to do it when you’re out here jumping from city to city, show to show, set list to set list, you’re not focused. You’re out here as a perfomer and when you go into that creative mode to write a record you can’t be thinking about are my clothes ironed and does my hair look okay and is my bass in tune? It would probably take most of next year to make it quite honestly. It could be next year, but my thought is that it’s probably most likely a 2012 release, which supposedly is the year the world is going to end anyway, so it’ll be perfect.
-What’s the most fun song to play live?
Symphony for Destruction has turned into one of our classics. Ever since the ‘One night in Buenos Aries’ DVD came out. They have a special thing they do down there in Argentina during the riff. They say ‘Megadeth, Megadeth, Megadeth, Aguante Megadeth. Now the DVD is out, the whole world has seen Argentina’s passion and they originated that, they created that and so it is really cool that they created a song within a song.
What new metal bands do you like?
One of the big bands metal-wise that has really come up the ranks I think and is worthy of the crown that they hold right now is Lamb of God. Fantastic. As I Lay Dying is a cool band. There’s always new ones coming up through the ranks and I try and stay as up on as many of them as I can. One of the ways I hear new bands quite honestly is just being on tour. Music is all around you so it’s a great way to be exposed to new stuff.
You’re a Christian. How does playing on the same bill as bands like Slayer and Behemoth square with that?
I grew up as a Christian. There was nothing fanatical. As far as playing with Slayer, I think Slayer lyrics are pretty funny actually. I enjoy their approach and their topics. I’ve know Kerry now for a lot of years and I get his very dry sense of humour and so when I read his lyrics I’m like that looks like a Kerry lyric. I kind of get a kick out of it. I don’t think it’s as demonic and evil and satanic as everyone thinks it is.
Anything else to add?
I’m happy to be playing Sonisphere. I love these festivals. Last year I was over here on tour playing bass with a friend of mine and I saw the Sonisphere stuff advertised with Metallica and Linkin Park and I mean just the picture looked cool. This fish-eye thing of this huge crowd which made it look like the whole globe is a festival. So, I loved the name, I love everything about it, it’s really cool, it’s got the right spirit, I love all the variety of bands on it, and it moves around from country to country and is still Sonisphere and that’s very unlike Europe because most countries have their own festivals. And in America they don’t know how it rolls over here and for me I’m really proud that we could make this happen with the Big Four at Sonisphere
Cheers David.
