As one of the most tenured members of Megadeth not named Dave Mustaine, former bassist/vocalist David Ellefson has a unique perspective when it comes to the thrash metal band’s recorded works. During the latest episode of the latter’s ‘The David Ellefson Show‘, he shared some of that wisdom while revealing his thoughts on the Megadeth‘s newly released final studio album after finally getting his hands on a copy.
That self-titled affair was released on January 23rd and has just wound up becoming the first-ever Megadeth album to hit #1 on the Billboard 200. Ellefson and Mustaine of course had a falling out back in 2021, after Ellefson was the subject of a sex scandal. His position in Megadeth was terminated soon afterwards with frigid comments in the press being exchanged between the two since.
Offering his initial thoughts on that self-titled opus, Ellefson stated [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“I hear it and I go, ‘Okay this is a Dave solo record.’ This is Dave and his new band, Dave and his new guys. It says Megadeth, so obviously it gets all the attention, but realistically I hear it, and to me it just doesn’t sound like Megadeth. And that’s just me, period. You know? It’s like Dave, doing what Dave does, but with a different set of guys in a new day. And this is Dave‘s retirement, you know? So that’s my view on it.”
As for the much-discussed inclusion of a cover of Metallica‘s “Ride The Lightning“ on the record, Ellefson commented on the irony of it. Mustaine was credited as a co-writer on that song, which was released by Metallica after Mustaine was ejected from the band back in 1983.
Ellefson said of this new rendition, “the funny thing is [Mustaine] was mad at Kirk Hammett [Metallica guitarist] for playing his [Mustaine‘s] solos and now here’s Dave playing Kirk‘s solo, unless that’s Teemu.”
Ellefson has previously lamented Mustaine‘s obsession with Metallica. As Mustaine himself clarified recently, his relationship with Metallica‘s James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich remains severed following a 2015-2016 royalty dispute, after years of on-again, off-again friendship.
In this latest episode, Ellefson also reflected a bit on the origins of “Ride The Lightning” as he knew it:
“I remember being at some party down in Orange County and I think I remember the woman who owned the place, but that was Dave‘s haunts, right? It was Orange County. It’s kind of where he came out of. I remember Ron McGovney was there from Metallica, the former bass player. He was there with his girlfriend and it was a big party, and somebody there had the new Metallica album, ‘Ride The Lightning‘, and we listened to it.
We put it on and I remember Dave goes, “They f*cking stole my riff.’ That’ dah-dah-dah-du-dah-dah-dah’ right? Because we had that. Dave used to play that in the apartment. Greg Handevidt seems to think that was actually in ‘Set The World On Fire‘. And he may be right. It may have been in that song. And then we had to take it out because they [Metallica] used it.
So, you know, they clearly used a couple of Dave‘s riffs. Dave speaks about it now like they were all sitting in the room writing ‘Ride The Lightning‘ together. I wasn’t there, so I can’t, you know, I don’t know the details of it. But it seems to me if it was really a finished song, it would have been on ‘Kill ‘Em All‘, but it wasn’t. It was a couple years later.
So look, did Dave have a participation? Yeah, but it seems to me more like that song was sort of put together after he was out of the group. But again, I wasn’t there. But I do know this, James is a very different lyric writer than Dave was. So by ‘Ride The Lightning‘, you hear very much James coming into his own as his own lyricist, as I hear it.”
