David Ellefson talks about special memories for MEGADETH albums
David Ellefson, the bassist, and co-founder of the MEGADETH shared special memories about the band’s albums and evaluated the albums.
David Ellefson, the full name David Warren Ellefson, was born in Minnesota in 1964. David is the bassist and co-founder of the American heavy metal band MEGADETH. Although David had a few disagreements with Dave Mustaine during his MEGADETH career, they released many successful albums and became one of the unforgettable names in metal music.
David Ellefson recently spoke to Metal Journal. During the conversation, David spoke about several special memories of MEGADETH‘s history and band albums.
David said that all MEDAGETH albums have a separate place, but the “Risk” album released in 1999 was quite uncomfortable. As you may remember, after the “Risk” album, discussions arose within the group and the album did not achieve the desired success. Marty Friedman left the band, and Dave Mustaine said the failure of the album was related to the band’s name. The remastered album was released in 2004 with a different album cover.
“Obviously, it was uncomfortable for a reason because I think it sort of put us out into a place that we weren’t comfortable. It was what it was.”
However, he says the “Thirteen” album was one of the funniest and easiest recordings he made with MEGADETH and they just played bass and recorded it; “I just came back to the band, we toured for a year; Dave wrote, for the most part, all the songs, and it was just fun to go in and just play bass and record it.”
He says that for the album “Countdown to Extinction” released in 1992, it was a very challenging but fun recording process. He had a lot of good memories about the album. David said their manager Ron was a huge LA Lakers fan and consulted Pat Riley to upgrade the band’s performance. This is a really weird way to get advice about a metal band.
David Ellefson also talked about the “Peace Sells … But Who’s Buying?” album. They were really poor at that time, but he thinks the album process was fun.
David said they didn’t even have the money to find something to eat, they went to the studio just to eat and drink. However, he said, maybe the fact that we are so desperate has created glorious music.
And it’s funny because we were literally at the bottom, and when you’re down to nothing, you look around for hope, and it’s funny how the universe, the creator, he sort of handed that, ‘Peace Sells.’
There’s something there. And maybe we had to be that desperate to write that music too. I think desperate times created some amazing music.”