Former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson sat down with Argentine journalist and rock specialist Gustavo Olmedo on his podcast “Quemar Un Patrullero” for one of his more candid conversations yet — covering his complicated brotherhood with Dave Mustaine, the fallout over The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, and why he has no interest in re-engaging the fight.
Ellefson spoke warmly about the moments of genuine closeness he shared with Mustaine after rejoining the band in 2010.
“When I went back to Megadeth in 2010, [Dave and I] were close — we were really close. I was helping him with some personal things. He became a good friend to me during that time. So there were periods of closeness as men, as brothers. And I found those opportunities were always the best when it was just Dave and me, when there wasn’t another person in the room. We didn’t have to sort of be on stage performing for anyone. It was just me and him being brothers, [at] Starbucks drinking coffee, whatever. And those moments were genuine, they were sincere, they were heartfelt,” Ellefson said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth)
That closeness, however, had its limits. When the band began work on what became The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, Ellefson sensed the shift.
“[Dave] didn’t wanna use any of my music [for that record]. I could tell he resented me. He wanted me off that album. And I finally wrote a song [that was originally going to be included on it]. It was a ballad that I’ve kept, ’cause I had Kiko [Loureiro, then-Megadeth guitarist] play the guitar on it. And it was a very good song — I think an extremely good song that has a place somewhere. But it didn’t make the record.”
He went further, describing a specific collaboration that ended with his contributions stripped from the final product.
“Dave and I even had a really close moment. We were writing the lyrics for the song that became ‘Soldier On!’ He eventually took my lyrics off of it and then used the song without [my lyrical contributions]… He wrote the music — it was his song — but I was invited to write the lyrics for it, which I did. And he decided to call it ‘Soldier On!’ We collaborated from there, which I say, well, look, when Dave got fired from Metallica, at least they kept his words and his music and they paid him and gave him credit. Dave wasn’t so kind to me. He kicked me out, took my performances off the record, and took my lyrics and everything off the record. So I think I have a horse in that race when I speak about how properly Metallica handled things and how I think improperly things were handled on my behalf. ‘Cause I saw it; I lived it.”
For Ellefson, the real ending came years before his public dismissal. He considers the 2016 album Dystopia — and the Buenos Aires show in late 2017 — as his true farewell.
“My farewell with Megadeth was really in 2018. That was my farewell. That was my farewell tour. I feel like I played on the last great Megadeth record, which was [2016’s] Dystopia. Dave announced from the stage in Buenos Aires in November 2017, he said, ‘We’re gonna go home and start working on a new album.’ So I feel like that was kind of a good closure for me with Megadeth, which is why I’ve moved on and done so much other stuff. I don’t have bitterness in my heart. I almost feel like I was set free to not have to deal with that anymore. Whereas Dave had bitterness toward Metallica, I don’t have bitterness toward Dave or Megadeth. I really don’t.”
Ellefson also addressed his firing in May 2021, which came days after sexually explicit messages and video footage involving him were posted online. At the time, he denied any allegations of grooming and filed a police report in Scottsdale, Arizona, citing unlawful distribution of explicit imagery. He acknowledged exchanging messages with a Dutch woman he maintains was 19 at the time of their first virtual encounter, who recorded and shared footage without his knowledge.
His account of the phone call that ended his tenure in the band is blunt: “[The Megadeth camp] called me to fire me. And I told ’em, ‘Guys, there’s nothing here. There’s no reason to let me go. This is all just nonsense on the Internet. It’s all it is. It’s nothing at all. And I will maintain that position all along,’ and I have.”
“At some point, you could just keep going after people on the Internet and trolls and all this kind of shit. It’s endless. There is no Internet police, there’s no Internet human resources, where you can go and say, ‘Hey, this guy said this’ and ‘this person said this’, and da, da, da, because you should, because it’s highly defamatory. And defamation is when something harms your reputation, maybe even prevents you from getting more work. Those are real things. And the fact that it can happen on the Internet, which is kind of a fake place. It’s not even real. It’s kind of a fake place, yet that could somehow come over to your reality. I’m fortunate that the fanbase stood by me. They said, ‘Dude, that is bullshit. How dare you do that to Ellefson?’”
He also took issue with Mustaine‘s public statement at the time, which referenced “aspects of David‘s private life that he has kept to himself.”
“The statement that was put out, what Dave personally signed, was deflectionary, to kind of keep it away from him. And I said, ‘There’s nothing to keep away. There’s nothing here.’ I mean, my own legal team even said, ‘Hey, if you wanna open up on the Internet and blast that guy, you have our [blessing]’. And this is a top-level law firm in Phoenix, and they said, ‘We have never seen something so unconscionable’ as a legal word, meaning unconscious, not thinking, with no, basically, human heart. ‘You have our blessing.’
“There’s a Bible scripture. It says, ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’ And that’s where I went with it. I said, ‘I could tangle with this guy again, and I could fight with this guy as I did with the lawsuit,’ which I had every right to do, given what happened then. And Dave did not win the lawsuit. We settled out of court. That was another one. It was just another opportunity to try to kick me. And it’s, like, no, we settled out of court. And I ended up in a far better position than had I not done that, so I’m glad I went through that process, as horrible as it was.”
That 2004 lawsuit — in which Ellefson sought $18.5 million from Mustaine, alleging he was shortchanged on profits and denied ownership of Megadeth Inc. after the band dissolved in 2002 — was eventually dismissed, clearing the path for his return in 2010.
More recently, Mustaine told SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that a farewell tour reunion featuring all surviving former members was off the table “because of the behavior of one of the band members in the past.” Ellefson made clear he considers that a veiled shot at him — and he has no patience for it.
“To have it end where it did, and then [for Mustaine] even recently to say, ‘Oh, because of what one person did, I can’t bring anyone back.’ You know what? F*ck off. Just f*ck off. Who is that one person? It wasn’t me, ’cause I didn’t do anything that would prevent me from coming back at all. At all. And so this sort of deflectionary thing, to sort of get on some moral high ground, it’s, like, gimme a break. Really? And look, I had rock stars much bigger than Dave coming to my side and coming to my aid, standing by me, saying, ‘Man, just let me know if you need anything at all. That’s really fucked up.’ It’s fucked up about how I was handled being discarded. People saying, ‘I’m really disappointed that they chose business over brotherhood,’ ’cause at the end of the day, the brotherhood will always last beyond the business of owning a rock band — especially something we started and built together.”
Ellefson closed with a line that sums up where he stands: “So, with that said, at one level, again, I could call a lawyer, I could go back into defamation lawsuits, and I have every right to — trust me. But at the same time, there are two ways to win in tug of war. I either pull you over the line or I just drop the rope and let you fall on your ass. [Laughs] And that’s what I’ve chosen to do — drop the rope. Drop the rock.”
The post DAVID ELLEFSON Fires Back At DAVE MUSTAINE Over ‘Past Behavior’ Remarks: “F*ck Off. Who Is That One Person? It Wasn’t Me” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
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