In a revealing new interview, founding Megadeth bassist David Ellefson has claimed that “outside forces” and “advisors” are the primary reason for his ongoing estrangement from frontman Dave Mustaine. While reiterating his desire to rejoin the thrash legends for their upcoming farewell tour, Ellefson suggested that his personal relationship with Mustaine is not the core of the issue.
Speaking on the Today’s Boondoggle podcast, the influential bassist was asked if he would return to Megadeth if he got the call. “Yeah, of course I would,” he stated, before offering a surprising new theory on the fractured state of their four-decade partnership.
“It’s always some outside forces that pull [Dave and me] apart. It’s never really me and him. If it were up to me and him, we’d probably be playing together. But there’s always outside influences and advisors and all this bulls**t. And so the reality of it is, when Dave and I hang, it’s usually pretty chill. It really is. But, look, he’s got his own band now. I’m not in that band, and that’s his band, so I’m not here to go carving up his group, you know what I mean? But if, look, if he made the call, given it was a friendly environment, which I’m sure it would be, why wouldn’t I? You know what I mean? Megadeth was my band too. It’s my lifetime of work as well,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Ellefson pointed to his 2010 reunion with the band as evidence. After years of not speaking, he said it took a “two-minute conversation” to mend the fence. “I throw a bass in my car, I drive across the desert… we plug in, play ‘Symphony Of Destruction‘. It was like we just played yesterday. It sounded amazing,” he recalled, calling their previous estrangement “so silly.”
The sentiment for Ellefson‘s inclusion in the band’s final chapter is growing. In a recent interview, his Ellefson-Soto bandmate, vocalist Jeff Scott Soto, made a passionate, direct appeal to Mustaine. “You need to call David Ellefson and you need to put him as part of the end,” Soto declared. “To me, that’s the true closure. That’s the real way to actually close the book on Megadeth.”
For now, Ellefson maintains a respectful distance. “Look, he removed me from the group, so it’s not my place to call him to go back,” he said. Still, his hope for an inclusive, Black Sabbath-style farewell remains. “I think in a perfect world there would be at least a moment where maybe some of, if not all of, the rest of us got a chance to say goodbye as well.”
