David Ellefson says he agreed to play “Back To The Beginning” before he knew what it was, after a call from K.K. Downing.
David Ellefson did not need details. He needed a phone call.
The bassist explained on Loudwire Nights on Thursday, August 6 that his place at “Back To The Beginning” was secured before anybody had told him what the event actually involved. The call came from K.K. Downing.
“K.K. [Downing] is the one who reached out to me about it and he told me about the event and that Tom Morello was involved,” Ellefson told host Chuck Armstrong.
“So I said, ‘Dude, totally, I’m in.’ The details were not revealed yet, really what it was. I’ve learned that the phone rings, here’s a thing, it could be this, it might be that, are you interested? Absolutely. My answer is always yes, 100-percent, I’m in.”
What he had agreed to turned out to be the final performances by Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, staged at Villa Park in Birmingham on July 5, 2025 in front of 45,000 people, with Tom Morello as musical director. Ellefson played bass in the first of the day’s two supergroups, handling three songs in a 35-minute slot: “The Ultimate Sin” fronted by Lzzy Hale, then “Shot In The Dark” and Black Sabbath‘s “Sweet Leaf” with David Draiman on vocals.
Sharing a stage with both singers again meant something to him.
“I love the Disturbed guys, they’re cool dudes, good friends,” Ellefson said.
Ellefson added: “Lzzy Hale, same thing. I jammed with her on ShipRocked…there’s certain people, when they get on the stage, the room changes. Lzzy, Draiman, Corey Taylor, John Bush…it’s a different room because [of them].”
The conversation that has stayed with him, though, happened offstage. Ellefson ran into Mike Inez, who was about to play bass in Osbourne‘s solo band for what became his last performance.
“He had just finished rehearsing with Ozzy and we sat down and had a little bit of tea and I said, ‘So how was it,'” Ellefson said.
He continued: “He goes, ‘Dude, it’s great. Oz is in a great mood. He’s super pumped.’ I was asking him some questions just because I wanted to know and I hadn’t seen Ozzy since we toured together in 2013 in South America. We got to know each other pretty well and got pretty close during that tour. So it was great to hear that. And it was good to see that everybody was excited.”
Osbourne died 17 days later, on July 22, 2025, at the age of 76.
For the final solo set itself, Ellefson watched from the crowd rather than the wings, and the company he kept made an impression: “I was with Whitfield Crane. I went out in front of house with him and then I was standing there with Robert Trujillo and his family…I [forgot that] Whit, he lived with the Osbournes. I remember when we did Ozzfest, he told me that he was living with them or had been living with them. It was great, he’s like this vagabond. His whole life is in that backpack, that backpack that you see onstage, that’s his entire life… I spent a lot of time hanging with him there.”
Ellefson also addressed the reasoning behind Kings Of Thrash, the band he formed with fellow Megadeth alumnus Jeff Young to perform Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! and So Far, So Good… So What! in full. He traced it back to setlist arguments that went nowhere.
“My last years in Megadeth, I tried really hard to add these songs into the setlist, just some deep cuts [and] things that hadn’t been heard in a long time…but it just never happened, you know? I’ve been pretty in touch with the fanbase because I go to shows, I try to stay part of the scene, not just sort of be too far above it. I started as a fan. Music called to me and it became a vocation for me. But I always like to still remain a fan of it,” Ellefson said.
The project has since moved beyond archive material. Its recent single “Bullets Ready“ features former Exodus vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza alongside Gabriel Connor.
Ellefson left Megadeth in 2021 and has since worked with Dieth, The Lucid, Ellefson-Soto and Metal Allegiance. In November 2025 he joined Metal Church, filling the bass spot in a rebuilt lineup around founding guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof and longtime guitarist Rick Van Zandt, with vocalist Brian Allen and drummer Ken Mary also coming aboard. Their debut single together, “F.A.F.O.“, arrived that same month, and the album Dead To Rights followed on April 10 through Rat Pak Records.
He is not treating the gig casually.
“I play these songs as a fan. I can’t believe I’m in this band. This band is so awesome. These guys have been friends, you know Kurdt Vanderhoof, he knew Lars [Ulrich] before he even started Metallica.”
