Former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson says the long slide toward his 2021 split with Dave Mustaine actually traces back to 2018, when Mustaine floated an idea that left him cold: have MEGADETH re‑record songs from METALLICA’s 1982 No Life ’Til Leather demo (which Mustaine originally played on during his brief METALLICA tenure). Ellefson recalls the discussion starting as the band was kicking off a tour in Oslo; he pushed back hard, arguing MEGADETH should be focused on new music, not revisiting METALLICA history, and he believes that resistance marked “where our problem started.
During the recent episode of The David Ellefson Show, Ellefson unloaded on the drawn‑out sessions for MEGADETH’s The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! calling it “a brutal record” and “a terrible process” that stretched roughly five years and ultimately stripped out every bass riff, lyric, and idea he contributed.
“I said to Dave [Mustaine], I said, ‘Why don’t we go in here? We’re at a phase now, we should go in here like it’s Peace Sells,” Ellefson said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “We [should go in there like we] have no money. We have no time. Write a song, record it, move on. Write a song, record it, move on.’ I said, ‘I feel like fans are tired of these over-digitized, f**king locked-to-the-grid, these perfect heavy metal records.’ Fans want f**king records — I think — that are more organic. It sounds like a band playing in the room together.
“Then this 40th anniversary of [MEGADETH‘s] Youthanasia [album] came up and I go back to that,” Ellefson continued. “Shawn Drover [former MEGADETH drummer] got me into that record again. And I hadn’t listened to it in a lot of years, and I listened to it and I go, ‘F**k, we were good, man.’ That’s us playing together in the room, all four of us, laying down tracks together. And I miss that.”
Returning to the making of The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, David remarked: “There was clashes all the way down, and for me, it started in 2018 when Dave came in to — we started a tour in Oslo, and he came in and he said he wanted to re-record [METALLICA‘s] No Life ‘Til Leather demo [which Mustaine played on when he was briefly a member of METALLICA]. I’m, like, ‘Are you kidding me? This is where we’re at? After all this time? We’re supposed to be writing a new album and new songs. And I was just, like, ‘I am not down with that.’ As fun as it would be to play those songs, ’cause that’s one of my favorite METALLICA recordings, I was just, like, ‘Yeah, I ain’t down with that.’ I’m sorry. I couldn’t kiss the ring for that one. I was, like, ‘I’m out.’ And so I think our problem started then. So as we went into the record, he knew I wasn’t willing to just f**king say, ‘Yes, Dave,’ and go along with s**t. So eventually I’m out of the band. So it goes. Bands are what bands are, and it is what it is.”
“Sadly, I have not listened to The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! since it came out],” he added. “I heard the one video… The record brings up bad feelings for me. And not being thrown out of the band, but just everything about that record.”
Timeline refresher: Ellefson tracked bass for The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! in May 2020 in Nashville. In July 2021, Mustaine told listeners on his Gimme Radio program that Ellefson’s parts would not appear on the album. TESTAMENT’s Steve DiGiorgio was later brought in to re‑record the bass. The album eventually arrived September 2, 2022 via UMe. Former MEGADETH bassist James LoMenzo returned to handle live duties for the summer 2021 “Metal Tour Of The Year” run and was subsequently made a permanent member.
Why might Mustaine have even suggested revisiting No Life ’Til Leather—and why would it be a touchy subject? The 2015 Record Store Day cassette reissue was supposed to kick off an expanded archival edition, but plans stalled amid a publishing/songwriting credit dispute over early songs that Mustaine maintains he co‑wrote solely with James Hetfield. Over the years he’s repeatedly said he would not sign off on giving Lars Ulrich a cut he doesn’t believe Ulrich earned, calling it “perpetuating false information.” The disagreement ultimately shelved the expanded release.
Mustaine has also revealed that he and Hetfield had at one point discussed getting back together and doing a project, but those talks reportedly collapsed once the publishing issue resurfaced; after Mustaine pressed to resolve credits, communication between the two broke down.
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