Former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson shared that no one took offense when the house band played “Master of Puppets,” a song from Dave Mustaine‘s former band METALLICA, during MEGADETH‘s first Grammy win eight years ago.
In a recent interview on the “Talk Toomey” podcast with Joshua Toomey, Ellefson was asked whether he and his former bandmates ever discovered why the Grammy organizers chose “Master Of Puppets” to play as MEGADETH walked up to the stage.
David responded (as transcribed by Blabbermouth): “So here’s what it is. So, our number — I think we were number 69 out of, I don’t know, 70 or 71 Grammys given away that afternoon. ‘Cause they give away, like, 12 [awards] during the televised portion, because it’s basically a TV show. Let’s face it — your competition is the NFL; either the week before or the week after is the Super Bowl. So it’s all about eyeballs on TV. That’s why they get the biggest stars. They give the Grammys to the biggest ‘Album Of The Year’, ‘Song Of The Year’, this big stuff. And then they give out another 70 or so Grammys during the afternoon for like ‘Best Children’s Book’, ‘Best Tejano Record’, ‘Best Jazz With A Vocal’, all kinds of stuff.
“The way they did that — I kind of got a real view of it because we were there all afternoon waiting — they already had the song set. So David Bowie had just put out his record and then he had died. So posthumously he was winning all these Grammies right before us. And even while he’s winning, they’re playing THE WHO, they’re playing all kinds of stuff. I assume they go through every category and they pick who’s either a past Grammy winner, so they could play their music.
“And to give you an example, in 2014, I took my daughter Athena — we went — and it was like her entire Spotify playlist; Taylor Swift opens the show, then it’s Bruno Mars… She was like, ‘Oh my god. Yeah, best concert ever.’ But I remember during the afternoon, we were waiting, same thing, ’cause they always did metal kind of toward the end of categories. But I remember ‘Best Children’s Book’, dude, they played [GUNS N’ ROSES‘] ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. I’m, like, ‘Okay. All right. I get it.’ But so look, I assume for metal — who’s the most winning metal artists ever in the Grammys? For sure, METALLICA. So I’m sure they probably just went, ‘All right, let’s look through the Rolodex. Who’s our metal? Oh, yeah. METALLICA. Play that. Okay. Next category, ‘Rock’.’ I don’t know. ‘THE WHO. Sure. Play them.’ So I’m sure that’s what they did. ‘Cause there’s no way, on demand, they could have six nominees… ‘And the winner is…’ Cue it up. ‘MEGADETH!’ ‘Oh shoot, let’s flip to the MEGADETH page in the book.’ And 20 people in the orchestra suddenly have ‘Dystopia’ in front of them.”
“I forgot even who [else] was in [the same category as MEGADETH]. It was us, KORN, whoever, GOJIRA. I can’t remember,” he added. “It was a few years ago. But I remember GOJIRA and KORN, et cetera. So imagine if they got KORN queued up and then MEGADETH wins. That would be kind of insulting. So I think they just pick one that’s not even in the category. They just go, ‘All right. It can’t be one of the six nominees. So let’s pick [something else].'”
Ellefson further stated that no one in MEGADETH was especially upset by the house band’s choice of song as they made their way to the stage.
“I don’t think anybody took it personally,” he said. “But it was funny, the irony that it would be that artist. But they were very happy for us that we won it.”
MEGADETH received a 2017 Grammy nomination for “Best Metal Performance” for the title track of Dystopia. This was the band’s twelfth nomination in this category, including those from the now-discontinued “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance” category.
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