Maximum Volume interviewed MEGADETH bass guitarist and band co-founder DAVID ELLEFSON on Wednesday 18th February 2015. You can listen entire interview using audio player below.
Asked if he foresaw the departures of drummer Shawn Drover and guitarist Chris Broderick prior to their exit from MEGADETH last November, Ellefson said: “I did sense that a change was coming, especially when they both did it together. It was sort of, like, ‘Okay, they’re obviously musically onto something else. And sometimes people do need to walk away and move into a different chapter of their lives in order to be clear and focused and give a new endeavor their hundred-percent attention. I went through a similar thing like that back in 2002 when MEGADETH disbanded. I was sort of forced into it, just because MEGADETH ended; I mean, it was over, it was done. So I was kind of forced to move ahead with that. Fortunately, I had those years for… I guess it was about eight years until I came back into MEGADETH, in 2010, where that process, being in different groups and writing songs with people and being involved in a lot of different endavors, it definitely helped me grow up, and I appreciate having done that outside of my main man, MEGADETH. And now, as I’ve come back into the group, MEGADETH is in a much different position.”
He continued: “I think when we were much younger, it’s important to stay one hundred percent focused on your band, and you don’t do side projects or solo records. But, you know, MEGADETH is in a much different position now. Our legacy is definitely secure. If I step out and do another endeavor, people know I haven’t quit the group, I’m still there, and I think people enjoy hearing some things that we do outside of our main bands…. from time to time — not always, but from time to time. And I think also it’s a way that you can exercise a little bit of your creative liberties outside of the band, because if you don’t do that, you tend to exercise that inside the band. And I think we’ve learned over the years that when people buy a MEGADETH record, it needs to sound like MEGADETH. It can’t be, like, ‘Well, here’s some other songs that I really wanted to play, and I didn’t have anywhere else to do it, so we put ’em on a MEGADETH record.’ I think we’ve very clear that, you know, ‘Okay, great songs, but save it for your solo project.'”
Interview (audio):
