In a new interview with Argentina’s César Fuentes Rodríguez, former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson spoke about the band’s 2022 album “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!” for which he laid down the original bass tracks in May 2020 at a studio in Nashville, Tennessee. A year later, Ellefson was fired from MEGADETH, just days after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving the bassist were posted on Twitter. In July 2021, MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine announced during an episode of his Gimme Radio program “The Dave Mustaine Show” that Ellefson’s bass tracks would not be used on the LP. “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!” was released in September 2020 via UMe. Just months after TESTAMENT bassist Steve DiGiorgio recorded his parts for the effort, former MEGADETH bassist James LoMenzo rejoined the band in time for the summer 2021 leg of “The Metal Tour Of The Year”.
Asked by Rodríguez if it was “necessary” for Mustaine to erase Ellefson’s bass tracks from “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!” and have them re-recorded by someone else, David said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It was stupid. There was never any legal trouble [stemming from the explicit videos which were posted online]. There was never any — there was nothing. And I said that: this is nothing at all. Dave chose to make that decision — for whatever reason or whatever influences he had behind him that made him make that decision, that is entirely on him. His own lawyer on the phone said, ‘Don’t fire David. It doesn’t seem necessary.’ … So, for whatever reason, but it certainly wasn’t from anything on my side. In fact, if anything, I felt like when someone tried to cause trouble for me, I stepped up at the handle and then I dealt with it. I don’t fucking back down from it. I fucking deal with it. I don’t wait or hire a publicist. No — you just fucking deal with it. You deal with your stuff and you make it right. So, again, it was, to me, unwarranted, unfair and unnecessary. But with that said, Dave made his decision about it. I haven’t talked to him since. And to me, that was not a very friendly thing to do, and how it was handled afterwards, the statement that was made [by Mustaine announcing that I had been fired from MEGADETH] — not cool. Again, I watched the same kind of things happen to [other former MEGADETH members] Chris Poland, to Jeff Young, so why not me? So it seems to be a pattern, but whatever. So, no, I have not talked to Dave. Who knows if I’ll ever talk to him? And it’s sad, and it’s too bad.”
Referencing the fact that MEGADETH just launched what is being billed as the band’s “farewell” tour, Ellefson continued: “I put it out there to the fans: hey, if I got the call to be part of a reunion, to celebrate with the fans, the farewell, the end, of course I would do it. Because we would do it for that very reason.
“These songs are gonna outlive us,” Ellefson explained. “They are. They’re gonna be around long after we’re gone. So why not perform them together every chance you can? That’s why I’m here [in Argentina] with [my] ‘Basstory’ [show]. It’s why I do KINGS OF THRASH. It’s why I do these things. When people ask me, METAL ALLEGIANCE, ‘Hey, let’s play ‘Hangar 18′.’ It’s, like, what a treat. What an honor. You get to perform a song that has meant so much to so many people for so many years. That is a beautiful thing to have.
“But, again, Dave owns MEGADETH and he will do whatever he wants,” Ellefson added. “So, again, that’s why I don’t fight my way out the door. It’s, like, ‘Bye.’ Even in my statement, it’s, like, ‘Well, too bad for that. I wish you well.'”
Asked if he was surprised to hear that MEGADETH had recorded a version of METALLICA’s “Ride The Lightning” — a song Mustaine had co-written while he was a member of METALLICA — for MEGADETH’s final album, Ellefson said: ”I was — very much. Well, here’s the thing… I’ve said this before. This was a real falling out between me and Dave. It’s kind of where it started. In 2018 when he comes into the tour in Oslo, Norway, we were gonna start [touring again] that summer, he announces [to the rest of us], ‘Hey, I wanna re-record the METALLICA ‘No Life ‘Til Leather’ demo’ [on which Mustaine played on while he was briefly a member of METALLICA]. I was, like, ‘What?’ I mean, me and Dirk [Verbeuren, MEGADETH drummer] and Kiko [Loureiro, then-MEGADETH guitarist] were definitely [taken aback]. ‘What? We’re supposed to be writing a new album.’ And to me, MEGADETH doesn’t cover METALLICA songs because — just because of the history [between Mustaine and METALLICA], number one, but because they’re MEGADETH and they’re METALLICA. [METALLICA are] not covering MEGADETH songs, and you don’t cover their [songs]. IRON MAIDEN doesn’t cover SAXON and JUDAS PRIEST. These are separate lanes, if you will. So I let it go for a while, and I was hoping it would go away. It didn’t… Finally, I stood up and said, ‘Dave, we are not doing that. You can’t do this. Especially since they offered it to you [to have ‘No Life ‘Til Leather’ officially released] after the ‘Big Four’ [shows], and you didn’t get on board and they took it off the table.’ I said, ‘It’s extremely disrespectful to those guys.’ After all that they did for us, I felt, for him and for everything else, it’s, like, ‘Leave it alone, man. Just leave it alone.’ And I love ‘No Life ‘Til Leather’… So that was really the beginning. Dave didn’t talk to me for six months after that. He didn’t talk to me for the rest of the year. And I could tell he sort of begrudgingly he invited me to participate in songwriting on what became ‘The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!’ Everything I wrote, he would take off — everything that I participated [in]. But, however, I did write one song. I came up something that was a nice arpeggio thing on acoustic guitar. I didn’t expect that that would be the thing that he would like. And I wrote some really good stuff. There was really good stuff that could have easily gone on that album, but [this particular song was] a ballad. And so I wrote this ballad, I sang on it, I wrote the vocal lines, and Kiko played the guitar and made it sound great. And people were telling me, ‘Dude, this is the best song on the album. This is amazing.’ Kind of like ‘Beth’ on the ‘Destroyer’ [album from] KISS. You’re, like, ‘Oh, here did this come from? This is amazing.’ Made ’em all millionaires. And I could tell that probably didn’t go over so good either. I always felt, like, the only thing worse than writing the worst song is if you write the best stuff. So, then just a matter of circumstance and convenience, suddenly [I was fired from the band].”
Circling back to Mustaine’s decision to record his own version of “Ride The Lightning”, Ellefson said: “So, ‘Ride The Lightning’ — I wasn’t gonna there when they were putting it together, but it seems to me that if that song was done [while Dave was still in the band], it would’ve been on [METALLICA’s debut album] ‘Kill ‘Em All’. So to me, to whatever degree that tune was there, and I know Dave had a couple riffs — that spider chord [in the bridge], he used to play that one in the apartment, so I knew that was riff of his. I didn’t sense it was in a song, but whatever. He has a whole different memory of it. It’s his song, it’s his moment. I’m not here to argue it. Whatever. So I just found it interesting that that would go on a final record. But whatever. It’s his band. He can do whatever he wants.”
David previously talked about Mustaine’s desire to re-record “No Life ‘Til Leather” in July 2025 during an appearance on “The David Ellefson Show”. Ellefson said: “There was clashes [during the making of ‘The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!’] 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 the ‘No Life ‘Til Leather’ demo. 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 fucking say, ‘Yes, Dave,’ and go along with shit. So eventually I’m out of the band. So it goes. Bands are what bands are, and it is what it is.”
“No Life ‘Til Leather” was released as a limited-edition cassette for Record Store Day in April 2015, available exclusively in independent record stores. It featured artwork copies from drummer Lars Ulrich’s own personal copy of the original demo, as well as his handwriting. At the time, the band also promised that expanded editions of the demo, which had never before been commercially available, would arrive on CD, vinyl and in a collector’s set.
The seven-song tape was recorded with the first lineup of the band that appeared live as METALLICA, including Ulrich, guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield, lead guitarist Mustaine and bassist Ron McGovney. The original recordings were paid for by High Velocity record label owner Kenny Kane, with a view of making them available as an EP in 1982.
LoMenzo originally joined MEGADETH in 2006 and appeared on two of the group’s studio albums, 2007’s “United Abominations” and 2009’s “Endgame”. He was fired from the band in 2010 and replaced with Ellefson.
Ellefson was originally in MEGADETH from the band’s inception in 1983 to 2002, when the group briefly broke up because Mustaine suffered severe nerve damage that left him unable to play.