Features

March 12

Megadeth is reborn

JOSEPH HUDAK For The Times Leader

For a band with such a fatalistic name, Megadeth has never felt more optimistic about its future. At least according to the thrash-metal group’s founding bassist Dave Ellefson, who recently patched up a strained relationship with singer-guitarist Dave Mustaine to rejoin Megadeth after eight years.

The band, which Mustaine formed in 1983 after his exit as Metallica’s original guitarist, will perform a rare theater show on Thursday at the Scranton Cultural Center, along with fellow head-bangers Testament and Exodus.

“This is the beginning, the starting of the next chapter,” an enthusiastic Ellefson says during a phone call from a sold-out tour stop in Medford, Ore. “(The reunion) couldn’t have happened at a better time. And none of us planned it or put it together this way, which gives me goose bumps. It makes all of us happy to be here.”

Oddly enough, a bad back may be indirectly responsible for Ellefson reuniting with Mustaine. In January, Megadeth — with James LoMenzo on bass — was set to embark on the co-headlining “American Carnage” tour with Slayer, but the fellow thrashers’ front man, Tom Araya, needed back surgery, and the dates were postponed. Reluctant to sit tight — and with their landmark album “Rust in Peace” turning 20 this year — Megadeth decided to hit the road and perform the CD in its entirety, a popular trend among groups with a recording legacy.

“If there was ever a time to reinvestigate coming back, this was it. ‘Rust in Peace’ is a musically progressive record, and it’s got my stamp all over it,” says Ellefson, who, at drummer Shawn Drover’s urging, reached out to Mustaine.

After a candid conversation, the two reconnected as the friends they once were. “Dave said, ‘I’d love to have you back, if you want to be here. The door’s open; let’s saddle up and go,’ ” Ellefson says. “So I threw a bass in my car and called my wife, who said, ‘Go! You should be in Megadeth.’ She always knew that not being in Megadeth was an unresolved issue in my life. It was an unresolved issue with the fans, and probably an unresolved issue with Dave, too. So coming back and doing this, it’s what it’s supposed to be.”

The group convened the next day in San Diego for rehearsals and worked up a set list that includes songs from Endgame, the entire ‘Rust in Peace’ record and such fan favorites as “Symphony of Destruction,” “Trust” and “Peace Sells,” with its instantly recognizable bassline. Even non-metalheads are likely familiar with Ellefson’s thumping riff: MTV News used it for years as its theme music.

“It’s a great feeling to play ‘Peace Sells’ every night. If you’re a metalhead, that is the soundtrack to your life in some way. To be the guy to have played that line and then have it become so pronounced in mainstream culture because of MTV, it’s cool,” says Ellefson, who wrote the signature intro with Mustaine. “That was a true partnership with me and Dave.”

Megadeth will form another heavy-hitting partnership this summer when the band plays a series of festival shows in Europe with Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer, the “Big Four” of thrash metal.

Ellefson sees the concerts as a salute to the staying power of their genre.

“This shows that thrash is not going away. By all of us locking arms and joining into this brigade together, it’s a testimony to how huge this movement has become,” he says. “It’s something we’ve created, something that is uniquely ours to have forever. We’ve lived to tell about it.”

And while 2010 doesn’t seem likely, Ellefson won’t rule out an eventual Big Four show in the United States. For now, though, he’s focused on readjusting to the whirlwind that is life in a touring rock band. It was only early February when Ellefson rejoined the group, and shortly after, he was rehearsing for the tour, shooting a video for Endgame’s “The Right to Go Insane” (a song he says was written while he was still in the group) and recording on a new song.

“Dave asked, ‘Are you in?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he gave me a big hug and said, ‘Good, play on a new track!’” Ellefson recalls. “It was a great on-ramp back onto the Megadeth freeway.” And a road that headbangers are hoping will go on forever.

Were you interviewed for this story? If so, please fill out our accuracy form

Send Question/Comment to the Publisher