INTERVIEW: David Ellefson on his mega life with Megadeth

For David Ellefson, legendary bassist of the heavy metal band Megadeth, life has been one long path filled with a host of variables, everything from playing rock music to finding what he calls G-O-D, good orderly direction. There have been many hard lessons and life-changing moments along the way, and now fans of Megadeth (or anyone looking for a solid, page-turning story) can read of the triumphs and setbacks in Ellefson’s new autobiography, My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll.

“There’s a lot, a lot, a lot of stories, and, you know, when you try to condense it into a 200- to 300-page book, you have to be selective,” Ellefson said recently during a phone interview. “One, I have the right to tell my story, but I don’t have the right to tell your story. So that was part of the selection process. Two, does it serve any real purpose? … When I was in the final edits of the book, there’s actually a couple of stories I cut out because as the manuscript was taking shape, I just realized they didn’t really serve the final outcome of the book. I think I have to look at the bigger picture of why the book even exists, and I didn’t need to do a tell-all. I didn’t need to feel vindicated because I had some grudge against people. What became apparent to me is that I’m a kid who one day woke up and had this rock ‘n’ roll bug.”

Ellefson called his bass playing a “vocation” that he was meant to follow. “I think that became the bigger story,” he said. “When a calling is put on you, follow it because that’s who you’re supposed to be.”

After moving to Los Angeles in his younger years, Ellefson joined with Dave Mustaine, frontman of Megadeth, and soon after heavy metal history was born. The coupling took off, and now the band is celebrating 30 years in the business. Megadeth still tours the world, and 2013 saw the release of their latest studio album, Super Collider.

“I knew when I was going to California there was something there waiting for me,” he said. “And I knew when I met Dave that he was different than everybody else. There’s definitely some special thing about him that, I mean he’s got it. They talk about that X factor; he’s got it. And I realized that together the two of us were a really cool partnership because even Dave and I realized that if the two of us agree on everything, one of is unnecessary. So that’s what real partnership is; if you bring your differences as well as your commonalities together, and it makes something greater than what either one of you could do on your own. And I just had this real sense right from the very beginning with Megadeth that this was going to be a big band.”

Ellefson freely admitted that there are rock bands bigger and more financially successful than Megadeth, but for him selling records and making money are not the only benchmarks of “making it.”

“I think the thing that is even more clear to me today but was also clear to me 30 years ago was that this was a band that was going to have songs that were different,” he said. “They were going to stand the test of time, and they were going to really have a deep impact on people.”

Some of that success could have been derailed by drug use. For the bassist, the negatives of his drug use were always compared to his positive Lutheran upbringing. “I knew that what I was doing was wrong. … It’s like when my dad gave me the talk that sex is like shaving, once you start you’re never going to stop. And it’s like, every time I did something wrong, I knew I was wrong. I knew it. It wasn’t like I was just dancing to music I couldn’t hear.”

After the drugs, the guilt set in, and the dishonesties began. By the time heroin entered the fray, Ellefson found himself part of a society where “doing the wrong thing is just part of the way of life.”

The only way the musician was able to stop doing the wrong things was by consciously thinking of the good options available to him. This was when the concept of “G-O-D, good orderly direction” started to take hold on his life.

“There’s also this talk about God and being born again, and blah, blah, blah,” he said. ” When you’re down in the depths of addiction, man, no one wants to hear about that. It’s so like not cool. But when someone just said, ‘good orderly direction, G-O-D.’ What’s the next right thing to do that’s honest? And all of a sudden the answers became pretty clear. Like getting off drugs was of first importance.”

He kicked heroin, a drug that he said got into his DNA and was a bear to kick. “I’m so thankful that I was able to get out of it because it was tough, man,” he said. “For a couple of years, it was really, really hard to get off that stuff.”

Interestingly and somewhat surprisingly, Megadeth put out some much-heralded songs during the tough years. Ellefson said that time period in his life was consumed by darkness, and this caused some of the songs to have a particular slant. But then the band emerged from the darkness with even more success.

“Coming out of that darkness, those songs had a whole different spirit to it,” he said. “We had probably some of our biggest mainstream success during that time, and part of that was because heavy metal was popular and we had earned our place in it. But also we were writing songs that were more relational to people. You know, ‘Symphony of Destruction,’ ‘A Tout le Monde,’ ‘Trust,’ these songs that we wrote during the ‘90s … I think they connected better with people. And that’s something that you have a hard time doing when you’re in darkness is writing things that really truly connect with other people because you’re really down in this dark place that most people can’t relate to.”

For those who don’t know or appreciate the heavy metal scene, having these rockers turn toward God might seem oxymoronic. Aren’t these long-haired men supposed to screw up their lives? Aren’t they always supposed to dabble in a little bit of recklessness?

That’s not heavy metal. That’s not Megadeth. That’s not Ellefson.

“People start hearing if you ever start to talk about matters of spiritual things or God or that, they immediately just assume the sort of full-blown born-again Christian kind of thing,” he said. “I think just your natural tendency as a human being as you get older, you’re seeking for other things. And the things that seem to be kind of silly when you’re a kid suddenly make sense when you’re older. And the things that seemed so cool when you were young and when you get older seem kind of silly. So things start to kind of twist; they change. That’s why your music should reflect your life, not the other way around.”

Ellefson said he can’t stand some rockers who are in their 50s and still acting like they were 21. “Dude, you look like an idiot,” he said with a laugh. “You look like a fool up there trying to be that guy. And I think with Megadeth we’ve tried to just let our lives inspire our music, and I think that’s important for a band like Megadeth because there are a lot of young fans now in the audience again because we’ve survived three decades here. But there’s also a lot of our fans have grown up with us, and if we’re the soundtrack to their lives, we have to be singing and writing about things that also relate to them as they’re growing up.”

At a recent Megadeth concert in Montclair, N.J., Mustaine and Ellefson took the stage with the rest of the band, and their playing styles couldn’t be more different. Mustaine is precise and becomes lost in the music, hiding behind his swirling locks of lion’s-mane hair. Ellefson is just as precise but tries to see how the audience is responding to his chords. He often holds up his guitar and nods his head, an open invitation for the adoring fans to take over the concert and vicariously become the bass player.

“When I’m on that stage, it isn’t about me playing those songs for me. That’s what you do when you practice. You practice to get it right for you, so you can get in the band and rehearse and take it on the stage. And once when you’re on the stage, man, it’s not about you. It’s about the audience. … Then there’s a mosh pit in the middle because that’s where like the young dudes want to hang out and get rowdy. And in the back … those are our longtime fans. They used to be down in the front and in the mosh pit, and now they’re sitting in the back going, ‘Yeah, I’ve been there, done that. Now I can appreciate Megadeth for the age that I am. I can take a trip back down memory lane, and I can enjoy all this again.’ … It’s the coolest place to be because every show you realize you have to still prove your worth. You can’t walk out there and take it for granted. You’ve still got suit up, show up and give it your all.”

It seems whenever an important band reaches another anniversary or milestone, the inevitable questions about retirement begin to surface. Ellefson said Megadeth is so much part of his identity that the rocking ‘n’ rolling will continue for the foreseeable future.

“Music is just part of us. Megadeth is just part of who we are. It’s not so much something we do; it’s just who we are. … It’s bigger than the four of us, and that’s a cool place for it to be. It’s not like we have to sit here and constantly push and push and push to try to get people to know what it is. People are asking for Megadeth when we’re not even thinking about Megadeth, and that’s a cool place to be because it seems like the phone just kind of keeps ringing.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• My Life with Megadeth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll is available now. Click here for more information.