THIS MONTH
It’s 36 years and counting since David Ellefson joined Megadeth, and despite an eight-year stint outside the band, when he worked in A&R for Peavey from 2002 to 2010, he’s never really stopped recording and touring. In the last decade, he’s established several businesses outside Megadeth under the banner of Ellefson Music Productions, which today runs to a record label, a booking agency, solo albums, books, movie production and a coffee brand, not to mention solo bass clinics and collaborations with many other musicians. His newest venture is a solo album called No Cover, for which he invited a host of rock and metal musos to record songs in and out of the rock and metal canon.
Ellefson is best known for playing splendidly pointy signature Jackson basses, for which US-made and affordable import models have been available since he rejoined Megadeth in 2010. You’ll also see him playing the Kelly Bird model which he designed for Jackson, and you may have seen our recent review of two more Ellefson basses, the X Series CBXM four- and five-string models. He also uses Hartke heads and cabs, SIT strings and GruvGear straps. With his extensive catalogue, he’s a perfect candidate for BP’s Star Bass treatment...
MUST-HAVE ALBUM MEGADETH Rust In Peace (1990)
“The song ‘Holy Wars... The Punishment Due’ summarises everything that Megadeth was about in 1990, and probably still does today – lyrically and musically. The engineer at Amigo Studios who helped us demo the first three tracks was Garth Richardson, an unknown at the time who went on to great success, and he came up with the half-time bass-line in the middle section. That was clever, because the song doesn’t leave a lot of room for anything other than just to buckle up and play along with the guitar.
“One of my other favourite bass-lines on the album is in ‘Five Magics’, and for me, the crowning moment as a bass player is ‘Dawn Patrol’. When we were in the studio, our producer Mike Clink kept asking if we had another song to add to the record, and I had this bass-line that I put down with Nick [Menza] on drums.
“I borrowed an eight-string Yamaha bass from Dio’s bassist Jimmy Bain to write ‘Dawn Patrol’, and that’s where I first learned that an instrument can have a song in it. As soon as I picked that bass up, the riff just fell out. I would never have come up with that riff on any other instrument.
“Rust In P
