On the most recent episode of Riff Crew‘s The Realm, David Ellefson was requested concerning the supposed early “feud” between MEGADETH and METALLICA, stemming primarily from the truth that MEGADETH chief Dave Mustaine was a member of METALLICA for lower than two years, from 1981 to 1983, earlier than being dismissed and changed by Kirk Hammett.

“The MEGADETH–METALLICA feud… Look, it was not my feud, as a result of I used to be an enormous METALLICA fan,” Ellefson defined (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “Look, I am within the band with Dave, so I’ve gotta toe the corporate line. It is considered one of these, ‘Hey, man, when you’re my good friend, it’s a must to love my mates and you have gotta hate my enemies with me.’ You understand how that’s. ‘We like that man. That chick, fuck her. That sucks.’ We all know how this goes.

“So, right here I’m. And, look, I really like METALLICA. I hear the ‘No Life ‘Til Leather-based’ demo and it is frickin’ superior,” Ellefson continued. “And I nonetheless love their demo. After which [METALLICA‘s debut album] ‘Kill ‘Em All’ comes out. I bear in mind the day we sat there in stone chilly silence for, like, an hour whereas we listened to the ‘Kill ‘Em All’ album. And God bless Dave for simply kind of biting the bullet and simply going, ‘Okay, I must hearken to this. What did they do to my songs?’ Clearly the very first thing he sees is the writing credit. Stuff that he had written by himself, like ‘Mechanix’, now had the writing credit of James [Hetfield, METALLICA frontman] and Lars [Ulrich, METALLICA drummer]. And to their credit score, they did rewrite the lyrics; ‘The 4 Horsemen’ is a wholly completely different lyrical factor. I wasn’t within the room as these items was taking place.

“I all the time checked out it like, ‘Hey, Dave. They gave you the best present ever. Not solely did they use your songs and pay you for them, they, simply as importantly, put your identify on it.’ That gave MEGADETH such an unimaginable benefit to beginning out. It is like, I assume. We have been simply speaking about [my current projects] DIETH and KINGS OF THRASH. It is, like, this is the MEGADETH data. Yeah, that is undoubtedly me — my identify, my credit. This stuff all the time assist.

“There is a saying in jazz, ‘You are solely nearly as good as your final gig, ‘trigger each gig you do leads you to the following alternative.’ So for Dave, having that METALLICA historical past gave MEGADETH an enormous benefit to beginning. I typically want that he would have been slightly extra appreciative of how nicely we did and the present we had, what number of followers got here to his facet regardless of the departure. And I’ve realized from that myself now that I am not in MEGADETH, going, ‘Be appreciative.’ Lots of people got here to my facet. You do not have to hate MEGADETH to love David Ellefson.”

David added: “I’ve listened to METALLICA on the radio. Residing in L.A., they’d KNAC and issues, and they might all the time do ‘Obligatory Metallica’ and all these items. That band broke down so many doorways for all of us. After which, after I met the blokes — I met James and Lars [early on] — they have been completely cool. I do not know — it appeared like it will be fairly enjoyable to be in a band with these guys. So I all the time favored them. I watched them develop and develop and mainly take over the world. I acquired a front-row seat for that, and I believed that was actually, actually superior.”

This previous February, Ellefson advised Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station, that he had heard METALLICA‘s two new songs, “Lux Æterna” and “Screaming Suicide”, that have been launched as singles previous to the arrival of the band’s newest album, “72 Seasons”. He stated: “I favored it. I feel it’s extremely cool. You recognize, simply as a lot as all the things with these guys, they’re like Apple — after they do a product launch, it often comes off fairly frickin’ cool. A brand new METALLICA album is sort of a new iPhone launch — it is just about superior. [Laughs]”

Ellefson went on to say that “Lux Æterna” and the announcement of METALLICA‘s “72 Seasons” album and accompanying stadium tour got here “out of nowhere” final November whereas he was in Poland engaged on his DIETH venture. “And also you’re, like, ‘Jeez.’ I imply, this actually simply dropped out of the sky; I do not assume any of us noticed it coming, which I believed was so cool,” David stated.

Elaborating on what he considered “Lux Æterna” and “Screaming Suicide”, Ellefson stated: “That first single [‘Lux Æterna’] particularly I believed was very cool…

“Look, at this level, there’s solely 12 notes within the chromatic scale,” he defined. “We have performed all of them in nearly each doable mixture of find out how to play ’em. So, it is like, how do you now, at album — no matter it’s for them. And even with MEGADETH, it was like, ‘Jeez, we’re on what number of albums now? And the way can we not repeat ourselves but nonetheless hold avenue cred and play to these followers that wanna hear us do this?’

“You are not the identical man you have been whenever you recorded ‘One’, proper? You are not the 1987 METALLICA; you are now this,” Ellefson added. “So I feel as we age into our profession and we age into our artistry, if you’ll, you are all the time searching for how do you scratch the itch and fulfill all elements of your inventive factor there.”

Again in September 2020, Ellefson advised WRIF that he and Mustaine paid shut consideration to what METALLICA was doing within the early years of MEGADETH‘s existence. “I imply, look, we’re all only a department off the METALLICA household tree,” he defined on the time. “I imply, let’s face it. Particularly MEGADETH, with Dave being there, after which me being a department off of Dave with MEGADETH. So, I imply, look, we owe all the things to METALLICA. These guys broke down the doorways for each considered one of us — ANTHRAX, SLAYER. Bands right now — LAMB OF GOD, PANTERA — none of this may have occurred with out METALLICA being up there because the 800-pound gorilla simply carving the trail by means of the jungle that may have by no means let heavy metallic in. The stuff that they capable of do and the dimensions and the scope of which they have been capable of break these doorways down, it modified all of our lives — as musicians, as followers, as all the things. That is why I feel after they did the ‘Massive 4’ [shows] with us in 2010 and ’11, that was simply such an excellent olive department.”

The previous MEGADETH bassist continued: “As Scott Ian [ANTHRAX] stated, it is like we’re all brothers of the identical household, it is simply that considered one of our brothers went off and have become Microsoft [laughs], and that was METALLICA. It is, like, how the hell did you do this? That is superb. You modified the world. However the truth that they got here again and, once more, provided that olive department to us and simply stated, ‘Hey, we have been all on this collectively. Let’s have a good time what we did collectively so a few years in the past.’ And I feel that speaks volumes to simply how cool METALLICA is.”

In 2019, Ellefson stated that he acquired Mustaine‘s “blessing” to audition for the bassist place in METALLICA after Jason Newsted left the band greater than 20 years in the past. David went on to say that he realized find out how to play a few of METALLICA‘s songs in preparation for what he thought could be an audition with the group however that the chance by no means materialized.

Again in 2011, Mustaine stated that he was relieved that Ellefson wasn’t invited to hitch METALLICA after the tragic demise of Cliff Burton.

Burton died on tour in 1986 in a tour bus crash, three years after Mustaine was kicked out of METALLICA and went on to type MEGADETH.

The so-called “Massive 4” of Eighties thrash metallic — METALLICA, MEGADETH, SLAYER and ANTHRAX — performed collectively for the primary time in historical past on June 16, 2010 in entrance of 81,000 followers on the Sonisphere competition at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw, Poland and shared a invoice once more for six extra exhibits as a part of the Sonisphere collection that very same 12 months. They reunited once more for a number of dates in 2011, together with the final “Massive 4” live performance, which was held on September 14, 2011 at Yankee Stadium in New York Metropolis. Since then, METALLICA, SLAYER and ANTHRAX have performed plenty of exhibits collectively, together with the 2013 Soundwave competition in Australia. In addition they carried out on the 2014 Heavy MTL competition in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.