David Ellefson discussed why he joined Megadeth way back during its formation in 1983 in a recent interview with UpAndComingTV’s ‘The UACast,’ noting that money wasn’t the primary motivation behind it.
“I had a friend,” Ellefson started, “I asked him, ‘Man, should I or shouldn’t I,’ whatever the thing was. And he asked me, he goes, ‘Well, is there money involved?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘Well, first of all, I always take the money out of it. If there’s no money involved, would I still go do it?’ I said, ‘Of course, I would.’ He goes, ‘Then there’s your answer.’ He goes, ‘Don’t make it about the money. Just make it about going.’”
“‘Cause every time I’ve — and I’ve only done it a couple of times when I’ve played… You do a gig or something and somebody dangles, ‘Oh, there’s a lot of money.’ And every time I’ve done it just for the money, there was never enough money. It was always unenjoyable and there was always something behind it that I didn’t like about it. So, I’d rather just kind of go and do it.”
That didn’t prevent conflicts over business within the band. Ellefson sued Dave Mustaine for $18.5 million in 2004, alleging that the frontman failed to fairly share profits and had not fulfilled a promise to transfer ownership of Megadeth Inc. to him when they disbanded in 2002.
This lawsuit was eventually dropped. The bassist rejoined Megadeth in 2010 to celebrate ‘Rust In Peace’ with a comeback tour. “Even when I went back to Megadeth, I was like, ‘You know what? Be willing to do this for free. Would you do this for free?’ And I was, like, ‘You know what? I would,’” he continued. “Now, they paid me, but still — it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about a paycheck. It was just about, ‘I kind of wanna go back out and play ‘Rust In Peace’ again. That’d be a lot of fun. That’d be a good time.’ And that’s how I just tried to always approach that gig.”
Mustaine fired Ellefson in May 2021 after sexually explicit messages and video footage involving him spread online. James LoMenzo then stepped in as the new bassist.
