David Ellefson Shares The Story Of How He And Dave Mustaine Met Marty Friedman By Chance

Megadeth bass guitarist David Ellefson spoke in a recent interview with Jason Green and talked about the early days of Megadeth and how they met Mart Friedman.

In the conversation, David mentioned the times when they were looking for a guitarist and revealed that they even asked Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell to join Megadeth, but he couldn’t join because he was playing for Pantera.

After playing with tons of guitarists in the auctions, they couldn’t find a person who could join Megadeth. However, when they were editing the demos in EMI Music Publishing, he and Dave Mustaine saw the few solo albums of Marty Friedman on the desk.

Later on, their manager informed that Marty actually wants to get an auction. Afterward, they tried out Marty and according to Ellefson, he landed the gig and managed to join the band.

Here is what David Ellefson said:

“It’s interesting that when we were in, re-cutting those demos in the EMI Music Publishing studio, our manager Ron’s office was downstairs – a couple of floors down – me and Dave went down with Ron to his office, and this is late at night, after hours.

And he had on his desk two Marty Friedman – he had ‘Dragon Kiss,’ his solo record, and the Cacophony album, and me and Dave were like, ‘Who’s this?’ And Ron was like, ‘Dude, I’ve been telling you guys for months. This guy wants to get an audition, his name is Marty Friedman.’”

He continued:

“And me and Dave were like, ‘Yeah, we know him.’ And so we were like, ‘Alright, might as well…’ Because earlier that summer, we auditioned like a dozen guys, and none of them were at all in the realm.

So we just were like, ‘Why not – it can’t hurt, what do we got to lose?’ So we turned the corner into the new year, so, January of 1990 or something, Marty comes down for an audition, and he landed the gig.

We just happened to go down to the manager’s office – bang – there’s Marty albums in there and had that not happened, again, Marty may not have gotten into Megadeth. So yeah, life just has a way. The metal gods provide.”

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