According to David Ellefson, it was funny that Metallica played while Megadeth won a Grammy.
The house band played ‘Master of Puppets’ by Metallica during Megadeth’s first Grammy win eight years ago. Ellefson explained in a new chat with Joshua Toomey of the Talk Toomey podcast that the Grammy organizers had already chosen ‘Master of Puppets’ to play when Megadeth walked to the stage. He shared that during the afternoon awards, they play music related to past winners or artists.
The bassist then recalled, “But I remember during the afternoon, we were waiting, same thing, ’cause they always did metal kind of toward the end of categories. But I remember ‘Best Children’s Book’, dude, they played [Guns N’ Roses’] ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. I’m, like, ‘Okay. All right. I get it.’ But so look, I assume for metal — who’s the most winning metal artists ever in the Grammys? For sure, Metallica.”
“So I’m sure they probably just went, ‘All right, let’s look through the Rolodex. Who’s our metal? Oh, yeah. Metallica. Play that. Okay. Next category, ‘Rock.’ ‘ I don’t know. ‘The Who. Sure. Play them.’ So I’m sure that’s what they did,” David shared.
He continued, “‘Cause there’s no way, on demand, they could have six nominees… ‘And the winner is…’ Cue it up. ‘Megadeth!’ ‘Oh shoot, let’s flip to the Megadeth page in the book.’ And 20 people in the orchestra suddenly have ‘Dystopia’ in front of them.”
Ellefson talked about other nominees at the time, saying, “I forgot even who [else] was in [the same category as Megadeth]. It was us, Korn, whoever, Gojira. I can’t remember. It was a few years ago. But I remember Gojira and Korn, et cetera.”
“So imagine if they got Korn queued up and then Megadeth wins. That would be kind of insulting. So I think they just pick one that’s not even in the category. They just go, ‘All right. It can’t be one of the six nominees. So let’s pick [something else],'” the rocker added.
David also said no one in Megadeth minded the song the house band played as they walked to the stage. He noted, “I don’t think anybody took it personally. But it was funny, the irony that it would be that artist. But they were very happy for us that we won it.”
Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica in 1983 due to substance abuse and anger issues, before ‘Master of Puppets’ came out. Although he was bitter for a while, he said there was no real feud with the band.
