Though Megadeth has delivered many landmark moments in metal, with records like Rust In Peace and Peace Sells as good examples, they, as any band in the business, have had their not-so-shining moment. In a catalog clocking at 16 studio albums, Risk stands as the sore thumb, widely considered the band's lowest point. To be honest I don't remember even having the stamina to sit through the entire album during my first listen back in 1999.
As every single Megadeth fan could attest, Risk veered sharply from their thrash roots into a more polished, radio-friendly sound, a shift that left hardcore fanbase utterly disappointed. Such transition was polarizing – to say the least – and to this day, Risk is widely regarded as the band's most controversial release, even when Marty Friedman thinks the band did the best they could at the time.
Reflecting on Risk for its 25th anniversary, former bassist David Ellefson recently shared his thoughts with Oran O'Beirne of Overdrive.ie. As Ellefson recalled, the album's creation process may have influenced its distinct sound and reception: "I think with Risk, with Megadeth, we wrote that record mostly at rehearsal, then we went to Nashville and finished it in the studio and it didn't have time to simmer and percolate and really kind of sink into us."
The bassist's reflections reveal that the album's quick turnaround meant the songs didn't fully connect with the band or their fans. "Here's what I found: if you're not a fan of your music first, it's hard to convince someone else to be," he explained, adding, "And now I listen back to it, and it still remains one of the great Megadeth records, even though it doesn't sound like a Megadeth record of the past. But we didn't have enough time to let it just kind of absorb into us. And then next thing you know, we're right on the road playing these songs and it's, like, 'Oh, shit. These songs aren't really connecting so much.' To just have the time, to let the stuff, to let the material absorb…"
Ellefson further shared how the band's pressure to appeal to a mainstream radio audience affected the album's overall tone. The group had seen some success with their 1997 album Cryptic Writings, which struck a balance between radio-friendly tracks and Megadeth's signature metal style. The concept of mixing commercial rock with thrash continued on Risk, but this time, Ellefson recalled, the album leaned too heavily on radio appeal.
"Here's the long and the short of it: our manager at the time was really leaning on us to dig deeper into this radio approach, an approach that worked very well on Cryptic Writings, because we said, 'Hey, let's make a third of the record… We've gotta reinvent the band in a way that's competitive with what's happening around us.' There's a radio format here in America called Active Rock radio, and now bands like Disturbed, Shinedown, Godsmack, they own that, Halestorm, they own that format. And we had some success with it, with 'Symphony Of Destruction' and 'Sweating Bullets' and stuff like that in the early '90s. And then with Cryptic, a third [of the songs were] radio, a third metal, a third kind of whatever, and it worked. It was the right approach."
With Risk, there was just kind of this really heavy push, 'If some is good, more must be better.' And our attitude as well, 'When we get down to Nashville [to make the album], we'll crush out these metal tunes. That'll be easy. No problem.' And the truth of it is it took so much time crafting the other songs for the record that we didn't really have the time or the mindset to make those metal songs that the record should have had to sort of balance it out. So it tended to be a record that was skewed more as a crafted radio album. And admittedly, there's a piece of it that we didn't include, that we just kind of ran out of time, focus, and energy for. And that's the part that's on us, for sure," Ellefson added.
"I think what that taught us was, and then for The World Needs A Hero, we started to re-chart the course of the ship again, was we have to like the songs. If we like it, there's gonna be a bunch of other knuckleheads just like us who are gonna like it too. So let's preach to that choir, rather than trying to go out and get a tribe that we aren't a part of and may never get invited into, let's just make our tribe tighter. 'Cause, look, that's ultimately how Megadeth and thrash our genre, that's how it grew," he concluded.
