Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine and bassist David Ellefson have had a rocky history together, and Ellefson believes it might've been partially why he was fired from the band in 2021.
Ellefson is part of the original Megadeth lineup and stuck with the band until 2002. Then in 2004, Ellefson sued Mustaine for $18.5 million over alleged unpaid tour merchandise and publishing royalties. The lawsuit got dismissed in 2005, Mustaine countersued, and the suit was eventually settled out of court.
Mustaine also began working on his solo-album-turned-Megadeth-album in 2003 and attempted to reform Megadeth's Rust In Peace lineup with Nick Menza, Marty Friedman, and Ellefson around that time. Menza rejoined briefly, though Friedman and Ellefson couldn't come to an agreement with Mustaine.
Ellefson would eventually get back with Megadeth in 2010 and would stick around until 2021, when he was let go after sexually explicit videos of himself and a woman surfaced online. Ellefson's bass tracks were replaced on Megadeth's latest album The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! by Steve DiGiorgio (even though he asked the band not to), and Ellefson's position was eventually filled by former bassist James LoMenzo full time.
So does Ellefson feel that all that history contributed to his 2021 firing? In an interview The Metal Circus, Ellefson says yes. When asked if he was "a victim of unnecessary criminalization" in his firing, Ellefson responds "a hundred percent. Fucking a hundred percent I was. Everything about that was just not okay."
"But you can spend your life trying to get justice, trying to go down that road, and it's kind of like it always just follows you. I had some good advisors around me, and at some point, it's, like, 'Look, it is what it is. What happened, happened. Just move on.' Life is lived forward, not backward… Own your shit and move on. Which is what I did.
"The night that a video was put out of me that I knew nothing about, and there it was. And all of a sudden, it's, like, hey, own your shit. All right. Whatever. That happened. Move on. And don't sit there and try to go back and do some spin control or call the publicists. 'Cause that's what some people wanted to do. And I was, like, 'Fuck that.' It is what it is. Just fucking own it and move on. And I'd like to think there's more integrity in just 'own your shit and move on.' … Let that situation help you get better rather than just sit around and hate on everyone."
Ellefson later adds that he's "entitled to a personal life, and I didn't do anything to anyone," and "that some people set out to really hurt me."
"I don't really wanna keep digging this up, because now we're doing the very thing I'm talking, which is not digging it up. We've moved on from it. It is what it is, it was what it was, and I certainly set out to prove what it wasn't. And that's the path I took.
"I think the bigger picture here… 'Cause I think right away… Look, I came forward and [said], 'It is what it is. Sorry. It's embarrassing.' But the fact that I was discounted from my band was clearly… I think people can see, because [the announcement] was personally signed [by Mustaine]… There was other resentments and other things behind that. And I think that's what became clear. And again, I did my best to try to mend that fence and to fix that, but he didn't wanna know about it. So it is what it is.
"I have not spent the last two years walking around saying 'fuck you' and ta-da-da-da-da. If anything, hey, I wish you well. Get on with your life. If that's what it is, then it's better to go our separate ways."
Ellefson also touched on rejoining Megadeth in 2010, saying he knew what he was walking into and what Mustaine's personality was like – for better or worse.
"I wasn't unhappy before. I knew what I was walking back into when I came back to Megadeth. I knew what I was walking back into in 2010, which is why I agreed to only go back for one month and do the Rust In Peace tour. And essentially I saved the day, because they didn't have a bass player, and they were about ready to go play the Rust In Peace album. And [drummer] Shawn Drover, who recently was under some pretty shitty attack by a certain person we know, Shawn Drover did the right thing bringing me to Megadeth.
"It was the right move for the band, for the legacy, for the fans, for the 'Big Four', for everything around it. Shawn Drover is a hero to Megadeth. And he brought me back. I agreed to do it for a month. It went well, so we agreed to go to South America. It went well. We agreed to carry on, and we just kind of took it one tour at a time. And that carried on for another 11 years. So as much as there's some recent scrutiny about I should have never been brought back… Well, apparently I should have been, and apparently I should have never been out of there in the first place. And the two times that I've not been there were not of my doing.
"The first [exit] was over the change of financial splits, and then the second time was clearly of something much bigger — personal grudges and resentments toward me. But that notwithstanding, I knew what I was walking back into. And we had a lot of good times. There was a lot of fun in the 11 years that I came back. Not so much in the recent years. The last couple of years were pretty shitty and pretty difficult, especially trying to make [The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!]. It was very clear I was not invited into it. I was not welcomed. Clearly Dave did not want me to be part of that story, of that album. And I knew it.
"So, again, I'm a big boy. I get it. I see it. So that's why when I was dismissed, it was kind of, like, 'Well, all right. Move on from that.' That's why I'm not bitter about this. Now, it didn't end the way I thought it would, but oh, well. Megadeth's over again. Well, now what? Move on. So I'd already been down this road once before."
