The Sonisphere festival website has issued an interview with MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson. The following is an excerpt:

Q: What have your Sonisphere highlights been so far?

A: "The first day in Warsaw Poland was a huge highlight. Just the fact it had all come together. The four bands had dinner together the night before, which was a really nice way to ease into it. And the fact that there were people as far as the eye could see in Poland was great. Coming over to Switzerland we got flags thrown up to us on stage. It’s kind of cool because there were a lot of people from neighbouring countries in Switzerland, which seems to be the case with all Sonispheres. People are flying in from all over the world to see the Big Four playing together."

Q: Scott Ian sang on stage with you in Switzerland. How did that come about?

A: "It surprised the crap out of me. All of a sudden I heard someone bellowing really loud and I thought ‘Man, Chris Broderick is singing really loud today’ and I turn around and Scott’s on my mike singing. That was unplanned unless Dave mentioned it to him, but with ‘Peace Sells’ that’s sort of our come-one, come-all singalong sort of song, so anybody who might be out there watching in the wings, we’re like ‘come on, get on out here’. Scott happened to be that guy in Switzerland."

Q: How’s the relationship with METALLICA now?

A: "Very good. I’ve always got along well with them. I was never in Metallica so I like them. I think they’re great. I’ve always liked them as guys, I thought they were cool, their band rocks, their records are great. They’re just a ferocious live band.

As far as the obvious with our whole band and all the bands, honestly, it’s great. Metallica have risen to such huge success, it’s very cool of them that they would move themselves off of their perch of iconic celebrity to just come back down to this scene of metal, which we’ve all created together. Because they’ve been able to move far away from this scene many years ago through the records they made and the songs that they wrote, which I always admired because most bands can’t.

Megadeth was able to for a while. Slayer never did. Anthrax did some things that were creative and cool. Now all four of us have a very different sound even though we all came out of the same gene pool musically and to some degree we all kind of end up as a branch off the Metallica family tree. I mean Dave was in Metallica, I played with Dave, Kerry King played with Megadeth. We’re all part of the Metallica fist in some shape or form. It’s cool. It’s sort of like a family reunion, which is very healthy and a lot of fun."

Read the complete interview at this location.

Sonisphere TV - The Big Four at Cineworld