Jason McNamara at JapanSmash.com recently caught up with MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson and covered a variety of subjects, including the Megaclinics taking place in Tokyo and Osaka. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Jason McNamara: These days any person who has metal on their iPod would most likely have pop, jazz, a few movie soundtracks, hip hop etc. What do you listen to when it’s not metal?

David Ellefson: "Well, I’m the same way because I listen to all styles of music in my down time, too. I’ve always gone out of genre as a musician and songwriter to investigate other genres for inspiration. As a life long musician, it’s sometimes difficult to just sit back and listen to music without analysing it. I think it's just part of how I’m wired.

With that said, my kids listen to pop in the car on the way to school (Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Pink, etc.) while I still trend toward metal and music I grew up on from the 1970s…everything from KISS, MONTROSE and AEROSMITH to more mainstream pop stuff like THE EAGLES."

Jason McNamara: Have you ever been approached to do music outside of the metal world and if so, why did or didn’t you get involved?

David Ellefson: "Yes, all the time. I’ve participated playing and writing on records that covered everything from singer/songwriter coffeehouse type music all the way to Christian and inspirational music. I guess that is one cool thing about being a bassist is that I can be an artist and create songs or I can simply show up and just play bass lines to other people’s music. It’s nice to have the options."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Fans can catch Ellefson and Megadeth guitarist Chris Broderick at their Megaclinics on the following dates:

April

10 - Omotesando Ground - Tokyo
12 - Shinsaibashi Club Jungle - Osaka

Carlos Ramirez of Noisecreep recently interviewed Megadeth's Dave Mustaine about the band's upcoming Super Collider album, which is set for release on June 4th. An excerpt from their chat follows:

If you're a fan of Mustaine's lyrics, the new tracks feature some of his best work yet.

"It's tough sometimes because there's only so many things you can say lyrically - one-liners, idioms, phrases - without repeating something you've already said in an earlier song. Especially being known for my lyrics, I have to make sure I don't say something stupid. I have been pretty fortunate. There hasn't been too many dumb songs in our discography," said the Megadeth mastermind.

Since he was on the topic of his past songwriting efforts, Mustaine revealed a Megadeth song he isn't all that psyched about. "Probably the dumbest song Megadeth ever did was 'Crush 'Em'. Not that I hate it, because we've never released something that I didn't like musically, but I'm not that fond of it."

'Crush 'Em' first appeared on the soundtrack to the action film Universal Soldier: The Return before becoming the lead off single to Megadeth's 1999 Risk album. "We had huge success with our prior album [1997's Cryptic Writings] big singles and all of that. That had never happened before. So we figured, why not give the label and our management more to work with next time out since the last one did so well on radio. That was a huge mistake."

Read more at this location.