David Ellefson spoke to eonmusic about his forthcoming UK show with K.K. Downing, Les Binks and 'Tim 'Ripper' Owens, reconnecting with former Megadeth member Chuck Behler, and 20 years of Megadeth's much maligned Risk album.

Speaking about the Wolverhampton gig that will see Ellefson unite three former Judas Priest members, David said: "I thought, let me hit K.K. up, and see if I could do a book signing up there, and I thought it would be great for the two of us to do on together. I’ve just read his book, and I’m a fan of it, of course, so he said; 'Yeah, why not??!' The idea came that maybe we should have Ripper come over, and then Les Binks’ name came up, and I was like; 'Man, you guys are killing me; I’m joining Judas Priest; this is like a dream moment!'”

On reconnecting and playing with Chuck Behler, Megadeth's drummer from 1988 - 1989, David said; "Chuck, I told him, I said; 'dude, get up on this stage, and you’re friggin’ playing with me!' It’s like; 'you need to show your face! You are a professional drummer, whether you’re actively working or not, it doesn’t matter. You are a professional, platinum award-winning recording artist for Capitol records! I mean, come on dude, get out of the house, get up there! What are you doing?!'”

He continued; "I swear to god, we were playing ‘Hook In Mouth’, and there’s a couple of bass licks in there, and they’re quick and they’re challenging, but playing with Chuck, it was just like; 'oh my God', it was like playing back in the pocket. I told him; 'dude, I’ve missed playing with you so much!', because there’s such a, just an easy feel about how he plays."

Finally, when asked how he looks back on Risk, which was released in 1999, the bassist made some startling revelations; "We came off a very successful rebuilding campaign with Cryptic Writings. That was a record that repositioned the band, we finally became profitable again, we dug ourselves out of some huge financial holes, major transitions in our whole management team; a lot. And plus, here in America, we basically wrote a record that fit very well with the FM radio sound that was going on."

On the recording process for the album: "We came off the road, and we went into the studio with Ris’ much too early. We didn’t have all of the songs together. I think our mind set was we need to write these sort of mainstream radio songs, and when we get to [the recording studio in] Nashville, we’ll chuck these metal tunes out no problem because we can do that in our sleep. And I think what happened is we got to Nashville, and we didn’t chuck out the metal songs."

Finally, when asked if they realized that the album wasn’t connecting with people, David conceded: "We knew it right away. As soon as we put it out we knew it, and honestly, there was a conversation on the bus not long after that European tour, when Dave, he just said; 'we have to go back to being a thrash band'. He said; 'we’ve got to get back to who we really are, and stop chasing this and that'."

Read the entire interview here.