Megadeth bassist David Ellefson is featured in a new interview with Rock Sverige discussing his Altitudes & Attitude partnership with Anthrax bassist Frank Bello, and his life not being in Megadeth when Dave Mustaine put the band on indefinite hiatus in 2002. An excerpt is available below. 

Rock Sverige: That´s got to be something, to know that you´ve had such an impact on so many people with your music.

Ellefson: "People ask me all the time, 'Did you ever think Megadeth was going to be big?' and I did. When I met Dave I went 'This is going to be fucking huge! It´s not going to be easy and it´s going to be a lot of hard work. We´re going to be broke and we´re going to be poor,' but I just knew and I´ve been in a lot of bands like probably most of us have, some of them have been successful, but most of them haven´t and some of my favorite ones that haven´t been were some of the most fun. The songs were good, we had great times as buddies, but it just didn´t get any traction, it just didn´t catch for some reason. When I´m on stage, even with Megadeth, I´m having a great time, I really enjoy it, but it´s like keeping a family together. There´s times where you´ve got to do stuff you didn´t think you´d have to do, but you´re part of a band and that´s just our lives as musicians. We all have things in our jobs that aren´t the glamorous parts and that´s just a part of life. It is what it is."

Rock Sverige: I did a phoner with Brent Fitz (Slash's drummer) who's played with Gene Simmons and he said that Gene was a real underrated bass player.

Ellefson: "Gene's one of my favorite bass players. I defend Gene to the grave. Absolutely one of the greatest rock players ever. I missed The Beatles. I was born in ´64 the year they came out and they were broken up by ´71 and I started to listen to music about ´74, so I just missed them completely. Gene and Paul very much credit The Beatles for the whole concept of KISS. KISS were my Beatles and it´s funny, as big of a KISS fan as I was and I was the biggest, as we all claim to be, funny thing is that in my bands growing up, we never played any KISS songs because they were hard to play. Paul´s guitar, his voicing and chord choices were so avantgarde and just really out of character and that´s what made them so cool. They were riffs, but there were these chords… whereas you listen to this kind of 12-bar blues kind of stuff that was going around at that same time… the KISS stuff was very challenging and they tuned down a half step. 

I remember when I bought the KISS Destroyer (1976) piano / vocal / acoustic guitar songbook and everything was in E flat, and I knew how to read music and I went 'But my bass only goes to E? How do you play this?' I got very frustrated and I didn´t realize they tuned down and of course in a piano book everything´s very little. You can´t drop tune a piano and drop tuning wasn´t even in vogue. Gene´s bass playing was just incredible. I´ve emulated some of it, him and some early Geezer (Butler / Black Sabbath), but certainly Gene, like 'Firehouse' (1974). I remember when Dave and I first met and we were putting together the very earliest Megadeth stuff, I would emulate this kind of Gene fashion of his bass lines that I really, really liked. 

I just saw KISS a couple of weeks ago when the came through town and Gene was playing the best I´ve ever heard him play. He´s ad-libbing and riffing out and his tone´s great and here he is, he´s an older guy playing fucking better than he´s ever played and just going for it! Just riffing like how Jack Bruce (Cream, 1943-2014) or John Entwistle (The Who, 1944-2002) would be riffing in between parts of songs and it was like 'Fuck, check him out, man!' I totally defend Gene and I think he´s an incredible bass player and the fact that he spits blood and breathes fire with fucking bat wings and those killer boots just makes him the best (laughs)."

Read the complete interview here.

Altitudes & Attitude, a collaboration between Anthrax’s Frank Bello and Megadeth’s David Ellefson - two virtuosic bass players who’ve anchored some of the fiercest thrash records of all time - are sharing their new video for “Part Of Me”, filmed on their recent European tour with Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators. A&A will tour the midwest this spring, in support of their debut album, Get It Out (Megaforce), available everywhere.

Produced by Jay Ruston, Get It Out is a kind of rock ‘n’ roll primal-scream therapy. It’s the result of nearly four years of writing and recording sessions - and decades of touring, searching, striving and living. The album features drummer Jeff Friedl (A Perfect Circle) with guests Ace Frehley and Nita Strauss, who handles lead guitar on “Part Of Me".

“I’ve learned that writing songs is very cathartic,” says Bello, who performs at open mics around New York City when Anthrax is off the road. “A lot of these lyrics are about the inner struggles of my life, and about the rage that has built up from my life experiences - my brother’s murder; my father abandoning my family when we were young, leaving us with no funds to pay the bills. The ups and downs of life in general. I’ve always had an anger inside, and music really helps me deal.”

“Get It Out is very much an important musical statement from Frank and me,” adds Ellefson. “There’s a big musical part of each of us that doesn’t get heard anywhere else.”

Tour dates:

April
3 - Chicago, IL - Reggie’s
3 - Chicago, IL - Shuga Records (6:00 PM)
4 - Ft. Wayne, IN - Sweetwater
5 - Dayton, OH - Oddbody’s Music Room
5 - Dayton, OH - Omega Music (6:00 PM)
6 - Fremont, OH - Midwest Rhythm Summit
7 - Flint, MI - Machine Shop