MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson was recently interviewed by Joseph Hudak at The Times Leader. An excerpt from the story is available below:

For a band with such a fatalistic name, Megadeth has never felt more optimistic about its future. At least according to the thrash-metal group’s founding bassist Dave Ellefson, who recently patched up a strained relationship with singer-guitarist Dave Mustaine to rejoin Megadeth after eight years.

The band, which Mustaine formed in 1983 after his exit as Metallica’s original guitarist, will perform a rare theater show on Thursday at the Scranton Cultural Center, along with fellow head-bangers Testament and Exodus.

“This is the beginning, the starting of the next chapter,” an enthusiastic Ellefson says during a phone call from a sold-out tour stop in Medford, Ore. “(The reunion) couldn’t have happened at a better time. And none of us planned it or put it together this way, which gives me goose bumps. It makes all of us happy to be here.”

Oddly enough, a bad back may be indirectly responsible for Ellefson reuniting with Mustaine. In January, Megadeth — with James LoMenzo on bass — was set to embark on the co-headlining “American Carnage” tour with Slayer, but the fellow thrashers’ front man, Tom Araya, needed back surgery, and the dates were postponed. Reluctant to sit tight — and with their landmark album “Rust in Peace” turning 20 this year — Megadeth decided to hit the road and perform the CD in its entirety, a popular trend among groups with a recording legacy.

“If there was ever a time to reinvestigate coming back, this was it. ‘Rust in Peace’ is a musically progressive record, and it’s got my stamp all over it,” says Ellefson, who, at drummer Shawn Drover’s urging, reached out to Mustaine.

After a candid conversation, the two reconnected as the friends they once were. “Dave said, ‘I’d love to have you back, if you want to be here. The door’s open; let’s saddle up and go,’ ” Ellefson says. “So I threw a bass in my car and called my wife, who said, ‘Go! You should be in Megadeth.’ She always knew that not being in Megadeth was an unresolved issue in my life. It was an unresolved issue with the fans, and probably an unresolved issue with Dave, too. So coming back and doing this, it’s what it’s supposed to be.”

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