Dave Mustaine Says David Ellefson is Not a Founding Megadeth Member: “No One Else Was with Me on the Bus Coming Home “
Longtime musical collaborators Dave Mustaine and David Ellefson have been publicly feuding in the media since the latter’s 2021 dismissal from Megadeth in the wake of a controversial sex scandal. In a new interview with LifeMinute (via Blabbermouth), Mustaine told the interviewer that he is the only founding member of Megadeth and that Ellefson came later.
“There’s a misnomer that there were two people that founded Megadeth. I was the founder; I was the only one in the beginning. There was a bass player before who just was… who just left. So it’s been my vision. When I got kicked out of Metallica, I got kicked out of Metallica; no one else was with me on the bus coming home.”
Ellefson was a member of Megadeth from 1983—the year the band was conceived—until 2002, when the band broke up following nerve damage in Mustaine’s hand that left him unable to play guitar. The rest is a familiar story by now—Mustaine overcame the damage in his hand and reformed Megadeth in 2004 with a different lineup, Ellefson sued and the case was dismissed in court. Ellefson rejoined Megadeth in 2010, where he remained until he was dismissed again last year.
In a recent interview, Ellefson brought up Mustaine’s history with Metallica, claiming that Big Dave wanted to treat the bassist like Metallica treated Mustaine when he was kicked out of Metallica.
“Look, I think part of it, too, is he’s obviously not gotten over this thing about being fired from Metallica, so he wanted to do to somebody else what he felt they did to him, which is kick him out and then someone else play his guitar parts. ‘So let’s kick Junior out and then have someone else play his bass parts.’ And to me, I’m, like, I don’t care. I already fucking helped put the record together. I played on the record. I got paid to be on the record. So, hey, if you wanna get someone else to play, whatever.”
Megadeth have a new record out and Ellefson’s band Dieth just signed to Napalm, so it seems like the media circus will continue indefinitely.
