David Ellefson Ain’t Buyin’ That Megadeth’s Actually Calling It Quits
You all know the story about the boy who cried wolf, right? Long and the short is that a boy kept claiming a wolf was about to attack the village but after multiple false alarms, no one would believe him when the animal acually showed up, no one believed the kid.
Such is the case of these multiple farewell nostalgia tours. From Slayer to Kiss to Black Sabbath, bands of all walks of life have told their fans they were ending their careers on a high note, only to come back months or years later. It’s a scenario that ex-Megadeth David Ellefson is convinced could happen to Megadeth with the band’s forthcoming album being their last, followed by a farewell tour.
While speaking with Alternative Nation, Ellefson said he’d love to participate in a real farewell effort in some capacity.
“What we saw in Birmingham, in my opinion, was 100% on point the right way to say goodbye. You bring back the O.G.s — Geezer [Butler], Tony [Iommi], Bill [Ward] and Ozzy [Osbourne]; the four O.G.s — ’cause, obviously, they went through their… Look, they fired Bill [at some point earlier in their career], they fired Ozzy, and at some point they’re back together. The four guys that started it all get to say goodbye together, to each other, to the fans, the fans say goodbye to them. So, to me, that is the model of how it’s done. I mean, that is a hundred percent the right way to do it.”
That being said, he expressed his uncertainty that this was really, truly, the end of Megadeth.
“If it really is a farewell, if it really is, and it’s not just an attempt to boost ticket sales, ’cause we’ve seen this movie before — boost ticket sales, go away, then the bigger offers come after everybody’s gone away for a couple years; I mean, we’ve seen how this works — but, look, if Dave needs to shut it down and call it quits because he is just had enough and he’s been through it all, then hey, you know what?
“As a still friend to him, even we haven’t spoken almost five years — you know what? God bless you, brother. Put it away with grace and go enjoy the rest of your life. So if he really is shutting it down and he’s really gonna put it away, then please do so with dignity and grace and do what you say and mean what you say. ‘Cause I think that farewell thing has been thrown around so much by so many people that it doesn’t have much weight to it.”
Megadeth announced last month that their next album wouild be their final release, followed by a farewell world tour kicking off at the beginning of the new year.
