by Mike SOS/live photos by Christine Natanael
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One of the most prolific bassists in the metal realm, David Ellefson has been a busy man as of late, thrusting himself back into the band life with his latest projects F5 and Temple of Brutality, in addition to a slew of guest spots and other outside endeavors. When catching up with David, we spoke about his storied past, the hurried present, and what’s in store for this four-string master in the very near future.
MIKE SOS: What drew you back into playing in a band?
DAVID ELLEFSON: You know, I’ve always been in bands. To be honest with you, ever since I started playing bass when I was 11, I immediately got into a band, like a couple months later… That’s how I always operated. You know, when my former situation ended back in 2002, I didn’t really have any plans to get in a band, just because I do it with all the gusto and fervor of wanting it to be as good and successful as it could possibly be, and that is very, very time consuming [LAUGHTER] and having done it once, you know, and having gone around the track quite a few times with it and had some success, the thought of doing it again, quite honestly, was actually more than I could even stand to bear. But I guess, kind of, when I wasn’t thinking about it, and when I wasn’t looking to get into a band, that’s when I… that’s when the F5 thing fell into my lap. I met these guys in 2002, while I spent most of that year just going around doing some co-writing and some producing, and in early 2003 we got in a room and started playing some music together, and you know, the next thing you know, we had this really cool creative little buzz. And then we just started writing tunes and a band was born.
DE: Our drummer, Dave, brought it in. I guess he was watching some show about tornadoes. He was watching all this like, power and destruction and everything, and he brought it into the band one day. At the time, our second guitar player, John Davis, was not in the band. It was just the four of us writing tunes and demoing them, and while I liked the sound of that vibe, and I liked what it stands for, it’s kind of odd with only four of us in the band, you know? But we rolled with it. And then once John Davis joined the band, it was like, "Well good, now I guess it makes sense to use F5," so we kept it.
SOS: How would you describe F5 to someone who’s never heard you guys before?
DE: I’d call it modern hard rock with hints of traditional metal.
SOS: What songs were easiest to record from A Drug For All Seasons?
DE: Most of the tunes, you know, a few of them we had, they kind of made the distance, like “Faded” and "Bleeding" and even the music for "X’d Out," I wrote and pretty much stayed the course the whole way. Then we went through a pre-production phase with Ryan Greene just days before we went in to actually start recording the record, and that, you know, we ripped a bunch of tunes apart and that’s how we actually came up with, uh, "Look You In The Eyes." "Forte Sonata" was just like, really kinda… just a total afterthought, quite honestly. Songs like "Hold Me Down" and "Defacing" were hybrids of pieces that were all scattered 'round of various other songs that we’ve put together to make compositions. So the process of the writing went through several different phases before we actually recorded the record, which was pretty exciting actually. And then, "Fall To Me" was one of those songs that the music was pretty much together and we were really working on the chorus and Dale walked back in the room and that chorus just kind of fell out of his mouth, and we were just like, "Wow." I mean, that was one of those "wow bastard" moments, so, it was very exciting. The process of putting a record together, its, you know--it really took us about two years to write all those tunes--well, about a year and a half to write all those tunes as you hear them, but the process was very invigorating, that’s for sure.
SOS: How do you feel about MTV News making you famous, well, infamous actually, from using the bass riff from “Peace Sells”?
DE: I know, it’s pretty funny isn’t it?
SOS: It’s unreal. I mean, do you get royalties from that?
DE: You know, I don’t know. (laughs) I mean, they probably figured out a way to, you know, use pieces for their purposes, you know what I mean, for the show, but, you know what? I didn’t start in the business making money, I’m happy to make a little bit along the way but I’m… I’m still playing music, whether it pays or not. You know what I mean? So, something like what happens on the MTV front is you know, one of those cool little feathers you get to put in your cap at the end of the day and it’s just like you said, most people probably know me more from, you know, about a three second piece of music than probably anything else, so.it’s ironic and funny, but hey, that’s show business.
SOS: What do you feel sets F5 apart from other bands?
DE: Well, it’s interesting I guess, from some other bands I’ve been in. The one thing that we do is equal contribution and equal distribution. And I like that, because it just takes that. You know. I want everybody to show up bringing their best to the table, and I also don’t want anybody to feel like there’s a financial or a credit motivation for it either. I want the focus to be strictly on the music and the creation of what we are doing, you know? So that part I like, and that’s different from a lot of situations I’ve been in. Musically, I think what I liked about it is, it sounds fresh and new and modern, but I like that we can also go back and do some of our things that we as metal fans like, like having guitar solos, having real quality melodies. Because to me, I know a lot of modern metal is about a lot of aggro and screaming and the hard core side of it, which I’m cool with, and I like, but I like in F5 that this band is focused around melody as much as it is around being balls out heavy.
SOS: So you would feel that’s the difference between Megadeath and F5 is the melodic parts?
DE: No, that band was very melodic, quite honestly and that’s I think the thing that made that band shine out of a lot of stuff that was going on around us, is that we were able to really write quality material. It was always melodic, and it was kind of similar to F5 in a lot of ways in that there was always a heavy riff, but there was always good melody over top, you know? And in comparison, that band wasn’t as heavy as a lot of stuff that was going on around us like Slayer and some other things like that. Yet, for whatever reason, we were able to hold on, you know, just based on I think probably the attitude and sheer aggression we had. I don’t know that F5 has enough sheer aggression to it because it wasn’t really formed around that, but yet F5 has a different style. We use different tunings, the right hand picking style of what we do with the guitar playing is a little bit different, and I think it’s made the shit more of a hybrid because some of the guys in the band are younger. There is a bit more of a younger modern influence to it than some former things I’ve done, just because of the era that some of the guys grew up in.
SOS: What else have you been doing to keep busy? Now, are you still working with Peavey, and are you still doing outside production work?
DE: Well, geez man, I’ve got to be honest with you, I’ve been so fricking busy. I’ve never been so busy in my whole life. I really haven’t man. The Peavey relationship thing is great because that’s just a fun gig, it really is. I’ve got Temple of Brutality. We did that record last year and that's out. The Killing Machine record that I did with Jimmy DiGrasso and James Rivera and Peter Temple and Ron Garcia, the guitar player from Agent Steel, that album just came out in Germany and around the world as well. Then, the Avian record that I just produced and played on and did some writing on, that just came out, um, a couple of months ago. The One Machine record came out last fall. Yeah, geez, you know, I actually get to go out, me and Jimmy DiGrasso, go out to play with Montrose, which is very kickass. Talk about songs standing the test of time, man, this Montrose record, every song is just a bonifide hit, maybe not necessarily radio hits, but just from rock bands…that material just stands the test of time. So I’m musically involved in a ton of different things, you know. So, anyway, it keeps my chops up and I tell you what, I’m definitely not suffering from Alzheimer’s right now, that’s for sure.
SOS: So what are you currently listening to? Anything we would be surprised by?
DE: I mostly listen to Coldplay--Coldplay, and my wife is always listening to James Blunt. I like singer-songwriter kind of music. To me, I like when the song is so good that you can just kind of play it on an acoustic guitar and sing it, and it really has an impact. To me, at that point, it’s more about the performance than it is about a wall of amps behind you to give you your mojo, so, I listen to a lot of different stuff. I don’t generally drive around listening to full blown hardcore metal. I do once in a while, because I keep up on it because I’m a fan of it, but I don’t generally just blast my ears all the time doing it, because I spent so much time playing it.
SOS: What influenced you initially to get involved with music?
DE: When I was in about 2nd grade, my mom sang in the church choir. We didn’t have a piano around the house, but we had a Wurlitzer organ instead, so I started taking organ lessons, it was kind of one of those things. So I started doing that, and hated it, couldn’t stand it. Then in 5th grade, I took up tenor sax in the band in elementary school and I liked some of that, but the music was horrible, and I couldn’t stand it. And then all of a sudden, you know, I really started listening to the AM radio, because I grew up in the Midwest, in Minnesota. There’s no music around, and it was mostly AM radio like WLS out of Chicago and stuff like that, so I started hearing stuff like Sweet, Styx and Nugent and Kiss and Bachman Turner Overdrive and all those kinds of groups that were played on the radio. And man, that was it. That was what turned it for me. And for whatever reason I didn’t know I saw guys playing the bass, like Fred Turner of BTO and Gene Simmons, and I just thought the instrument looked cool. And then I got one, and it was like, "Well hell, how do you play this thing?" So I started to take some lessons, and it just seemed to be my instrument. You know, for whatever reason, it was this thing I clicked in on. American ‘70’s hard rock is the thing that got me started, and then I got into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with Motorhead and Iron Maiden and Venom and all that stuff. Then in 1983, the former band came together and I did that for twenty years and now here I am.
SOS: There’s a lot of ‘70’s arena rock in F5, you know, alot of the hooks, the songwriting, you can definitely tell a discernable difference.
DE: I’m glad you recognize that, because I feel that when I hear it too. Sometimes Dale’s singing kind of almost throws back to, you know, maybe like early Van Halen and then goes back to like even some Ozzy melodies. Just kind of, the guitar soloing and stuff, you can definitely hear the influence.
SOS: What’s the best advice someone gave you?
DE: Probably the best one was my music teacher, who was this jazz guy. He was very cool actually. He turned me on to Weather Report, and a lot of really cool, hip jazz things, you know. I’d come into jazz band with my bass and I’d play basically metal grooves. He kept saying to me, I’ll never forget, because he wrote it on my report card actually, “broaden your horizons.” It took me a long time to heed that advice, but over the years it’s what I’ve done. And you know what? I can honestly say I’m a lot happier because of it. I mean, obviously, I did one thing for a lot of years-- about twenty years--and it was all good. I loved it. But it’s interesting how one day that changed. Sometimes having your back on the wall puts you in fight or flight mode, and sometimes your survival instincts kick in, and I just hit the ground running, and got busy, rolled up my sleeves, and really started kicking ass. I think I’m probably in the most productive phase of my life that I’ve ever been in right now. Some days it’s very tiring, I go to bed pretty exhausted. But I tell you what man, I wake up every morning, and I’m excited to get out of bed, and there’s a lot of great stuff that awaits me.
SOS: So, where do you currently reside, and how would you rate the local music scene?
DE: I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. I’ve been here since 1993. After ten years in LA and eighteen years growing up in rural Minnesota, I love it here, but there really is no music scene in Scottsdale, per se. But in the Phoenix area, which is kind of the metropolitan area that I live in, to be honest with you, it’s interesting. This is the town where people like me have maybe made their mark in the world and I guess have been fortunate enough to have some success in that they can move out here and live here. Basically it’s a great place to hang your hat, and it’s a great quality of life, but there really isn’t a music scene here. I mean, the Soulfly guys live here, you know, Max Cavalera lives here, Alice Cooper lives here, Stevie Nicks lives here, Rob Halford had or still has a house here, so it’s a really diverse bunch of people that live here, but none of us, obviously, are out on the town playing. F5, we do some gigs around town, and we live here, and have a big following here, so we play around once in a while, but it’s not really like there’s a scene. One of the scenes kind of going on around here is Robert Mason, the singer in Lynch Mob, has a couple of pretty cool tribute cover bands that he does, that’s the extent of the music scene around here quite honestly. I will say that one thing that is cool is that Phoenix is a big town and the radio is good here, and everyone comes through here, either on the way to or from LA. So everything and everybody comes to Phoenix. So at least the live music is alive and well here. I’ve got a lot of friends still that live in LA. Obviously there’s a scene, or you know, the industry is there, and if you want to stay active in some parts of the industry you can do it there, but I guess I consider myself pretty fortunate that I was able to get out of LA. I loved LA, I had fun there, but I was glad to be able to get out of there at some point, and be able to do what I feel, have a really good quality of life living in Scottsdale and still be able to still be very, very active in the worldwide international music scene.
SOS: What are some of your fondest memories of being in Megadeth or playing throughout the last twenty years?
DE: You know, God, there’s so many of them. You know, I loved working in Nashville. I still do, actually, from time to time, which is fun, because the quality of the work is so good there, and so high. I loved some of the festival gigs over the years like Rock in Rio, Castle Donnington, those things were awesome. The song writing for the Youthanasia record here in Phoenix, we wrote and recorded that album here. There’s just tons…playing on David Letterman, there’s stuff you do in your life that you can’t wait to call home and tell mom. Those moments where you’re like, "God, pinch me, this can’t be real," like the F5 video being on MTV and stuff like that. Even after all of the videos I’ve had on MTV, to get another shot at another one with a new band, with a new thing I’ve got going, man, it’s like I’m like a kid in a candy store. I love that stuff.
SOS: What was the best tour you’ve been on, and do you really enjoy touring? Would you rather live the life where you are really scattered about and you can do a lot of different things, or do you see F5 morphing into like a full scale maybe four month trek?
DE: The fact that I’m not on any long extended tour has kind of been my own choice to be honest with you, because I’ve had several people ask me to go out on some long tours with them. My kids are, you know, seven and ten, and I’m at a point in my life now where…look, I love touring. I’m not one of these guys who went on tour and then bitched and complained about how I wanted to be home. I was like, "fuck it," you know, for a long time, I didn’t even have a home, you know, I’d just be on the road, and I never wanted to go home. I loved the life man, I loved the rock life. It’s awesome. You know, right now, I think it’s kind of how Ted Nugent does it too. I plan my life a lot around what’s going on with my kids and my family because my responsibility is to them and raising them right so they are good people in this world. I’ve got to go up to bat many many times, run around the bases and score a lot of hits, and now I still get to do that, and it’s awesome, and I don’t do it with any less intensity then I ever did it before, but the music business has also reinvented itself and changed a lot too. It’s not like it used to be where you put out an album and you just went on the road endlessly, and you’re playing the arenas. You know, touring is a lot tougher now. It’s not as comfortable, there’s not as much money in it, and so you can’t be as comfortable out there as you once were. To me it’s all about quality of life. You know, I love playing gigs but it’s funny. I’ve spent the last few years in the studios making records and now all those records are coming out, so now I’m out on the road and I’m gigging a lot, so it’s awesome. I’m kind of now in my gigging/touring phase of all of these records I’ve been involved in, but at the same time I want to do it, and I want to make sure that everything that I do is of as high a quality as it possibly can be. For me, it’s about the quality I’m taking out to my fans, not just the quantity of the gigs I can slam into the calendar for the year.
SOS: So, what would you feel the main difference is between the business that you… when you broke in and how it is today, besides the touring?
DE: You know, well… years ago, you know, everything was all about the excess of rock and roll, you know. I mean, it was sex, drugs and rock and roll and chicks were hot and everybody was partying, and you know, by the mid-90’s was the whole grunge in Seattle and all that stuff coming in. Man, that totally changed the face of it. All of a sudden it wasn’t about the fun of the party and screwing chicks in the back seat and let the party get high. That whole spirit of rock and roll changed, and in my opinion it became quite depressing. As much as I liked some of the music that came out of that scene, no longer were the excesses of rock and roll celebrated. It was actually looked down upon. It takes like five or six bands, or ten bands on a tour to try and fill a venue that you know, just ten years ago one or two bands could sell that place out. And you know, a lot of it is the internet, some of it is, I guess, television, some of it’s just the way that the music industry is going through some reinvention right now. And also, there’s a lot more bands. Sports have become a lot more popular to people. When I was a kid man, having a guitar and long hair and a big old stack behind you, dude you were a rock star and you were God. Now, being a rock star is just not as cool as it used to be. You know, at least that’s what it seems like to me. I mean, people still like music but to try to achieve the dream of rock stardom doesn’t seem like it’s quite the thing for a lot of people that it used to be. I just think that kids that have grown up, teenagers, have got a lot more options in life now and to some degree that maybe kind of hurt the music business a little bit.
SOS: With the advent of reality television and like, everybody gets their fifteen minutes, you don’t have to strap a guitar anymore
DE: Yeah, you know, I don’t get reality TV, I mean, you know, to me, reality is not that fucking exciting. I’d rather go home and watch TV. I want to kind of check out and, you know, enjoy the fantasy land for awhile, you know. If I wanted reality I’d just fucking get out of bed, you know? The whole reality, it’s funny, people go to work all day in reality and come home and watch more reality and it’s like the strangest phenomenon that I’ve ever seen in TV you know, since I’ve been alive.
SOS: What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?
DE: You know what, man? To me, and especially in light of what we just talked about, man, do it for the fun. You know, do it for the fun of it, whatever that is for you, you know? If fun for you is playing in your garage, do it. If fun for you means you’ve got to dominate the world and have a lair of women and make millions of dollars, you know what, rock on and have fun. But just most importantly find what it is that motivates you and just go do it and have fun with it.
SOS: Would you do anything different, if you had the chance?
DE: I don’t think I would, you know, I really don’t. I’ve got to tell you man, I’ve been very blessed. I mean, 1983, I left a small town, the farm where I grew up in small town Minnesota and headed blindly, with three of my buddies and my band, out to California and set up shop in Hollywood, and a week later I met up with Dave Mustaine and the next twenty years became history, and that to me is the hand of fate handing me a deck of cards that played out pretty well, you know? And I know, certainly that now it’s sort of like, as I’m moving on, you know, an email shows up, a phone call comes in, and it’s just sort of the rest of my life seems to be just kind of falling into place. I think sometimes you can be envious and go “Aw man, I wish I had what that guy had,” or “Man, I wish I could have done that,” but you know, I think you can’t just isolate little incidents. I think if you want someone else’s life you better be prepared to take the whole picture of what their life is, just not the little one or two things that maybe you are envious of.
SOS: Any final words David?
DE: I’m just having fun and I just thank everybody for sticking with me for all these years on to the next chapter of life. Check out F5theband.com and davidellefson.com as well.
