David Ellefson
On November 12, 1964, legendary bassist, composer, and producer David Ellefson was born!
(Photo: Evil Robb Photography, Loudwire)
He's the man who built the concrete foundations of the mega-band Megadeth, redefined the role of bass in thrash metal with a surgical attack and blistering speed, gave the rock world one of the most recognizable opening riffs of all time in the song "Peace Sells", and served for decades as the sane and stable anchor in the heart of Dave Mustaine's musical storm. Here are 40 fascinating facts about the quiet warrior of the metal world.
1. Ellefson was born David Warren Ellefson in the small farming town of Jackson, Minnesota, a pastoral settlement of only about three thousand residents, to a family of Norwegian descent who raised him on an isolated farm.
2. His musical education began at the age of eight when he was sent to piano and organ lessons with a neighbor who played at the local church, and at the same time he practiced at home on his mother's Wurlitzer organ, an instrument that gave him an early harmonic understanding that accompanied him throughout his career.
3. In the fifth grade, he joined the school orchestra as a tenor saxophone player, but at the age of eleven, his life changed completely when he heard bands like "Kiss", "Styx" and "Sweet" on the radio, and decided that the electric bass guitar was his true calling in life.
4. His first musical hero was Gene Simmons from the band "Kiss", who showed the young boy from Minnesota that the bassist did not have to hide in the shadows behind the drummer, but could be a charismatic and dominant figure at the forefront.
5. As a teenager, he was deeply influenced by the virtuoso playing of Geddy Lee of Rush, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, and Tom Hamilton of Aerosmith, and later adopted the aggressive and fast-paced approach of the new wave of British heavy metal.
6. During his high school years, he formed and led several local rock bands that performed in clubs throughout the Midwest of the United States, including the band "Killers" in which he played alongside his childhood friend, guitarist Greg Handevidt, and drummer Brett Frederickson.
7. In June 1983, immediately after graduating and at the age of only eighteen, Ellefson packed his things and drove with his friend Greg Handevidt in an old van all the way from Minnesota to the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles to fulfill his rock and roll dream.
8. His historic meeting with Dave Mustaine, who had just been fired from the band "Metallica" a few weeks earlier, took place under rather comical circumstances in their apartment on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
9. Ellefson lived in the apartment below Mustaine's, and one morning, while practicing the bass line of Van Halen's song "Running with the Devil" in his room, Mustaine suffered from a severe hangover, became irritated by the noise, and threw a flower pot from his apartment window directly at Ellefson's air conditioner to silence it.
10. That same day, Ellefson and Handevidt went up to knock on the angry neighbor's door to ask where they could buy cigarettes, and when Mustaine slammed the door in their face, they knocked again and asked if he could buy them a beer, which broke the ice and led to a nightly jam session that changed the face of heavy metal.
11. Thus was formed the band "Megadeth", and to distinguish between the two founders who shared the same first name, the band's first and temporary vocalist Lor Kane gave Ellefson the nickname Dave Junior, which was soon shortened to the famous nickname Junior that accompanied him throughout his life.
12. In the band's early days, Ellefson played mostly with his fingers, inspired by Steve Harris and Cliff Burton, but as Mustaine's riffs became faster, more complex, and more rhythmic, he switched to playing with a hard pick to achieve a metallic, cutting, and precise sound that could handle the extreme speeds of thrash.
13. With the addition of jazz-trained drummer Gar Samuelson and guitarist Chris Poland in 1984, the band's first classic lineup was completed, recording the wild and revolutionary debut album "Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!" in 1985.
14. In 1986, the band released the masterpiece "Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?", an album that introduced the world to the most famous bass line of Ellefson's career at the opening of the title song "Peace Sells".
According to Ellefson, on the day the song was written in a rehearsal studio in Los Angeles, Ellefson's van was towed by the city, and when he arrived at the rehearsal frustrated and penniless and asked Mustaine what they were going to do about the rent, Mustaine pulled out a notebook with the lyrics to "Peace Sells" and Ellefson composed the bass line on the spot.
16. The opening bass line of "Peace Sells" became a huge cultural icon in the United States after the television network MTV adopted it for many years as the permanent opening theme of its newscasts, bringing Ellefson's sound into millions of homes every day.
17. Despite the segment's enormous success on MTV, Ellefson and Mustaine have said over the years that the network used to cut the segment one second before entering the full royalty eligibility period, so they saw almost no money from this enormous daily exposure.
18. In the late 1980s, Ellefson, like the rest of the band, sank into a severe addiction to heroin and alcohol that nearly broke up the band around the third studio album "So Far, So Good... So What!" from 1988, in which his fast bass stood out in songs like "In My Darkest Hour" and the song "Hook in Mouth".
19. The biggest personal turning point in his life came in 1990, when at the age of twenty-five he decided to completely abstain from drugs and alcohol with the help of the Twelve Step Program, and since then he has maintained complete sobriety and become the band's most stable and organized anchor.
20. That same year, with the addition of guitarist Marty Friedman and drummer Nick Menza, Megadeth recorded the historic summit album "Rust in Peace", in which Ellefson demonstrated extraordinary virtuosity in complex songs such as "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due", "Hangar 18" and the song "Five Magics".
21. On the album "Rust in Peace," Ellefson got one of his most memorable solo moments on the apocalyptic song "Dawn Patrol", a piece built entirely on a dark, oily, and twisting bass riff accompanied by drums and Mustaine's whispered vocals with no guitars at all.
22. In 1992, the band reached the peak of its commercial success with the album "Countdown to Extinction", which went straight to number two on the US Billboard charts and reached double platinum status, with Ellefson's bass leading anthems such as "Symphony of Destruction", "Sweating Bullets" and the song "Foreclosure of a Dream", which he co-wrote with Mustaine.
23. Throughout the 1990s, Ellefson continued to be a key contributor to the writing and arrangements of the band's successful albums "Youthanasia" from 1994, on which he was a key contributor to the writing of the song "Family Tree" and the song "Reckoning Day", and the album "Cryptic Writings" from 1997.
24. Aside from Mustaine himself, Ellefson was the only member of Megadeth to play on all of the band's studio albums and live performances from its formation in 1983 until its temporary disbandment in 2002 following a serious nerve injury to Mustaine's arm.
25. When Mustaine re-formed the band in 2004 without Ellefson, a bitter legal and financial dispute erupted between the two over the rights to the name and royalties of "Megadeth," leading to a high-profile lawsuit for $18.5 million that was dismissed in court and creating a years-long rift between the two longtime members.
26. During his time away from the band between 2002 and 2010, Ellefson never rested for a moment and formed a series of bands and projects, including the hard rock and metal band "F5", the band "Temple of Brutality" and the global cover band "Hail!" alongside Tim "Ripper" Owens, Andreas Kisser and Jimmy DeGrasso; Mike Portnoy played with them later, in 2010.
27. During those years, he also collaborated closely with Max Cavalera and played bass on four tracks on the 2004 album "Prophecy" and one track on the 2005 album "Dark Ages" by the band "Soulfly", where he demonstrated a natural connection to tribal and heavy metal.
28. In February 2010, eight years after the painful breakup, the band's then-drummer Shawn Drover contacted Ellefson, which led to an emotional phone call of full reconciliation between Ellefson and Mustaine and his official return to the band "Megadeth" just in time for the historic tour to mark the twentieth anniversary of the album "Rust in Peace."
29. A few months after returning in February 2010, on June 22, 2010, Ellefson stood on stage in Sofia, Bulgaria, as part of the historic reunion show of the Big Four of thrash metal, alongside Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax, a moment he described as one of the most exciting peaks of his life.
30. During his second tenure with the band, Ellefson recorded three more studio albums with Megadeth, namely 2011's "Th1rt3en", 2013's "Super Collider", and the critically acclaimed 2016 album "Dystopia".
31. In 2017, after decades of numerous nominations, Ellefson finally won the prestigious Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance along with Dave Mustaine, guitarist Kiko Loureiro and drummer Chris Adler for the album's title song "Dystopia".
Ellefson is a devout Lutheran. He started the MEGA Life worship service in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2007. In 2012 he began studying at a Lutheran seminary toward ordination, but withdrew after about a year to stay in Megadeth.
33. He is known as one of the most educated and eloquent people in the metal industry, with a bachelor’s degree in business and marketing from American Intercontinental University, and the author of several successful books, including the guide for young musicians "Making Music Your Business" and his 2013 autobiography "My Life with Deth," for which Alice Cooper wrote the introduction.
34. In terms of equipment and sound, Ellefson is most identified with Jackson bass guitars, which built custom five- and four-string Concert Bass models for him in the 1980s, alongside Hartke and Peavey amplifiers that have become an integral part of his signature sound.
35. In 2014, he joined the metal supergroup "Metal Allegiance", founded by Mark Menghi, alongside Mike Portnoy and Alex Skolnick, and at the same time, he founded the joint project "Altitudes & Attitude" with "Anthrax" bassist and his close friend Frank Bello, in which both bassists also play guitars and sing.
36. Ellefson is also a dynamic business entrepreneur who founded the independent record label EMP Label Group, launched the successful coffee brand Ellefson Coffee Co in his hometown of Jackson, Minnesota, and founded the film production company Ellefson Films, which produced award-winning horror films such as "Dwellers."
37. In May 2021, his second stint with the band "Megadeth" ended following a high-profile scandal involving the leaking of private videos online, and Mustaine decided to part ways with him and re-record the bass parts he had already recorded for the album "The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead!".
38. Even after the second breakup with his mother band, Ellefson refused to slow down and formed a series of new and successful bands, including the alternative rock band "The Lucid" with "Sponge" frontman Vinnie Dombroski, and the duo "Ellefson-Soto" with virtuoso singer Jeff Scott Soto.
39. In 2022, he surprised the metal world when he founded the extreme death-thrash band "Dieth" together with former Decapitated drummer Michal Lysejko and former Entombed A.D. guitarist Guilherme Miranda, in which he also sang as lead vocalist on a song on the debut album "To Hell and Back" from 2023, and at the same time, he founded the band "Kings of Thrash" with former Megadeth guitarist Jeff Young, with Chris Poland joining as a special guest, which performs the early classics of the 1980s in live performances.
40. In 2024, Ellefson filled in for bassist D.D. Verni on the Latin American tour of thrash legend "Overkill", and in 2025 he joined as the permanent bassist of the veteran heavy metal band "Metal Church", living proof that even in his seventh decade, he remains one of the most active, influential and sought-after bassists in the metal world.
Whether he's sawing the stage with fast riffs against all odds or reinventing himself in a host of cross-genre projects, David Ellefson has carved his name in letters of steel in the annals of heavy rock as the great bass architect of thrash metal.
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