Back in May, Megadeth‘s founding bassist Dave Ellefson was fired from the band after being outed as having an online relationship with a woman who was not his wife. The firing sparked debate in the metal community; while some argued that any act worth erasing Dave’s bass parts from the band’s new album over was also worth firing him over, others thought that his sacking was unfair and unnecessary. But in a recent interview, Dave reveals that it wasn’t any moral outrage over his behavior that got him fired from Megadeth — it was making his own decision against orders from the band’s team.
As reported by Metal Hammer, Ellefson recently did an interview with Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk on his show Trunk Nation. The bassist made it very clear that he was upset but not angry over his firing, but also reveals that he was thrown out of the band for listening to his own legal team over Megadeth’s people.
“The night [the videos were leaked online], a couple of people said, ‘Hey, don’t say anything’,” said Ellefson. “In particular, the Megadeth camp didn’t want me to say anything. But my legal [team] said, ‘Hey, I think you should say something. I think some people have done some really shitty things here and made some false allegations about you, and you have every right to defend yourself.’ And I did. Ultimately, that led to my dismissal from Megadeth. But I have every right, as anyone does, to defend yourself, especially when somebody is making false allegations about you like that.”
However, Ellefson went on to say that he wasn’t holding a grudge agains the band: “There’s not ill will between us, believe it or not…I wished them well in my [original] statement to them, and I mean it. It’s a group I helped form almost 40 years coming up here for the band. And the songs that are on the radio that I see come up are songs that I had a participation in, and we built a big legacy.
“I still consider them family, and my DNA is all over that,” he concluded. “I don’t think you build something of that size together and then suddenly you’re just out and that’s it.”
***
Words by Chris Krovatin
