DAVID ELLEFSON: ’20 Years From Now, Are Young People Gonna Even Care About Playing Guitar Anymore?’

In a new interview with the WSOU 89.5 FM radio station, former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson was asked if he thinks there are a lot of problems facing metal musicians today. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I don’t think in metal there’s a problem. Honestly, what I think about — I think about, like, so after we die, whether that’s 20 years from now or whatever, our generation pushes through, are young people gonna even care about playing guitar anymore? Like putting a guitar into an amp… ‘Cause for me, to have a flying V, a Marshall stack, grow your hair, go be a rock star, that was something to aspire toward, and I don’t feel like that’s something to aspire toward now, ’cause people are into their phones and devices and they’re just into different things. You see people on YouTube, there’s people who are bedroom shredders who just play circles around all of us. Of course, we invented that music that they’re playing, but they play so good. I mean, my daughter taught herself how to play guitar on YouTube; she’s an incredibly gifted artist. But these resources that are available… Look, I taught myself how to play bass in my basement on the farm in Minnesota. I was musically educated on piano and saxophone and stuff, so I had the musical aptitude to sit down with bass books and teach myself how to play and then start listening to records and just basically emulate my heroes and what they were doing and put my own bands together. So I guess on some level, maybe I’m the same thing.”He continued: “It’s funny, there was a Fender IPO that was gonna happen, to take Fender public some years back, and they didn’t end up doing it. But I remember just kind of looking at the prospectus, and a lot of it was kind of Asia-based. And I remember Kiko [Loureiro, former MEGADETH guitarist] and I were over there with MEGADETH a few years back, and I remember we were stuck in traffic in China, as you would be, talking to each other, going, ‘Imagine all guitar music, whether it’s early blues people to Elvis [Presley] to [Jimi] Hendrix to the current MEGADETH album, this century of our music, has only been known in China for the last 20 years.’ That’s how recent the electric guitar and everything from Eddie Van Halen to whoever the latest, greatest guy is today. So I was just kind of thinking globally maybe the next wave of music or whatever, it isn’t gonna come from the Western world. Maybe it’s not gonna come from Europe and America, like it has traditionally over the last 50, 60 years of rock and roll and heavy metal and all this kind of stuff. Maybe it’ll come from somewhere else. But a lot of it is culturally based too. ‘Cause let’s face it, that’s why we like what we like. It’s because it culturally backlashes against something. It’s our anarchy. It’s our rebellious theme song. It’s more than just a song. It’s sort of what the song represents to us in our life.”Ellefson added: “Over the years in my career, 40 years professionally, since I was starting out here in California back in ’83, I’ve seen a lot of stuff from hair metal to thrash metal to NIRVANA to nu metal to everything else. And then kind of a resurgence of thrash metal again in the 2000s with LAMB OF GOD, and AVENGED SEVENFOLD becomes the new METALLICA and all this stuff. And you kind of see history repeat itself a little bit with the next bands. NIRVANA wasn’t everybody’s thing if you’re a metalhead. I liked them. I thought they were cool. I got it. I got what they were doing, ’cause I’m into punk rock music as well. But that was that generation’s voice, that was their song. And even though it wasn’t really my song, I could appreciate that it was their song. So I think that’s kind of how I’ve viewed this stuff. Elvis wasn’t my song — it was my mom’s song; my mom was a huge Elvis fan — and now years later I read books about Elvis and, of course, the Elvis movie came out, and he was the total ultimate punk rocker, man. He was totally turning the tide, pissing everyone off and making parents nervous. And that’s the ultimate rock star.”Ellefson was fired from MEGADETH more than three years ago after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving the bassist were posted on Twitter.David was in MEGADETH from the band’s inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest exit.In 2004, Ellefson filed an $18.5-million lawsuit against Dave Mustaine, alleging the MEGADETH leader shortchanged him on profits and backed out of a deal to turn Megadeth Inc. over to him when the band broke up in 2002. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed and Ellefson rejoined MEGADETH in 2010.[embedded content]