David Ellefson: Megadeth are the "greatest thrash band in the history of the world"

News
By ( Metal Hammer ) last updated

Not-at-all-biased Megadeth bassist David Ellefson says his band are the greatest thrash band that's ever been, and gives credit to frontman David Mustaine for "inventing" the genre

David Ellefson of Megadeth performs in concert
(Image credit: Gary Miller/FilmMagic)

David Ellefson has credited Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine as being the brain behind thrash metal, while stating that the band are “the greatest thrash band in the history of the world”. 

The bassist made these bold claims in a new interview with Chris Akin of The Classic Metal Show, when asked what his new project with Sons Of Apollo vocalist Jeff Scott Soto, titled Ellefson-Sono, will sound like. "I look at it like this," he replied. "When people come to me, they go, 'Oh, dude. It's thrash,' and, 'It's heavy,' it's, like, I'm already in the greatest thrash band in the history of the world, so I don't need to do thrash anywhere else. I do that in Megadeth. I play with the guy who invented the genre.”

Explaining how he has more up his sleeve than just being a master of trash metal, Ellefson continued: “So, to me, when I do other things, it's fun to expand. And I'm always writing. I bring certain things into Megadeth that I know are fitting, I think, of that style. There's a lot of stuff I write that's not, and I don't bring it there.

“So, quite honestly, the first thing Jeff and I worked on was not some shred Vivaldi neoclassical metal thing; it was not that at all. And I think that, for me, actually, quite honestly, got me really excited, going, 'Okay, there's a wide berth here of what we can do.'

"And I think that's when we started throwing some ideas back and forth. It just got us all excited going, 'Wow, this is pretty wide here. We're not limited to just being a one-trick pony."

The full interview is available on The Classic Metal Show podcast.

Recently, Ellefson-Soto released a cover version of Riot’s 1981 track Swords & Tequila. Listen below.

Liz Scarlett
Liz Scarlett
Content Editor

Liz manages Louder's social media channels and works on keeping the sites up to date with the latest news from the world of rock and metal. Prior to joining Louder as a full time staff writer, she completed a Diploma with the National Council for the Training of Journalists and received a First Class Honours Degree in Popular Music Journalism. She enjoys writing about anything from neo-glam rock to stoner, doom and progressive metal, and loves celebrating women in music.