Ellefson
A More Powerful Tornado

20.12.2013

*** ARCHIVE ITEM - DATED 2005 *** It’s highly unlikely that any of our readers are unaware of who David Ellefson is. Nevertheless, let’s say it here once and for all that David was the bass player of Megadeth from the very beginning until the band was dissolved in early 2002, after which he pursued a variety of solo projects, including F5 (which have just released an album called “A Drug For All Seasons”), Temple Of Brutality and Killing Machine. The parting with his former colleagues was not very smooth for David, and at the moment he does not express willingness to talk about his 18-year Mega-experience, referring to this band only as “my previous band”, but still there are so many things to discuss with this nice and eloquent person, whose tight and massive bass lines have been driving millions of people around the world crazy for over two decades…

(EDITOR'S NOTE - THE YEAR 2013: Our first anniversary year is now over, but we keep on putting up archive items that our authors penned before starting to write for HeadBanger.ru. We polled the visitors of our Vkontakte page, and poll results clearly show that these old interviews are still of interest to the readers and they want these texts to be available again to the general public. As to ourselves, this is a good opportunity to re-live some of the great moments of our careers as journalists, and we are naturally eager to share them with you...)

The first question is about your Moscow recollections from the time you visited the city back in 2001. What are your best memories of our city and the time you spent there?

I didn’t know what to expect, and of course, being from America and growing up through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, in North America we probably had a pre-conceived notion or a picture in our mind of what Russia was going to be. Unfortunately, that was probably propagated by the media in our country (cracks), because politically our countries were not at peace with each other. I tried to just have an open mind going to Moscow. I remember distinctly flying in to Moscow in the morning, it was a sunny beautiful morning, and I was even writing some lyrics down, because it just made me realize how music is the thing that pulls so many people together regardless of any past differences or political agendas or religion or anything that may split people apart. Music is the one common thing that pulls everybody together. I was really happy in 2001 to have the privilege to go to Moscow, because I felt that going there as a musician, I was brining something that could help further unite and bring everyone together. So with that said, the concert that I played there was awesome. (laughs) I was really amazed in the square by how open everything was, it almost reminded me of Hollywood in California (laughs), where people were selling things, it was almost like a free market. It was kinda cool, I liked it. The spirit was good, and as much as there was a bit of a feeling of probably an older era of Russia, there was also this very fun youthful spirit of a country and a civilization moving forward, which was cool. It kinda reminded me much more of other parts of Europe, actually.

And what happened to the lyrics that you were writing down that morning?

I still have them on my computer. (cracks) I’m still trying to find some ways to use them. It’s funny – with F5 songs, some of them are things that I wrote 10 or almost 15 years ago and never had an outlet for them. Obviously they sound much different in F5, because it’s many years later, and they’ve been modernized. I try not to throw any tapes or lyrics out, because you never know. When you’re looking back or listening back to them in the future, they may spawn a new idea for a new song. 

You spent two days in Moscow, but you did very little press activity, apart from an interview with MTV. Do you happen to remember it? When that girl interviewing you said that you Megadeth were the only band that had a mascot, it was really funny to watch…

(laughs) Well, I remember that interview. I remember it very clearly, because I would assume that MTV was a very forward-thinking type of media for Russia. I remember doing MTV down in Brazil at Rock in Rio in 1991… Regardless of all the criticism that MTV gets, MTV has been one of the leaders of bringing the youth together around the world for music. Not even a month after we were in Moscow, we were over in Indonesia, and MTV there is different than what you have, it’s different than what America has, it’s different than the South American MTV, because they’re really in tune with their region. Even in parts of the Pacific rim that had different political influences and everything, here’s MTV. It becomes a kind of common theme for the youth and the people to unite for music. I remember going to MTV in Moscow, and it was pretty exciting. (everybody laughs) It’s unlike MTV anywhere else in the world, which is actually a good thing.

Did you get any proposals to play in Moscow before you actually came here in 2001?

I remember many years ago, in 1989, there was some discussion of us maybe playing at the big Moscow Peace Festival. That was because for a very short period of time we were managed by the company that was putting that whole organization together, but we didn’t end up staying with that management company (most likely it’s the company run by well-known music tycoon Doc McGee, which was for a while also responsible for such acts as Bon Jovi and Motley Crue – ed.), so we didn’t end up doing the concert then. But that as far as I know is the only other time. But now many people have a chance to go there. I’m good friends with Max and Gloria of Soulfly, and I know that they spent a lot of time in Russia last year. 

Yeah, they definitely have some stories to tell about Russia! (The story of a Russian provincial legislator trying to harass Gloria’s daughter has been in all the news a while ago – ed.)

(laughs) You know, I’ve done work with them, I played on their last two albums – “Prophecy” (2004) and on their new album “Dark Ages”, and I played a couple of concerts with them last month. I really enjoy them, we both live here in Phoenix, Arizona, and the band is a lot of fun. They are the band that like to take their music everywhere that they possibly can around the world, I like the cultural element of Soulfly.

Yes, we’d like to ask more questions about Soulfly later. But now let’s pass on to your main priority nowadays, which is F5, is that correct?

Yes.

As long as this is your first interview for the Russian audience, could you say a few words about how the band got together?

It really started in 2003. I had worked with the singer, Dale Steele, as I produced some demo tracks for a band he was in in Minnesota. I also had produced some music for the group that included guitar player Steve Conley and drummer Dave Small, they were in a group called Lifted in Phoenix. Both Dave and Steve ended up leaving that group, because things just didn’t move forward with them. I stayed in touch with them, and in early 2003 Dave Small asked me if I wanted to come over and do some jamming – just kind of three friends in a room, me and Steve and Dave. We did it, and within a couple of days we had already written almost half a dozen songs, like five or six songs. We demoed them up, I sent those to Dale in Minneapolis, he sang on them, sent them back, and they just sounded amazing. So Dale moved down to Phoenix, we continued to write, and then we realized we needed to bring in another guitar player, and Steve knew John Davis. Within about three or four months’ time, F5 was born. We started sending the music out to record companies, and initially JVC in Japan was the first record company to come on board. We continued to write almost 30 songs, and we went in the studio in the spring, I guess it was March or April 2004, to record the album with producer Ryan Greene and Steve Smith as the executive producer. By early July the sessions were completed, we played a few concerts in Arizona and in California after that, and the response was really good. The band has always been very good, very powerful, very tight, and very energetic, so the response to the shows was good. I spent the whole first half of 2005 getting record deals in place, so we could get the album out, and over the past three months the album has been released around the world. And now here we are, we are looking forward to playing some concerts and moving the band forward.

How was it like recording something with totally different people and being the leading force in writing material?

You know, I enjoyed the camaraderie of working with new musicians. It was exciting, everybody in the band plays real well, they’re all a little bit younger than me, which I like, because some of them have grown up on some of my former music. But at the same time, they are very in touch with the modern music in the world right now. I find that very exciting and liberating that we could incorporate some of the current modern styles, sounds and techniques of modern music into what we were doing. It was a cool fusion of traditional metal and modern contemporary rock.

F5 is a key on the keyboard you refresh the website with. Was it the way you wanted the band name to associate with? 

It’s funny – our drummer Dave came up with the name, and it was taken because in America an F5 is the strongest, most deadly and powerful form of a tornado. (everybody laughs) That’s how he came up with the name. We all went, “OK, F5, that sounds cool.” At that time, it was just four of us, there weren’t even five guys in the band yet. So we went, “Oh, that’s kind of a cool name.” Then John came in, we were five, and now it sounded similar to Dave Clark Five or something. (laughs) Then a buddy of mine, who’s a young alternative musician, said, “Oh yeah, F5, the Refresh key on the keyboard.” I guess that applies, too. (everybody laughs) But for me, it’s sort of Force of Five, the force of five guys playing together. It’s the feeling that I have when the five of us get together and write, perform and everything. But look, I think every one of those is applicable to the band. 

As you said, you worked with producer Ryan Greene on F5, and he’s also the guy you worked with on the demos for the “Countdown To Extinction” album (1992). How did this cooperation come about? How was it like to work with him again 13 years later?

Ryan Greene was working at Steve Smith’s studio. Steve Smith is our executive producer, and he has worked in American FM radio for most of his career. He used to live about five minutes from me, and he had this phenomenal studio that he built in his home. It’s a world-class five-star studio, and Ryan was over there working on an album for another band on Atlantic Records. I walked into the studio one day, and I met Ryan, and it was like old friends again, old kindred spirits. We met up, and he said, “Hey, we should work on something some day.” And I said, “I’ve got my new band F5.” Anyway, it’s Steve, Ryan and myself, we put it together that we would go in and record the album. Initially it was just gonna be some demos to shop to record companies, but the first three songs that we did – “X’d Out”, “Fall To Me” and Edie Brickell song “What I Am” – sounded so powerful that these original demos became the beginning of the F5 album. As it turns out, they weren’t demos at all, they were album quality! (cracks) We just knew that it was a great team. The spirit of F5 from the very beginning was, like I said, me and Dave and Steve, then came Dave and John, next thing is Steve Smith and Ryan Greene, it’s like this doorway kept opening to these new horizons. That’s really been the flow of the whole thing. It’s almost like the hand of fate that kept giving really nice cards for us to play. The quality of the album turned out to be phenomenal, because of the quality of the studio, the quality of Steve Smith and Ryan Greene working with F5 to develop the band. It’s really been cool for me, because with the career that I had before, you could very easily just end or end up doing what you’d always done. And for me F5 has been a very refreshing new way to walk into a new dimension of my life. And I think the other guys in the band are very happy, because obviously this is their first time at it, their first big shot at it. Everybody wins, and it’s been a very positive, uplifting and exciting process for all of us.  

As far as we understand, F5 is more of a common effort than your solo project, but at the same time most of the people buying the record will do it because you are on it. Does this controversy pose any problems to you or the rest of the band?

At this point in life, I feel like I’m just here to be used. (everybody cracks) I’m very lucky – I’m a kid from a small town in America who moved out to Hollywood, California, to presume my rock’n’roll dreams when I was a teenager. As a result, my former band went on to have some huge successes. My life is almost a fairytale story, even though it wasn’t always easy and I had to work my ass off for everything that happened, but if you take a quick snapshot of my life, you would go, “Wow! That’s like a Hollywood dream story!” The reality of it is that I worked for 20 years in my former band and before that I worked for another seven or eight years as a teenager, putting bands together and gigging. My whole life has been dedicated to this craft, to being an artist, a musician and a performer. At this point in my life, I look at it like – I’ll use a baseball analogy word – I’ve been up to bat many times, and I’ve been able to score a lot of hits and a lot of runs. Now part of the F5 spirit for me is being able to help the other four guys in this band get a chance. We’re going to the big dance together, and that’s exciting for me. It makes me feel good about it, and that’s why I try to keep it not a David Ellefson solo project. I try to keep it a unified band where everybody contributes and everybody gets a share in the riches of it as well. I hope that will keep the group together, and we’ll be able to move on and do more things together. I am working that way, because I think it helps everybody come to the table with the best that they have to offer, so that we can be the best band that we can, rather than just being a solo project for me. 

A lot of people compare you and F5 with Jason Newsted and Echobrain. Everybody was buying their record, because he was there, but it turned out that the other guys in the band were not happy with the situation. It’s great to hear that in F5 the other guys like what is happening…

Yeah! I think all bands are the same. (laughs) The chemistry that it takes to make a band work is always the same. It seems that every band I’ve been in, they’ve all been kind of the same cast of characters. And it takes that – the singer is a certain type of personality, the drummer is a certain type of personality, etc. I think it was Frank Zappa who once said that the instruments people play are kind of dictated by their personality. (everybody laughs) A violin player is a certain type of guy, a French horn player is a certain type of a person, and it’s the same in rock’n’roll bands – the drummers are all the same, bass players tend to be a-little-fly-under-the-radar type of guys, lead guitar players tend to be out front all the time. It turns out that I’m a guitar player, a bass player, a bit of a drummer, a songwriter… I wish I could be the singer kind of guy. (cracks) I’ve got a little bit of all of that inside of me, and I guess that probably helps me when I’m in a situation like I’m in with F5, because I understand the psychology of how people operate. It’s probably been one of the things I’ve been very effective at in my career – not only being just a songwriter, a performer and a bass player, but being able to comprehend human nature and how it works in the band. It’s probably why I’ve been able to stay in the music business as long as I have. 

A side question – there were rumors back in 2002 that you had been approached by James Hatfield and Lars Ulrich with the proposal to fill in the vacant spot in Metallica. How much truth is in these rumors?

I never got a call to go audition for Metallica. Many thought that I would, but it’s not a call that ever came my way. 

But would you have considered it?

Of course, I would have considered it, because at that time, my former situation was done, it was over, it ended. At that point, I was almost a free agent. (laughs) If I wanted to continue working in music, I would have considered anything that came my way. I did get a lot of calls from some other artists to tour with them and do things with them, and I didn’t move on them, because I was busy working in artist development and music production. As you can now see, some of that music production led to the formation of F5. I didn’t go for immediate gratification and even the money I could have made by just going out and being a hired bass player, which would have been fun, on the one hand, but I instead chose to take the artist’s road to pull up my sleeves and make the next thing that I do be one of my own artistic endeavors. I’m really happy about it, I’m glad that it’s the road that I chose to go down.

F5 is the first release by Ellefson Music Production. What other bands are you going to work with or are already working on?

It’s interesting, because there are two groups that I work with. One is called Avian, their album is soon coming out. I did some production on it, I played on it, and I essentially brought most of the musicians together to make the record. I started that back in 2002, that’s when I got the call to come in and work on production for that, and that album is actually coming out in November on Nightmare Records, the label of Lance King, who is the singer in Balance Of Power and now with Pyramaze, and who also sings on this record. Then, in 2001, the guys in a group called Warmachine out of Toronto, Canada, and me were talking about doing the production which we finally ended up being able to work together on. I was working in artist development with them, and I ended up playing some tracks on their new album that’s also coming out on Nightmare Records on October 25. I have both of those on my website at www.davidellefson.com , so people can see when and where they can go buy those. Those are the things that I’ve actually worked on in the past few years. It’s funny that all of a sudden in 2005 I have all these albums coming out. (laughs) With Warmachine, this conversation started back in 2001, that’s how long some of this stuff takes to come out. I started with Avian in 2002, F5 was started in 2003, and it’s taken until 2005 to get all this shit out. Lately I’ve been playing on a new Soulfly album, there’s also a couple of new albums that I’m also working on. It seems like you always have to, as we say, keep putting irons in the fire, keep throwing some more wood on the fire to keep the flame burning. The best I can do is to just show up and keep putting forth my effort and leave the results in the hands of fate sometimes.

The album is titled “A Drug For All Seasons”. Is there any special meaning into it? Why this very title? Did you consider any other titles?

We didn’t really have any other titles. Lots of times in bands I find that titles are spawned by lyrics or song titles or things like that, but in our case it was like this: Dale Steele, the singer, called me one day, we were talking on the phone, and he told me a joke that in order to keep from getting strung out on drugs, you need to keep changing your drug about every three months. He said, “What I really need is a drug for all seasons.” (laughs) We had a laugh, and I said, “Man, that is a great song title.” So I encouraged him to go write some lyrics about it, which he did, and now it’s the title track of the record. I always had a feeling that this is just a really clever album title, and that finally became the title for our album.

You said that some projects of yours took years to be released. When do you think the fans can expect a follow-up for “A Drug For All Seasons”?

I’m not sure. Like I said, we wrote so many songs, at least 30 of them now, out of which the 12 that are on the album are the best of the best. We didn’t wanna have any filler material on there. As a new band, one of the things that’s fun and liberating, but also very challenging, is that you don’t have any precedents. You don’t have anything by which to judge how your new band should sound. And that was fun on the one hand, because we could chart our own course and decide what we wanted to do. As it turns out, as much as we tried to get the album out in 2004, there was a big movement of traditional old-school heavy metal that was popular last year, and the F5 record may not have done as well. It may have gotten lost in the shuffle. It’s interesting that with it coming out in 2005, like it did, it almost has a fresh new sound to it, because it doesn’t sound like a lot of other things that are out, that are being released right now and have been released over the last year or so. Kind of by down-luck we ended up probably being in a good position (laughs), but I think to do a follow-up for the album the band needs to get out playing concerts, we need to be working on new material… Sometimes I find that when a band is out playing concerts, certain songs start to become favorites to the audience, which inspires you to write more songs like that. On your first album you can do whatever you want, and that’s how you build fans. But if you’ve been a band for a while, you also owe it to your fans to write songs that they want to hear from you. The dynamic of what you write does start to shift a little bit, as you become more of a legacy band. 

You said that you are looking forward to play live a lot with F5. But the album is not particularly long, it lasts a bit less than 40 minutes. How will your set-list look like?

You know, we’re gonna have to write some new songs! (laughs) Well, it’s interesting – it was hard for the band to play up until this point, until the album came out. We all have been to concerts before, and when we see a band and we’ve never heard their songs, it’s fun, but the audience is in a listening mode, rather than in a more festive concert mode, so having the album out was the first priority. Fortunately we’ve demoed some new songs that we wrote, and honestly there’s a couple of songs that we didn’t put on the record that are pretty cool songs for a live setting. And because we’ve gone through the recording process with the songs that are on the album, I think we will be able to improve a couple of those and may put a nice little twist to them so that they will become something that will work really well in a live setting. The other thing is that any new band usually ends up playing as a special guest, which means that by nature your set time to perform is gonna be shorter than if you’re a headliner.

As long as your album has been released in Japan by JVC, do you think F5 will play some dates in Japan as well?

Yeah, I’d like to, but with a brand new band it sometimes takes an album or two before you’re able to tour extensively. I’m in a band that opens up some opportunities that if we were just another brand new band we may not have, but I’m also realistic in that it may take us two albums before we’re able to tour the world and do a bunch of shows. I’d love to just say, “Look, we’ll go play anywhere whenever we can,” but there’s also the realities of booking the shows and finding the right situation for us to play in, as well as finances and all the rest of it that have to come in to put a show together. What took so long for me to play Moscow in the first place is the logistics and having the right promoter and being sure that there was enough money. There are all those things that have to go into it unfortunately that determine when us artists and performers are able to go do what we do. 

With F5 you recorded Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians cover “What I Am” – tell us about the difference between your version and the way it originally sounded, because unfortunately we’ve never heard the original. And why did you choose this very song?

I think all bands at some point talk about doing a cover version of other people’s songs. It’s funny that in F5 we talked about it from time to time, but we had so much of our own material and we enjoyed writing our own stuff so much that we never thought, “Well, we have a have a cover song in order for everyone to pay any attention to us” (laughs) or “We need to play a cover of somebody else’s song because we have always liked that song.” There was nothing like that. The Edie Brickell song was totally by accident. We had a rehearsal one day, and our guitar player Steve started playing some chord progression that sounded a lot like the Edie Brickell song. I went, “Oh man, that sounds like an Edie Brickell song!” and we all laughed, because that’s one of those corky songs that in America were very popular on MTV. And it was almost a 1980s real bohemian sounding kind of song, very much unlike F5. (cracks) It was not at all like what we do. Then Steve started figuring the song out, and we played it, and when we hit the chorus, Dale started to sing on that chorus, and we all looked at each other and went, “Holy shit, that sounds really good!” (laughs) And we realized then that this may be our cover song. On the one hand it was kind of comical for us to do it, but at the same time when we played it for people, they were just blown away by our version of the song. It seemed pretty inevitable that it was gonna finally make it to the album. 

Let’s now move on to your other baby – Temple Of Brutality. How did this collaboration come about? The band roaster is really impressive, but is this a side-project or a real band as well?

You know it’s interesting – at this point in my life I realize that there are many different sides to my abilities and my musical interests and what I’m able to write and play. One of the most difficult things is to try to make one band be all things to all people. At this point in my life I’m taking a different approach, which is: maybe it’s better to have several bands that specialize in doing certain things for certain people. I didn’t pre-conceive the idea, but it somehow happened for me though. (laughs) And I’m very happy with it, quite honestly. While F5 is a more modern mainstream hard rock band, Temple Of Brutality is a very vicious brutal thrash metal type of band and certainly something that I think a lot of my fans who’ve grown up on my work over the years they would expect me to do. And I enjoy it, it’s a lot of fun, it’s great playing with Stet (Howland, drums, ex-WASP), Peter Scheithauer (guitar, also Killing Machine) and Todd (Barnes, vocals). Todd is a total star of the singer in the sense that he’s an animal, the guy is just over the top as a frontman. So the album is gonna come out later this year on Demolition Records, we just shot a video for it earlier in September, when we were down in Florida where we played the first two concerts with the band to launch the group. It’s one of these things where I’m kind of letting it take its natural course, but there seems to be a lot of demand for it, it seems like people are very excited about it, and live it’s really a great band. It’s got all the energy that you would expect for a full-blown hard metal/thrash metal type of concert.

Who is the main driving force in the band? Who are the main songwriters?

It’s Peter Scheithauer, who is from Germany. I was introduced to him through a promoter in the San Diego area, who had promoted an F5 concert. He had told me about his other band called Killing Machine, which is a very traditional metal type of project, I would say, reminiscent more of like Accept meets Judas Priest. The singer of this band is James Rivera, who is also in a group called Helstar, and was also in Seven Witches. Seven Witches have just covered a song that I wrote called “If You Were God” on the “Year Of The Witch” album (2004), and I produced an EP for Helstar back in 1993, so James and I had known each other well. So this promoter Joe Traudman introduced me to the Killing Machine camp, which consisted also of Peter Scheitheuer. As it turns out, Peter had another project which was initially called Enemy Of God, but he changed the name to Temple Of Brutality. And I said, “Look, I’d be happy to work with you on both bands – Killing Machine and Temple Of Brutality, because I like the traditional sound of Killing Machine.” So we went in and made an album with Bill Metoyer (very famous thrash metal producer, who worked with the likes of Flotsam & Jetsam, Sacred Reich, Fates Warning, etc. – ed.), and we’re shopping that album right now to be released. I think it’ll probably be released in early 2006. Prior to Killing Machine, we went into the studio in Fort Myers, Florida, and recorded the Temple Of Brutality album. I would say Peter has been the driving force of both of those bands, but as they developed, all of us had become united in what those bands are. And again, it’s interesting, because here’s this Killing Machine, which is kind of old school traditional metal, Temple Of Brutality is this real hardcore thrash metal project, and F5 is a more mainstream hard rock band. All three of those cover different sides of who my fans have known me to be over the years, but instead of doing it within one band I’ve got several bands that specialize in each one of those types of music. 

How did Jimmy DeGrasso end up playing drums for Killing Machine? Did you bring him in, or was he already there when you joined?

No, I brought him in, I suggested him, and Peter was happy, because Peter loves Jimmy’s drumming. When the time came to make a decision on the drummer, I said, “Look, Jimmy is a good friend of mine, he and I are always looking to work on things together.” So he came in and recorded on it. Jimmy’s phenomenal, I love working with Jimmy again. 

Does it mean that you have stayed in touch with Jimmy after the breakup of your former band in 2002?

Yes.

What else is Jimmy now involved with? Does he have other projects or anything music-wise? 

Jimmy’s been doing a lot of clinics around the world for Pearl Drums, and he also has been playing with Ronny Montrose. He’s been doing that for the last 1.5 years. 

On September 10 you played at the benefit concert for Lissa Wales together with Jimmy. How did you feel like playing together again?

Oh, it’s awesome playing with Jimmy, it’s great. He’s a good friend of mine, he’s one of the best drummers I’ve ever worked with, he’s very professional and he’s a hard worker. It’s funny because we’d been around each other so much in the early 1990s, when he was out on tour with Suicidal Tendencies – that’s when I first met him. And then, years later, he was playing drums for Alice Cooper, then in my previous band, so through the years he and I shared stages together for quite a bit. It’s great to work with him again, he’s been a great friend and a supporter for me, so I try to work with him on any chance I can. 

The reason for the September 10 show was quite saddening, but there were so many well-known musicians performing. Could you tell us a bit about how it all went through?

Sure! Lissa has been a friend of all of ours for many years. She lives here in Phoenix, where I live, and any time tours would come through town, all the drummers knew that they’re probably gonna have a photo shoot with Lissa – for their endorsements, for the Modern Drummer magazine, for all the drum magazines. She has just been a great friend of everybody, so when she fell ill with cancer a couple of years ago, everybody has really fallen for her. Troy Luckketta, Tesla’s drummer, lives about five minutes from me, he and I became good friends, we worked on a few things together, he’s got a studio in his house, and we try to groove off, play together once in a while just to have fun. It’s been fun just to know him. So when he called about this benefit that he was putting together for Lissa, everybody, of course, said “yes,” and everybody basically donated their time and their talents to this concert to raise money for Lissa. Troy did a great job for it, he really did a phenomenal job bringing in all the people. The Glenn Hughes thing with Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers was phenomenal, it was great. I played with Jimmy and Montrose, they’re a mega-great band, so it was fun to do that. The guys from Chicago were there, the guys from King Crimson, just some amazing talents on the stage. It was such a great night out, and everybody that I talked to over the last couple of things has got such great things to say about it. It’s interesting what happens when a bunch of musicians get together and it’s not through a manager or somebody else. (laughs) It’s something I’m really happy to have been a part of.

You told us that you rejected most of the offers for session jobs after you left your previous band, but one offer you did accept was from Soulfly. Why did you choose this particular offer? Was it because of your friendship with Max?

Yeah, Max and I come from a similar genre of music initially, even though Sepultura was maybe half of a generation behind my former band. He lives here in town, they were recording the “Prophecy” album right here in town, in Phoenix, so when they asked me if I would contribute some bass to it, I considered in an honor and said, “Absolutely!” Of course it’s something very different than what I’ve ever done or do, which I like. I like to be able to push myself to come up with some new ideas and new playing, so it was really cool. Then Max invited me to be in the video with them, and they asked me to go to the tour with them, but honestly I was so busy with all these other things that I was working on that I just couldn’t get away long enough to try to make that happen. So I continued working on F5 and all the things we’ve just discussed. And then Gloria called be back, it was in July, and asked me if I could play a couple of shows with them in August, which I did. Again, they had a Dana memorial concert (Dana was Max’s stepson who was killed in a car accident a few years ago – ed.) that they did here in Phoenix, and then we had another show in Long Beach. I went over and did those, it was cool. They invited me to come out and do more shows with them, which I’ll probably do if I can, because the band is really good with me and Max, Joe (Nunez, drums) and Marc (Rizzo, guitar). However, they’re a great band with Bobby Burns playing bass, but if they want me to come in and play, I’d be happy to do it.

Of the bands we have talked so far – F5, Temple Of Brutality, Killing Machine and Soulfly, which one is more demanding for you as a bass player?

I would probably say the Soulfly stuff is some of the most demanding, because there’s some of the old school thrash metal stuff in it. However, some of the Temple Of Brutality stuff is pretty off-the-hook as well. It’s fast, it’s powerful and it’s physically very demanding. The F5 stuff isn’t as physically demanding, because I play more into the song, and as to the Killing Machine stuff it’s more of a traditional pretty simple, but very powerful bass playing, which I like. F5 and Killing Machine give me the ability to really provide this big sonic wall of bass, which is a fun way of playing. But then, like I said, the other two are more physically demanding.

Did you have to rehearse a lot to play the Sepultura tracks that Soulfly have in their setlist?

Yeah, and it’s funny, because I’ve obviously heard Sepultura songs over the years, and I like the guys and their band, but I never had studied their music in order to play it. And you know, there’s some cool stuff in there (laughs), I really enjoyed playing a lot of the Sepultura songs, because it’s reminiscent of my former background.

Back in the 1990s you wrote a book called “Making Music Your Business”. How did you come up with this idea? And do you have any plans to continue your career as a writer? 

I probably should write another one on one of these days. (everybody laughs) I’ve learned a lot since I published that one. I like the idea, I really enjoyed writing the first one, I love being at the computer and writing, and I seem to be a pretty natural communicator with speaking and offering things. It’s a kind of fun creative outlet for me. The book I did, I wrote it through an entire album and tour cycle, that’s why I covered everything from the beginning all the way through what it would takes to go around the world and do a world tour. Part of it was fun for my fans, it kind of told them what it’s really like on the inside. And there’s also a lot of things for musicians themselves, who want to find out how we got to where we’re at, how we did it. I thought that writing a book is a nice clean example for all of them. So I tried to write the chapters real short, real simple, easy to read, so that they would cover the necessary details but not get overloaded with too much jargon, which was gonna be confusing. One of the things that I’m most proud of is doing that, because it’s something, I guess, not very typical of most musicians to offer a book.

As far as we know, you sometimes do lectures based on this book and your personal experience. What kind of people attend these lectures? Do you get any kind of feedback from them?

Yeah, I do. What I used to do is clinics – performing and demonstrating how I play. But I also like talking about music, because to me how I play is a very personal thing, and I’m the only guy who’s gonna play like that. How you play is a direct reflection of your personality. So I always try to encourage everyone to find their own voice and make their own way. When people come and go, “Oh, I wanna play like Dave Ellefson,” I’m like “Wow, don’t waste your time!” (laughs) You’re not gonna play like me, and I’m not gonna play like you, and that’s what makes music so personal and so special. The business side of things – even that is very personal, and we all seem to be on our own course with that, but there are some simple ABCs of how that works. It’s fun for me to talk to people about it, because with my producing and the artist development work that I’ve done over the last few years, I feel like I’m able to communicate things pretty well to other people, other musicians, whether they be inexperienced, somewhat experienced or even very experienced. As I told you earlier, I seem to be able to understand the psychology of musicians pretty well.

Could you tell us more about your work with the band Helstar? You told us that you did an EP with them in 1993, but we’ve never heard about it. We only know about 1995’s “Multiples Of Black” album. Is it the same thing?

Yes, it’s the same thing. Basically I produced five tracks for them, and initially it was gonna be an EP, but it ended up being an LP, because they added some more songs to make it a full album release. I remember those guys being a support band on tours I was on as far back as the mid- or late 1980s down in Texas, so I’d known them for a long time. It was a fun project for me to work on a Helstar album, and that’s why I’m now working with James in Killing Machine. It’s very cool, because I already know how he works in the studio. It’s kinda like working with Dale Steele in F5 – I’d already known how he worked in a previous setting with his former bands, and it’s fun to work with him on a whole new endeavor now.

How do you personally evaluate your production work on those five Helstar tracks? We’ve heard some people complaining about the sound quality of this record, but that’s probably due to the other tracks that were added later…

Look, I think the ones that I did were very powerful and sonically sounded very good. It probably isn’t a good mix that my production is mixed in with the other ones, because I think the other ones were kind of low-budget indie style recordings. When people hear the F5 record, they hear the style of production that I like. I like things to be very clean, very precise, played well, played in tune, sung well, and have a lot of power to them. Even the Killing Machine record that we did with Bill Metoyer is like that, too, it’s gonna be very precise and very powerful. Certain types of music need that. Temple Of Brutality can be a lot more looser and just a crazy wild thrash metal thing, because that’s the nature of that band. But when you’re doing something like what I do with F5 and Killing Machine and even the band that Helstar was, they needed some cleaning up in their recordings. When I’ve been in the studio working with producers who’ve helped the band sound better on the recording, they ultimately always help the band sound better on stage, too.

Of all the producers whom you have worked with over the years, whom do you consider the most helpful, the one from whom you’ve learned the most?

Max Norman (“Rust In Peace”) and Dan Huff (“Cryptic Writings”), without a doubt.

When we were arranging this interview, you said you don’t wanna talk about your previous band. But do you mind if we ask you some questions about its very early days, the 1984-1986 era?

Well, maybe one or two, but I’m really trying to move away from that. I know everybody wants to know about it (cracks), but everything between us is settled now, so I don’t wanna raise any of it.

Yes, but the reason is that there are still a few very obscure things about those days. For instance, can you recall when was the first show of your former band? Was it really in February 1984? 

I believe it was in February 1984, right.

As far as we know, you played with Abbatoir…

Yes, right, which is funny, because Juan Garcia was in that band, and now he’s in Killing Machine as well! (laughs)

Why did they open for you? After all, it was your first show…

A lot of the thrash metal scene was really happening up in the Bay Area, but we all lived down in Los Angeles, so we didn’t play in LA, we traveled to the Bay Area for playing. That’s why we brought our friends Abbatoir up with us to play. Again, it’s pretty funny because Juan Garcia and the Abbatoir guys were one of the first LA thrash metal guys that I knew outside Kerry King, Jim (Durkin) of Dark Angel, and Katon (de Pena) from Hirax. Those were all the guys that were doing thrash metal down in LA. It’s ironic that Juan and I are now in a new band together.

Do you remember who played the second guitar and drums at those first shows?

Kerry King and Lee Raush did.

There were rumors that during the Killing For A Living tour”, namely in Denver, the local soundtech guy recorded your gig through soundboard and you guys liked the outcome so much that you wanted to release a live album.  There’s a partial confirmation that comes from Mike Albert (Megadeth’s second guitarist on that tour – ed.). He said that he persuaded you guys from releasing a live album after the first CD. So how much truth is in all that?

Jesus, I can’t really remember anything else that the Denver show was a really good one. I think we played with Metal Church, it was a great show. I always liked Mike Albert, I thought he was a cool guy, but he was so not a metal guy! (laughs) It’s probably why at some point he just decided it’s not gonna work for us to continue on. But he was basically a filling guitar player on the first tour. I seem to remember something about a live recording, and your story sounds right, but I only remember it was a good show, I don’t remember too much of any official statements about a live recording now.

In 1990 the band shot quite a lot of materials for “The Life Of…” videos. But they were never released! On the other hand, all of them surfaced in the trade circles and now widely available on DVDs and fans can enjoy them. But what happened back in 1990?

You know, I don’t recall why that happened. We had a friend of ours on tour filming a bunch of stuff, which was always fun to have. But then all of a sudden one day it just magically disappeared, and I don’t think it was his fault. I remember going to a guitar show, where they trade guitars, and this guy had all these videos over there! (laughs) I said, “Hey, wait a minute, let me see those! Can you give me a copy of all those videos?” I think one of the coolest things about the metal fans and metal music is that we are bounded by such a cool culture and we all wanna know about what each other is doing. The whole movement started with the underground tape trading, then eventually videos and underground fanzines appeared. Some people got all pissed off about the Internet, but to me the Internet thing is just a modern-day version of 1983 all over again. And I like it – let’s face it, the three of us wouldn’t be doing this interview right now if it wasn’t for the Internet! (laughs) It’s been great for me starting this next phase of my career. I feel like I’m back in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1983, only that the cool thing is that you can be in Moscow and me in Arizona. We can be anywhere, and our lives move forward, and we’re able to talk about metal and the culture and what’s happening now vs. what’s happening then, and all these different things. I think it’s awesome, I think the whole Internet community just ties everybody together. The main thing all of us have to try to do is, of course, we have to try to make a living of it, I mean the financial side of it. And I think people finally realize, “Look, I can’t just steal songs and download whatever I want whenever I want. If they are my favorite artists, I gotta pay them some money for this.” We can’t afford to keep doing it if we just don’t make any money. I can only speak for myself, and I never tried to get rich, but it all costs money, and it’s not fair if things are given away for free. I think finally now there’ve been some methods put in place, where not only the record industry can regulate it, but also the fans finally understand, “Yeah, look, as much as I wanna get something for nothing, it’s only fair that I pay for something. If I have to go to a store and buy it, it’s only fair that on the Internet I have to buy it, too.” 

Talking about the fans and community, what was the weirdest thing that fans ever gave you to sign?

Outside of a breast?

Yeah, evidently! (everybody laughs) 

I think I’ve gotten all kinds of things like shoes, etc. One of the funniest ones was – I remember a guy walked up to me one time and said, “Dude, sign my arm!” I was in a hurry, and I scribbled my signature on his arm, not thinking anything up, it was like, “Here you go, bro, thanks!” Then he came to the show that night and had it tattooed on his arm! I was like, “Fuck, man, had I known you’re gonna tattoo it, I would have written my name a lot better!” (everybody laughs)

David Ellefson on the Internet: http://www.davidellefson.com 

Felix Yakovlev, Roman Patrashov
September 26, 2005
© HeadBanger.ru