MEGADETH has announced bass player James LoMenzo as a permanent member of the band. LoMenzo was MEGADETH's bass player in the mid-2000s and recently stepped back in as a touring member for "The Metal Tour Of The Year". Lomenzo now officially rejoins the MEGADETH family.
MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine comments: "I am thrilled to welcome back James to the MEGADETH family. James rejoined the fold as the touring bassist and it's been a blast having him back. We thought let's make it permanent."
James adds: "I'm so excited to rejoin MEGADETH and move forward full steam into the next phase of this iconic band's history! With Dave, Kiko [Loureiro, guitar] and Dirk [Verbeuren, drums], There's no stopping us! It just feels great to be home again."
LoMenzo joined MEGADETH in 2006 and appeared on two of the group's studio albums, 2007's "United Abominations" and 2009's "Endgame". He was fired from the band in 2010 and replaced with returning original MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson.
In addition to MEGADETH, LoMenzo has played with Ozzy Osbourne, Zakk Wylde and WHITE LION. For the past nine years, LoMenzo has been performing with iconic rocker John Fogerty.
LoMenzo played his first show with MEGADETH in nearly 12 years last August in Austin, Texas. The concert took place three months following Ellefson's dismissal from MEGADETH after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving him were posted on Twitter.
During an appearance on a March 2022 episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", Mustaine discussed MEGADETH's reunion with LoMenzo, saying: "I'm thrilled. I think he's a really awesome person to have in MEGADETH. He was when we tried it the first time. And for whatever reason that things happen, things happened and we took a little sabbatical from playing [together]. And when things happened as they did, it was obvious to me that I needed to get a super kickass bass player to come in and cut all the tracks and learn 'em in relatively no time, because we were in the studio already, so I needed to get somebody that could really do all that stuff. And I hadn't made up my mind on James yet. So I ended up asking a super, super legendary bass player in the metal community, Steve DiGiorgio. I asked him if he would come in and guest on the [upcoming MEGADETH] record and help me to finish the record and cut bass parts. So he came out, and that was really wonderful to hear his interpretation of my songs and the stuff that Kiko and Dirk and I, the stuff that we're starting to write together; we're starting to really develop our chemistry."
MEGADETH's new album, "The Sick, The Dying, And The Dead", is tentatively due on July 8. The follow-up to "Dystopia" features a cover of DEAD KENNEDYS' "Police Truck" and Sammy Hagar's "This Planet's On Fire", the latter of which includes vocals from Hagar himself.