INTERVIEW: David Ellefson – Metal Allegiance

If you’ve been in and around the metal scene for over 30 years you can quite easily say you’ve done it all and bought the t-shirt. One such person who can easily say this is bass guitarist David Ellefson, founding member of Big 4 thrash band MEGADETH and various projects ever since. From 2015 he has been a founding member of supergroup METAL ALLEGIANCE, a project bringing in members across the metal world for records of star-studded quality. On the brink of releasing their sophomore record Volume II – Power Drunk Majesty, we spoke with David to cast a light on the new album’s creation, the guests involved this time round and the necessity of social media in today’s climate.

So we all know who you guys are in the band so I’m not going to start off by asking how METAL ALLEGIANCE formed but I am curious about how the second album creative process started?

David: You know we started looking at shows and festivals back in 2015 and especially 2016 because it started as an all star jam on the MOTORHEAD Motorboat. We got together after that and wrote an album because we felt we had something special here. We write well together, hangout and have fun together, but having only one album primarily makes us a covers band so we needed to think about getting some more material. As much fun as that is in the sense of “have a party and have METAL ALLEGIANCE play”, we don’t want to be an all star cover band forever, we have skills that we can use and are better than that. So, the end of 2016 into 2017 we put all of our efforts into Power Drunk Majesty. We have this second record, so now we have a collection of work, alongside our EP Fallen Heroes, so technically we have three releases. That plants a flag saying we are a legitimate outfit and not just some famous guys playing cover songs.

You mentioned about feeling like a covers band there, you could almost say when you started METAL ALLEGIANCE it was harkening back to the days when you first started out 30 years ago playing covers in people’s garages and backyard parties.

David: Oh yeah, you know it’s fun. Us guys and gals in METAL ALLEGIANCE all grew up with the same records in our collections. So we threw cover songs in and those songs shaped us who we are as artists.

The newer record has quite a politically detailed album sleeve, was that purposeful or was it left up to the artist to come up with something cool?

David: It was an idea started with Mark Menghi and the artist. It’s funny how it took on its life of its own. We were originally just going to call this album Volume 2 like a BLACK SABBATH or a LED ZEPPELIN type thing. Then as we were finalising the artwork and the layout, me and Menghi were on the phone, and he said “man, I’m just feeling Volume 2 doesn’t quite capture the feeling of this artwork” and one of the things that MEGADETH did with Cryptic Writings is we went into the lyrics and we pulled the title out from that on the Use The Man track “Cryptic writings on the wall, the beginning of the end”. So I asked Menghi to email over the lyrics to me and I had a look through them. What jumped out at me was Power Drunk Majesty which I initially wrote and then the rest of the band and Floor [Jansen, NIGHTWISH] collaborated on. Its pretty clear the lyric idea there, and when I wrote it in January 2017 which was an election year what was happening in the US really fed into that. So suddenly METAL ALLEGIANCE Volume 2 – Power Drunk Majesty seemed fitting.

Not to deep dive too much into US politics but I always mention to artists I speak to that the only positive I see coming from a Trump administration is the reactionary art that will come out of it in the following months and years afterwards.

David: Rock n’ Roll is always been about telling the man to “back the fuck off”, Peace Sells was all about that, telling the man to get off your back. Anarchy In The UK is another song like that and a song we covered in MEGADETH. These themes have run through my musical career like a backbone. When Rust In Piece came out, when the right is in power its usually a great time for the metal community to stand up and have a voice as a creative community. It’s often in those times that the human spirit steps up because art is not conservative, politics is conservative, art shows its liberal and diverse nature. Comedy is the same. Let’s be clear as well, I’m not taking a side on the lyrics of Power Drunk Majesty, it can be related to the left or the right. I watched what happened when power rose on the left and then on the right. For me, Power Drunk Majesty is the incessant rise of the alpha male rising to the top, each will fight until one rises to the top and it will be a unilateral rise to the top. In a quest for self preservation, you ultimately kill off your own kind which is a complete disregard for human life. My journey through life is to look out for each other, this album questions what’s happening in the world right now.

You had quite a collection of guest vocalists on the last record and Power Drunk Majesty is no different, how was it logistically getting vocals recorded this time?

David: With METAL ALLEGIANCE we write and create in a room, which helps a lot with solidifying our brotherhood. We try to keep that mentality throughout. Working with vocalists, there are geographical challenges, for example we sorted out a studio out in Los Angeles for John Bush to lay his vocals down. Obviously, he has a ton of experience and I’ve personally worked with him on some demo’s back in the 90s and I trust him. He took the material and just said “whatever you want me to do, I’ll do, just let me know”. In the case of Max Cavelara, who I’ve worked with in SOULFLY, again there’s a trust there, we let him lose creatively and we wanted him to put his vibe on the material. So there’s two different examples of what we do. Alex Scholink producing Mark Osegueda in the studio is just amazing, Alex vibes off Mark, and there is an engine to his voice in a very hands on way. Menghi working with Blitz was a collaboration too as Blitz took some liberties with the material so it could suit his voice better.

Is there anything new on this record, in terms of production, or musically?

David: At its core this band is a metal band and we don’t want to bring in symphonies or sitars or anything like that. Stuff we have heard on records in the past, it didn’t call to us on this record. There’s a few downtuned things mixed in there. Quite honestly, the features of the records are the participants on the record. Bringing Andreas Kisser back was cool for example. The main thing we wanted to do here was expand the ALLEGIANCE and get more people involved with this. We wanted to have people with a real identity from their voice.

With Rock and Metal always being looked down on from mainstream media, do you feel the term ‘underground scene’ is still valid especially in this day and age of disposable music via the likes of Spotify and Apple Music?

David: Well I think there is an underground always because its tomorrow’s music. We know where it comes from, it comes from someone starting out in their bedroom, club or local coffee shop. Then the cool club get latched on to it and it’s dragged into the mainstream. Art always starts underground so there is an underground always.

With the saturation of social media in the mainstream and you yourself having a presence on Twitter, do you see this as a necessary evil or is it something you enjoy with the ease of use communicating with your fans?

David: Well, I don’t see it as a necessary evil, when we were starting MEGADETH, Lars (from METALLICA) was the master of all this. This was before I even met or knew of Lars. When me and Dave started MEGADETH in the June of 1983, Lars had spent a few years doing it, knew about the trade taping scenes. Making a demo, sending it out to the magazines, and this was the internet before the internet! [laughs] That’s how Lars built METALLICA, and understood it, it was because he was from Europe, and had a different sensibility, which he brought over here. When I personally got to LA, you would see all these typed up fanzines flying around talking about IRON MAIDEN or DIO. We did the same thing with MEGADETH and followed their lead. We got The Mechanix out there and it blew up from there. So the internet today is a sexier, cooler and faster version of that from 35 years ago. It keeps our community connected and gives the emerging artist so much more potential to get their foot in the door.

To finish up, what are your touring plans for the record, is it going to be sporadic dates or a lengthy tour?

David: We have a date in Gramercy Park for the album launch, we are with Nuclear Blast on this record and they understand what and who we are. Monte Conner had previous experience with this sort of thing with the Roadrunner United record.

I love that record!

David: It’s important to know what this is for the metal scene and what it means for our personal circumstances, we are all of other bands, the goal is to solidify METAL ALLEGIANCE with the fans and the community, I think once this record comes out the response will be positive and that opens doors to festivals and dates next year.

Vol II – Power Drunk Majesty is set for release on September 7th via Nuclear Blast Records.

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