David Ellefson Details Alice Cooper Invitation — and Why He Said No
“When Megadeth disbanded in 2002, it was interesting,” Ellefson recalls. “Not long before that, we did a tour across South America with Alice Cooper. And Alice took Megadeth out in our very beginning, so we’ve had a good friendship with him. But I didn’t get to know Alice, kind of like we’re talking right now, so I would sit next to him up in business class as we’re flying across South America.
“We talked openly about sobriety, about Christian faith and all this stuff,” Ellefson continued. “My kids were real young at that time and so I had that same thing. So when Megadeth disbanded, they called me about touring.”
Ellefson said he got the call from Cooper’s camp “about two weeks” after Megadeth folded. Consequently, he couldn’t commit to such a high-profile gig.
“I just wasn’t mentally in a place to do it,” he explained. “I was in such shell shock over being an owner of Megadeth, a corporate shareholder and everything else, just going, ‘Oh my God, what just fucking happened?’”
Ellefson’s Post-Megadeth Ventures
In lieu of Ellefson, Cooper recruited bassist Chuck Wright for his band. Chuck Garric assumed the position shortly thereafter and remains in Cooper’s band to this day.
Ellefson, meanwhile, formed the band F5 with singer Dale Steele, guitarists Steve Conley and John Davis, and former Megadeth drummer Jimmy DeGrasso. He also played bass on soulfly’s 2004 album Prophecy and toured intermittently with the group.
Megadeth reformed in 2004 and Ellefson rejoined the band in 2010, where he remained until his dismissal in 2021. He’s kept busy with a variety of projects since then, including Kings of Thrash with former Megadeth guitarist Jeff Young.
Every Thrash Metal ‘Big 4’ Album Ranked
Every album by Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax get ranked worst to best.
Contributions by Philip Trapp, Ed Rivadavia, Jordan Blum, Ayron Rutan and Joe DiVita
Tradecraft, Universal
49. Megadeth, ‘Super Collider’ (2013)
“You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take,” NHL Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzy once famously said. Unfortunately for Megadeth, they took a huge shot and still missed by a wide margin with 2013’s Super Collider.
It would signal the end for drummer Shawn Drover and guitarist Chris Broderick, not that they had much of a say when it came to the writing anyway. For Mustaine and Ellefson, however, the attempt at a more rock-leaning record is applaudable in theory — they brilliantly pulled this off on Youthanasia and perhaps it was a chance to make good on some other intentions laid out in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s.
Whatever the case, this platter of music is just not good by any measure. It did put Mustaine and co. in position to roar back with a more return-to-roots effort that materialized in 2016’s Dystopia, which is great for the career narrative arc in the long run. There’s a positive! —JD
48. Anthrax, ‘Volume 8: The Threat Is Real’ (1998)
Not five years removed from 1993’s impressive stylistic reboot for the alt-rock ‘90s that was Sound of White Noise, Anthrax’s career reached a dispiriting nadir with the forgettable – and now virtually forgotten – Volume 8: The Threat is Real. Maybe the band were subconsciously referring to their own dreary career prospects, because they failed to deliver anything else – confidence, decent songs, creative direction – with this miserable set. —ER
47. Megadeth, ‘Risk’ (1999)
In retrospect, Dave Mustaine should have probably used some of those joint therapy sessions with Lars Ulrich captured for Metallica’s harrowing, inadvertent mockumentary Some Kind of Monster, to explain Megadeth’s own career fiasco, Risk. An ill-advised gambit to push further into the mainstream and even alternative rock, Risk was such a “box office bomb,” that Capitol Records washed their hands of Megadeth after more than a decade. Really, the only thing about this album that makes sense was its title. —ER
46. Anthrax, ‘Stomp 442’ (1995)
Metal was always part of the Anthrax equation, but the band’s brand of thrash was always cut with something more. In the Joey Belladonna era, that was most noticeably crossover punk and as the band’s style shifted in the ‘90s with John Bush up front, so did the band’s stylistic formula.
Taking cues from the abrasive hardcore of Helmet in particular (at least to these ears), Anthrax moved from the more radio-optimized hard/groove rock of 1993’s Sound of White Noise to what you hear on Stomp 442, which arrived two years later. The first album without guitarist Dan Spitz, Anthrax turned to Pantera legend Dimebag Darrell to play lead on two songs while Paul Crook handled the rest of the studio guitar work opposite Scott Ian.
The intentions were fine, but the execution on the group’s seventh album missed the mark and the lyrics are especially forgettable. The cover art, meanwhile? Memorable for the wrong reasons. —JD
45. Megadeth, ‘The World Needs A Hero’ (2001)
Still reeling from the nuclear fallout of 1999’s widely panned Risk, Megadeth entered the new millennium in rebuild mode – in terms of their line-up (Al Pitrelli stepped in for the long-serving Marty Friedman), their music (which thankfully shifted back to metallic norm, if not form), and their reputation (well, good luck with that one). Now signed to Sanctuary, Dave Mustaine and co. tried to overcome persistent issues with songwriting quality with quantity, in what still stands as the longest of all Megadeth albums. —ER
44. Metallica, ‘St. Anger’ (2003)
An extreme sonic direction for the band and the subject of an entire documentary, 2003’s St. Anger has became widely regarded by fans as Metallica’s worst album and has reached a level of memedom in the metal community that few other albums have.
While there are some obvious things to dislike about the record such as drummer Lars Ulrich’s snare sound and the complete absence of Kirk Hammet guitar solos, listeners should not be too quick to dismiss St. Anger. The album is frankly one of Metallica’s most interesting, with introspective lyrical content and variety of both fast and grinding riffs.
Songs such as “Frantic”, “Some Kind of Monster”, and “Invisible Kid” offer a lot to enjoy, but the record’s consistently muddy mix combined with the other shortcomings previously mentioned ultimately leave even more to be desired with this album. —AR
43. Metallica, ‘Load’ (1996)
Released in 1996, Load emerged in a time that wasn’t particularly good to the thrash sub-genre. Alt-rock, grunge, and nu-metal were dominating the charts and Metallica were forced to adapt.
Five years after the release of 1991’s ‘Black Album,’ Load has an even more commercial and hard-rock leaning sound than its predecessor.
It was clear that the band was trying new sounds on tracks such as “Until It Sleeps”, “King Nothing”, and “The Outlaw Torn”, which, fast forward today, are widely loved by fans. While it’s sonic direction has unfortunately landed it at the bottom of many fans’ favorite Metallica album lists, Load is a perfectly enjoyable hard rock album by a band who at the time was just looking to try something different. —AR
42. Anthrax, ‘State of Euphoria’ (1988)
Over 30 years later, it’s hard to understand the exaggerated amount of negative feedback that was heaped upon Anthrax’s fourth studio album, 1988’s State of Euphoria. So, it was Among the Living, Part 2 … so what? Do you know how many bands would give their eye-teeth to conjure up anything worthy of that ‘put down’? Pretty much any band outside of thrash’s Big Four, that’s who, including Anthrax themselves, post 1991. —ER
41. Anthrax, ‘We’ve Come For You All’ (2003)
After the triple whammy of the career low that was 1998’s Volume 8: The Threat is Real, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the mysterious letters laced with deadly anthrax – the poisonous substance, not the band – Anthrax briefly considered changing their name! But the New Yorkers duly rebounded with a much-improved fourth and final album behind frontman John Bush, We’ve Come for You All. It didn’t solve Anthrax’s diminished popularity issues, but it paved the way to a reunion with Joey Belladonna and stronger albums to come. —ER
40. Slayer, ‘Diabolus In Musica’ (1998)
Simultaneously Slayer’s most experimental and concession-filled album (if that’s even possible), 1998’s Diabolus in Musica arrived during one of the most fallow and hostile periods in heavy metal history, when the style had yet to free itself of the alt-rock-imposed purgatory. But Slayer didn’t help their cause (nor did their fan-base, one of the most resistant-to-change in metal) by consorting with nu-metal, dropped tunings, and other gimmicks that simply didn’t serve the band’s ascetic tradition. Simply put, this was a dead end. —ER
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