Megadeth to Replace David Ellefson’s Bass Parts on New Album, Dave Mustaine Confirms
Megadeth will soon be replacing David Ellefson's bass parts on their long-awaited new album, as confirmed by Dave Mustaine, and will have a new bass player ready to go for their co-headlining summer tour with Lamb of God.
"I just wanna thank you for all the kinds words and support as we get ready for this next tour and continue to hunt for a new bass player. We are making progress. The record's being completed and we're going to have someone coming in in a couple of weeks to replace the bass tracks that we had... which should be relatively quick because the person we're talking to is a stellar bass player," Mustaine said while hosting his weekly show on Gimme Radio (audio below).
"And hopefully this will be an ongoing thing after the recording," he continued, "Or we will find someone prior to the recording that will be our permanent guy going forward. So send your good vibes and thoughts and prayers and everything to us that we wrap up this summer as tidy as possible and get the best people and the best beers and stuff for us for the tour this summer because it's going to be a hot one."
Ellefson, who was a member of the band from its inception in 1983 through 2002 and again from 2010 until earlier this year, was dismissed from the thrash legends after sexually explicit video clips emerged online, in which he was masturbating on a video call with a 19-year-old fan he had met in 2019.
In a statement released on May 24 by Megadeth and attributed to Mustaine, Ellefson was released from the band where it was cited, "While we do not know every detail of what occurred, with an already strained relationship, what has already been revealed now is enough to make working together impossible moving forward."
After this, Ellefson officially filed "revenge porn" charges in his home state of Arizona and he confirmed his lawyers were in the process of preparing a defamation lawsuit to be filed against the person who leaked the videos. The woman involved in the sexual encounter was not the one believed to have shared the clips.
Megadeth's summer tour, which also features Trivium and In Flames in addition to Lamb of God, begins on Aug. 20 and the complete list of stops can be seen here.