Dave Mustaine has finally revealed who played bass on the forthcoming Megadeth album, The Sick, The Dying and The Dead.
The band’s former bassist, David Ellefson, was infamously removed from the lineup last year after a video surfaced online of him engaging in an inappropriate sexual encounter with a young woman.
‘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,” Mustaine said about Ellefson’s departure at the time.
It was announced back then that Megadeth would hire someone to re-record all Ellefson’s bass parts on their new album, but it was never revealed who that was until now.
It turns out that Steve Di Giorgio, bassist for thrash metal icons Testament, stepped in to help out. “We obviously had that weird little… well, it wasn’t little, but we had something happen that we needed to make a decision on, and it set us back a little bit timing-wise,” Mustaine said on SiriusXM.
“Because we needed to recalibrate and find someone to perform the bass parts, and we found who I thought was the perfect fit for us while I decided what to do… Do you know who it was?… It was Steve Di Giorgio. You’re the first person I told.”
Mustaine continued by sharing his reasons for choosing Di Giorgio. “It was a good choice. I didn’t think about anybody else at the time. I was thinking about ‘who’s the hottest guy out there that can play these new songs?’ [My son] Justis told me one of the fastest songs we’ve ever written is on this record.
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I don’t care what anybody says — bass may be less strings than guitar, but it’s difficult to play, if you’re like me. I have a real hard time playing the bass. I wrote the riff for ‘Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?’ for Pete’s sake, but you know… having to jam some of those parts that fast, it just kills your fingers.”
Di Giorgio will be heard on The Sick, The Dying and The Dead – set for release on July 8th – but he won’t play the album’s songs with Megadeth on tour, with James LoMenzo returning to play bass on tour instead.
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Check out Steve Di Giorgio’s bass solo:
