Four years awaited, the 16th album from Megadeth is well underway, and bassist David Ellefson says it’s going to be “an intense record.”
Speaking with Full Metal Jackie radio show, bassist David Ellefson chatted about the heavy metal collectives follow-up album to 2016’s Dystopia.
“It’s interesting. Dystopia, I think, really reset the band. I think we really found the sweet spot, the centre of the band again. And a lot of that was helped by Chris Adler from Lamb Of God, who played drums on that record.”
He continued to say that the addition of Kiko Louriero as a new guitar player also “really helped to bring a different perspective,” stating “That thought pattern has now continued forward with this new record, again with Kiko, and now with our new drummer, Dirk Verbeuren.”
With Megadeth currently working on their 16th album, Ellefson notes that the biggest challenge is “to not ever repeat ourselves — to not repeat the lyrics, not repeat the same theme, not repeat the same riffs or note patterns.”
“And that’s actually kind of one of the bigger challenges — to not go to the comfort zone of repeating yourself. That certainly has been a challenge that I think we’ve certainly successfully met.”
As for what’s to come with the new tunes, Ellefson noted that their 16th album is “an intense record” stating: “I think there’s a sense of fun about some of the songs too, in a way that some of the stuff that I think you probably would hear back in, like, maybe Countdown To Extinction — records that were very obviously serious thematically and have the impact that you would expect from a Megadeth lyric theme, but also some cool, fun stuff that is…”
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As COVID-19 broke out world wide, Ellefson previously stated that their upcoming record would be a bit behind as the band refused to work remotely. He claimed you lose part of the magic that’s created being in the same room together.
On that note, he spoke that working on this new record, the intensity “came from the spirit of the four of us being in a room putting this record together.”
Currently, there is no set finishing date for the album, but in 2019, Ellefson stated that the new record was likely slated for a 2020 release.
Check out David Ellefson of Megadeth chatting on Full Metal Jackie:
