Megadeth bassist David Ellefson recently revealed he was headed down to Nashville to begin recording the band's long-awaited new album. The album's sessions were delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and according to Ellefson, Megadeth had no interest in recording unless they were all together.
Ellefson recently told Epic Footnote that Megadeth considered recording in quarantine, but ultimately decided against it. He later adds that he feels the best Megadeth albums have been recorded as a band.
"We talked about it, but we don't wanna make a Megadeth record like that. This record, very much from the onset of it was… Once we got in a room together last summer, the Ozzy tour, at that point, it was postponed, [and] now, of course, it's canceled. We right away just regrouped and went, 'Let's get to Nashville and start working on this record. And let's be in a room with four guys and our engineer,' with Chris Rakestraw, who's co-producing the record with Dave, 'Let's get in a room and just be dudes in a room jamming.' We had a lot of ideas. A few of them were together. There was a lot of things sitting out there, and we just knew that being in a room, another three, four, five songs came together out of that process.
"I think the records that have resonated the best with the fans, some of the earlier stuff, are things that we recorded them as a band, we wrote them in a band room together — the old-school way, when you go to a jam room and start jamming. 'Cause there's just a spirit about that… At the end of the day, it's just good to be in the room and feeling like a band.
"The thing I've found is that when we're jamming a riff and I'm looking over and Dave's got his snarl and I'm fucking headbanging and our feet are spread and our fucking guitars are in between, when you see that in the room, it's like a confirmation that this is fucking great, this is rad," he added. "And when we feel it in the room, that same feeling goes to the stage and goes out to ten [or] fifteen [or] hundred thousand people that we're performing for. There's just that thing."
The new Megadeth album will be their first with guitarist Kiko Loureiro (ex-Angra) and drummer Dirk Verbeuren (ex-Soilwork, ex-Aborted, Cadaver).
