By Meltdown | 101 WRIF
Sometimes when I talk to Ellefson, I just gotta hit record. Otherwise, we’ll burn an hour talking off the cuff and miss all the good stuff. This time around? He didn’t disappoint. We dove straight into road stories, one incredible grunge discovery, and what life looks like after Megadeth.
Ellefson shares never-before-heard stories from the road—including how Alice in Chains went from a forgotten opener to Clash of the Titans—and opens up about Lane Staley, staying clean on tour, and how he’s found peace in music today.
Plus: What it was like creating a legacy project for his late bandmate, the spirit of songwriting, and why Ellefson is saying “yes” to everything in this new chapter of his life.
👉 Hit subscribe for more interviews like this from 101 WRIF – Detroit’s Rock Station.
🎸 Kings of Thrash is hitting the road this fall—don’t miss it!
#DavidEllefson #Megadeth #NickMenza #AliceInChains #MetalInterview #WRIF #Meltdown #KingsOfThrash" />
“What the hell is Alice in Chains?”
David Ellefson walked me through the moment Megadeth first stumbled into Alice in Chains. “We’re in Zurich, Switzerland, it’s 1991. We’re fried. We’ve been to New York, Brazil, Japan, Hawaii—hell, Dave got married in Hawaii—and then Europe,” Ellefson said. “Our opener was this unknown band called Alice in Chains. We hadn’t even watched them for like six weeks.”
Then came the lightbulb moment.
“We’re in the dressing room, they start playing upstairs and we go, ‘Let’s go check ’em out.’ And we’re like… Holy shit. These guys are amazing. They looked like lumberjacks out of Narnia, but they were the real deal.”
That night changed everything. They immediately called their manager. “We found the band for Clash of the Titans. This is it.” Soon enough, Alice in Chains was touring alongside Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth.
“They earned their bones on that tour,” Ellefson recalled. “Our fans were throwing rocks at them. Not cool—but thrash fans like thrash. Alice had to earn it.”
“Rehab? In Europe?!”
Ellefson also remembered Lane Staley walking into that tour looking like a new man. “Blonde hair, high and tight. I go, ‘You look awesome, man!’ And Lane says, ‘Yeah… I was in rehab.’ For heroin. I was like, ‘Wait… you guys were on heroin when you were in Europe?!’”
That opened a deeper door into understanding the Seattle scene—and Lane’s struggles.
“Me and Dave invited him to hang with us. We were both clean, and we told him—‘If you need a place to crash, to get away, you’re welcome here.’ They were young, drinking and raging, doing what young bands do. But that dude had soul.”
Post-Megadeth: “I’m not doing this for a paycheck”
These days, Ellefson’s calendar is packed—but not out of necessity.
“I don’t have to work another day in my life. I’m financially good. I do this for fun now,” he told me.
From forming Kings of Thrash to writing songs in the car, Dave’s in his “Yes Man” era—saying yes to projects just to keep the fire burning. “Al Pitrelli told me back in 2002, ‘Say yes to everything.’ And it stuck. The phone rings because people want you to say yes.”
He’s got riffs, lyrics, even full songs stored in his iPhone. “I woke up this morning and started typing lyrics before I got out of bed. Just inspired.”
The dude even prefers to tour in vans now. “No buses. I like to drive myself. You see more of the world, and honestly—I drive better than most limo drivers.”
📍 Stay tuned for Part Two where we dig into the Nick Menza documentary, rare footage, and why Ellefson sees this as a personal gift to the Menza family.
