Former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson recently sat down with The Jasta Show and talked about his Megadeth times and how everything is with Kings of Thrash. When it was asked if David ever hit Marty Friedman up as his former Megadeth bandmate and invited him to play with Kings of Thrash, he simply answered:
“No, I didn’t call him.”
He then explained why he refrains from meeting Marty on the grounds of Megadeth:
“‘Cause, look, when Marty quit, he just walked away. He washed his hands of Megadeth. I mean, he left his money on the table. He just didn’t turn back. It was not, like, ‘Hey, you f*ckers better pay me.’ I mean, nothing. He just literally walked out the door. That was it. He was gone, and he just washed his hands of the whole thing. So, yeah, Marty and I are friends, and we never talk about Megadeth— ever.”
David also described his relationship with Friedman, stating he doesn’t bring work into their friendship:
“I asked him one time about playing something. And he’s kind of more my — he’s my buddy. We don’t really talk about music that much. We kind of check-in, ‘Hey, what’s happening? How’s in Japan?’ And we don’t really talk business… So I intentionally didn’t hit him because I didn’t think he’d be interested.”
In an interview in March, Marty Friedman talked about his reunion with Megadeth in the Nippon Budokan Arena on February 27, and explained how it happened:
“The timing was perfect. Budokan is like 20 minutes from where I live, and everything has been good between me and Dave for as long as I can remember. When he brought it up to me, it just seemed like such a perfect ‘Yes. Let’s just do it. Let’s destroy it.’ It was great.”
In the same interview, Friedman also talked about his relationship with Dave Mustaine:
“Oh, it’s great. It’s always been great. I think if anything if there was ever any kind of weirdness, it was probably in the minds of the people who are fans or just people who are reading media things.”
Kings of Thrash will be playing in California on December 14 and 16.
You can watch the whole interview below.