What do you do when you’re a prolific, talented, hard working musician, songwriter and record label owner, stuck at home during a pandemic, along with lots of your rock and roll pals? Well, besides doing some tidying up around the house, practicing your instrument, maybe doing a little writing, you pull these pals together to record some kick ass versions of some of your favourite songs, release it on your own label, and offer it to the world as a beautifully badass tonic to the tough times we’re all enduring
Such was the thinking behind the second album under the Ellefson brand, No Cover, released on Combat Records, an imprint of the EMP Label Group headed up by long-time Megadeth bassist and now established multifaceted entrepreneur, David Ellefson. The album is set to be released on Oct. 2 in both digital and physical formats.
No Cover is a unique collection of songs, in that the bands represented are super famous and incredibly influential, but Ellefson and his pals chose songs that were from deeper in those band’s catalogues, rather than simply going for well known hits – with the exception of Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell, Nazareth’s Love Hurts and Kiss’s best known ballad, Beth.
“In a couple of places, we embellished things, but the arrangements are all true to form. It was important that we really honour these songs for what they are. I didn’t want to get into a bunch of drop tunings and trying to out metal every other metal band. I didn’t want to do that. These are great songs and great songs don’t need to be adjusted. They’re just great songs and quite honestly when you pick up the guitar and record them as they are, these songs replay themselves so naturally, which is, I think, the beauty of the collection of material that we put on this record,” Ellefson explained.
“We didn’t want to go for the obvious. We didn’t want to just do Breaking the Law and all the sort of bar standards. We wanted to really dig into some songs that had some impact on me and Thom and things that impacted our lives”
Some of the songs covered include the lead-off track, Freewheel Burning by Judas Priest, early Twisted Sister barnburner Tear it Loose, the album’s first single, Wasted, from Def Leppard’s debut album, On Through the Night, Say What You Will from underrated 1980s band Fastway, WASP powerhouse Love Machine, Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack and Krokus hit Eat the Rich.
The decision to record an album of covers came about quickly in response to what was happening to the music industry, and the wider world, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. After the release of the first Ellefson album in 2019, which was essentially a number of reconstituted and revitalized songs from Ellefson’s archives, he and musical partner in crime, co-writer and vocalist Thom Hazaert, wanted to release an album of all-original material, which they worked on throughout the past year or so.
But the timing was not the most propitious, and the original album idea was shelved to be released early next year, hopefully in a post-pandemic environment. Wanting to keep the momentum from the Sleeping Giants album going, Ellefson thought about releasing a few fun covers, just to whet fans’ appetites.
“This album was a totally impromptu conversation between me and Thom over the phone. I had just come home from Nashville in early June recording the new Megadeth album, and Thom and I already had an Ellefson record in the works to release in October of this year. We just looked at the calendar and said, ‘we’re not going to be able to tour; we’re not going to be able to support this thing. It will probably just end up falling through the cracks and nothing will happen.’ We decided why waste all that energy we put into these new songs, and I remember we both said at the same time, why don’t we just do some covers. What seemed, initially, like it might only be an EP, suddenly turned into all these songs. We just couldn’t stop: every day we would come up with three or four more songs,” Ellefson said, adding that from inception to final mix, the No Cover album took about six weeks to complete – no mean feat considering half of Ellefson’s band and his producer live in Italy, and also considering the prodigious number of guest artists appearing on the 18 tracks comprising the album.
“Quite honestly, most of the recording happened over two to three weeks to get most of it done, and then after that it was just little production things and mixing. This was a total labour of love, super fun and everybody that participated on it had the same feeling and same response when we asked them to be part of it, ‘sure I’d love to do something. Count me in.’ I think the reason why it was so much fun and turned out so great was because we all had this pure passion of wanting to be working, wanting to do something, to be productive. And this is just one odd moment in our generation where I think this kind of record was able to bring so many different people together. I mean, first, we’re all available because of the lockdown and secondly, we’re all creative people are we’re just jonesing and aching to be working and playing music. So suddenly you consider working with people you might not have ever considered working with before.
“And the music business is so different today. If you think about it, we sort of did a We Are the World of heavy metal on this record by bringing all these people together. If we had tried to do this back in the 1980s or 1990s, there would have been record label executives, managers, producers, hundreds of thousands of dollars in studio costs, first-class flights, putting people up at the Hyatt Regency and the Ritz Carleton. It would have been everything you can think of when it comes to excessive major label rock stardom. Today, everybody is kind of DIY again, everybody has a home studio because we realize we all have to be much more independent. The big money and those big, high glossy record deals are gone for most everybody. It’s kind of funny how right now we have the ability to make a record like this, and that contractually everybody is available to do it, and logistically people are able to do it, even in a pandemic.”
The idea for the first Ellefson album last year has been in gestation for some time and came along just a couple of years after Ellefson and some business associates developed a new label, EMP Label Group as well as Ellefson Music Productions. He also opened Ellefson Coffee Co., in his hometown of Jackson, Minnesota in 2017, and also in 2019, joined with Hazaert created Ellefson Films, which produced the low-budget horror film Dwellers.
All of these different ventures are aspects not only of Ellefson’s business acumen and desire to have a number of revenue streams independent of his work with Megadeth, but they are also important creative outlets that allow him to express himself with that same sense of independence.
“Obviously for 20 years I did one thing exclusively and that was Megadeth and to build a group like that to the heights we were able to take it you have to be 100 per cent fully committed. But then there came a season where the group had essentially disbanded and ceased to exist, and that just sort of forced me out into the wilderness to start considering new opportunities. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do because I only thought of my life as being in one band forever, you know. You’re a band of brothers until death do us part, so that was such an unexpected moment when we disbanded in 2002,” he explained.
“So, once I snapped out of it, I started doing some other things. I went to college, I was doing artist relations for Peavey and then I had this little band called F5 that formed in Phoenix where I lived, and then I started getting calls to do other records and work with other artists. Most were just little independents but sometimes they were bigger. It was at the beginning of the new model for the music business where you the artist make the master recording and they you go licence it, rather than getting under contract to a record company and using their money to make a record for them. It was the beginning of the new world that we’re living in.
“And that was really good for me because it got me thinking differently because you now think about owning more of your own music and I think it inspired me to be a much more prolific creator of music, writing and collaborating and guesting with people on things, like playing with Soulfly and various other things I did. I rejoined Megadeth in 2010 and we are not only still making new music but of course we have this big catalogue that fans want to see us play. For me, it’s really a beautiful scenario to be able to be in Megadeth but also have my nose to the grindstone with a really young, open mindset of what is actually current and new in the music industry and seeing what it’s really like for young upstart bands. I have a foot in both worlds, and I think it keeps my hustle muscle good. I think it’s very inspiring. It keeps me from getting lazy and complacent and it makes me always wake up every morning going, ‘okay, what are we going to do today.”
EMP and Combat Records, his two main label brands, feature many of those up and coming artists, but also material by veteran acts such as Mark Slaughter and Madam X. In both instances, these are creator constituencies who are being ignored by the mainstream label milieu.
“We’re a pipeline, we’re a way to connect people and keep the pipeline flowing because every day we get calls from people who are stuck at some point in the process. For the veteran guys, they say, ‘I’ve got this record and I don’t know what to do now. I can’t go to the labels because they’re not going to sign me because I am not 19.’ For new bands it’s more like, ‘we need money.’ We formed EMP to create a connection to keep that pipeline flowing because, and I know this from personal experience, nothing is more frustrating that working so hard and so passionately on a record and then you leave the studio and go outside it’s like, ‘okay, now what am I going to do with this.’ To see your dream slip away and die just outside the studio door is such a sad thing. I’ve had it happen to me and you just walk around the music industry with your tin cup out, practically begging for someone to help you and give you a record deal. With our label, we wanted to remove those stumbling blocks, so we offer a handful of different options with our deals to help people be in the game, stay in the game and be engaged. As long as you’ve got a pipeline to get your music out, it opens up all the rest of it. Now you can perform, now you can have merchandise – you can tell the rest of your story. But you have to get that story out first and that’s what this label has been designed to do.”
It’s also a vehicle for Ellefson and Hazaert to indulge their own creativity and have control of their own output. And indulge themselves they did with No Cover, which features 18 wonderful arranged and kick ass versions of 1970s and 1980s hard rock and metal tunes, but also an impressive array of guest artists, joining Ellefson’s core band, which includes Hazaert on vocals, Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal (Guns N Roses, Sons of Apollo) and Andy Martongelli, and drummer Paolo Caridi.
The list is a who’s who of modern metal and hard rock, from Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante, Twisted Sister axeman Eddie Ojeda, Frank Hannon and Troy Lucketta of Tesla, Mark Slaughter, Andrew Freeman (Last In Line), Ministry’s Al Jourgensen, Greek guitar master Gus G, Canadian bassist/vocalist Todd ‘Dammit’ Kerns (Age of Electric, Slash), and three former members of Megadeth: Dirk Verbeuren, Chuck Behler and original second guitarist Greg Handevidt, among many others.
For Ellefson, one of the highlights was to be able to cover Motorhead’s Love Me Like A Reptile alongside German metal legend Doro Pesch, a long-time friend of late great Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister.
“To work with Doro was great. We toured with her in 1988 on the So Far So Good So What tour and she had a Warlock record out at the time. We just reconnected again on the Mega-Cruise back in October. She was part of the big all-star jam we did on the boat. It was so cool to reconnect with her and do that song because she was such a good friend of Lemmy. And my childhood friend Greg Handevidt was on the record and I called him and said, ‘hey man, do you want to sing and play guitar on an old Motorhead song we used to do as teenagers?’ It was so cool to have him involved in this,” said Ellefson.
“He moved to California with me from Minnesota in 1983 and it was his idea to call the band Megadeth. He is actually a co-founder of the band with me and Dave [Mustaine]. It was the three of us that really got Megadeth going and off the ground. Five days after we graduated from high school me, Greg and a couple of our buddies packed up everything and moved to L.A. We met Dave just a few days later.”
Returning to the subject of some of the songs chosen to be covered, Canadian rock fans will be absolutely delighted to learn that Bachman Turner Overdrive is represented on the record, with Ellefson and his pals, including Icon’s John Aquilino, doing an exceptional cover of Not Fragile. Ellefson waxed eloquent on the importance BTO had on his own interest in rock music, and how they were a definite influence in him becoming a professional musician.
“Not Fragile was the very first record that got me into doing all that I am doing now. A friend of mine in grade school, I think it was literally the fifth grade, had the vinyl gatefold version of the album and I saw the band photo inside and I saw C.F. [Fred] Turner playing his Rickenbacker bass and I said, ‘I just want to do that,’ because I thought he was the coolest guy in the band. I have since gotten to jam with Randy Bachman at NAMM some years back. It’s great to meet your heroes and they turn out to be so cool and you get to have musical experiences with them. With Not Fragile, the needle drops and then you have this badass bass line opening the record, which never happens, and that was a big moment for me,” he said.
“That song came out in 1974 and I think that might be the year that Thom was born, and he was like, ‘dude, I never even heard that song before,’ and it turned out to be one of his favourite songs on the record. So, throughout the whole process I just started riffing song ideas and I just went for songs that I liked, that were influential for me. Like Sheer Heart Attack. Obviously, Queen is super popular again because of the Freddie Mercury movie and all the stuff that they’re doing. But for me, I always loved Sheer Heart Attack. Roger Taylor wrote it and he played guitar on it. It just this really f**king down picking punk rock song that has these incredible layered harmonies. But I remember asking Thom, who could sing it, because I would love to do the song. And he said, ‘dude, Bumblefoot.’ So Bumblefoot made that song a reality, vocally.”
“With Wasted, me and Greg Handevidt used to play that song in our teenaged bands too. I remember our drummer at the time bringing that record into rehearsal. We rehearsed in a shed on my family farm where I grew up. And I remember he was so excited when he brought it in. He was like, ‘man, this drummer Rick Allen is only 16 years old, and listen to that stutter kick on his bass drum.’ Def Leppard really helped give me the life that I have now, because I saw that it was actually possible to do, because these guys had done it and they were so young. And for the cover of this album, we did an homage to the cover of [Def Leppard’s] On Through The Night but put my bass on the semi truck. We did it to honour them saying ‘you guys basically brought this to my level and made a teenaged kid rehearsing in a shed on a farm in Minnesota believe.’ They hand delivered my dream in a way that it suddenly could become a reality. And that song is so cool and at the time they were also part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal right there with Motorhead and the Iron Maiden records were also coming. It was a whole new scene that just spoke to me and of course when we started Megadeth, we were basically part of the next generation behind the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, along with the other Big 4 [Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax.]”
With No Cover able to keep the Ellefson name and brand front and centre, the new original studio album is set to be released in the spring of 2021. As well, Megadeth’s long-awaited new album is also expected to make an appearance sometime next year.
“We’re in the middle of getting the basic tracks done. It’s nice that it’s up and running and we got together to get that train out of the station and get it moving. So that’s definitely in motion now, even with the pandemic,” Ellefson said, adding that his solo band has some dates tentatively scheduled for the end of October and into November in Texas and Louisiana, with a tour of Japan bumped back to February 2021, and a jaunt through Europe being put together for the spring.
“We have not yet brough Ellefson up to Canada, but I really want to. And hey, maybe I can hook up with Randy Bachman again. I played American Woman and Takin’ Care of Business with him and I brought in [Alice Cooper stalwart] Jimmy DeGrasso on drums because I knew he would walk in sight unseen and nail the gig, which he did. That was one of those moments where I really studied the songs, every nuance, every detail, because this is my hero I’m playing for. And I know what it’s like when fans come into something like a rock and roll fantasy camp or they come up and join me at a clinic, I know how nervous they are because I have been that guy in my own career. I met Fred Turner for the first time in 1993 when I went to see them with [former Megadeth guitarist] Marty Friedman, which was a really cool moment too,” he said.
For more information on No Cover, other EMP projects, visit www.davidellefson.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for nearly 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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