I also played with singer Tim “Ripper” Owens, whom I’d first met in 1998 when Judas Priest were supporting Megadeth in Monterrey and Mexico City—not the other way around, like it was on Rust in Peace back in 1990 to ’91. Tim was Priest’s singer at the time, and he seemed like a nice guy. Now, a few years later, Tim was a solo artist and a good neighbor in the heavy metal community.
During the winter NAMM show of 2008, Rock House Method wanted to put together an all-star heavy metal band for a jam at their annual event, which was at a club in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in Anaheim, California. So I called Jason Bittner of Shadows Fall, Rob Arnold from Chimaira, and Marc Rizzo from Soulfly to put a lineup together. Jason suggested getting Tim to sing, which is how that connection came about. We rehearsed some tunes the night before, but Tim couldn’t make the rehearsal, so at the show the next day he walked out onstage unrehearsed. We knocked out the tunes, though, and it sounded awesome. It was so good, and I was truly impressed with Tim’s ability to walk in and just nail the parts.
The following September, Mark Abbattista, a music business attorney and artist manager friend of mine, called me with an idea. He wanted to put a band together to tour in South America in January 2009. The idea was that famous guys would go down and play songs from the metal genre, in a group he wanted to call Hail! I told him I’d just worked with Ripper at NAMM and that he should be the singer, and Jimmy DeGrasso—who Mark also represented—should play drums. He also suggested Andreas Kisser of Sepultura, who represented the South American thrash contingent. It was a bold idea but one we felt would work with the right list of songs.
In January of 2009 we flew to Santiago, Chile, and put the plan into motion. We had a set list of about twenty songs and, sight unseen for Andreas, we plugged in and tore into “Ace of Spades.” It sounded great! It was so cool. We rehearsed for only a couple of days and did a little preview show the night before the tour. The fans absolutely loved it. It rocked my world, playing to the fans in Chile, and it seemed they were happy to see me again, too. The shows were great: there were six of them in five cities across the country, and it was one of the most fun tours I’ve ever done. We did Hail! tours all around the world after that.
Looking back at all this cool stuff makes me think. I realize now that my early years in Megadeth were not only tough, but they were the ones that would prepare me for the life to follow, too. The eight years away from the band, and the recent years in which I have been a member of Megadeth once more, have been my favorite years since I was eighteen, largely because of the experiences I had from 2002 to 2010, which really changed my life and my music. Who would ever have predicted that?
A THOUGHT
Inspirations
Over and over again, I’ve been shown that some of the best things that have ever happened to me were never my idea. They come to me in the form of a phone call or an e-mail, or I may simply run into someone out of the blue who asks for my participation in a project. I have to chalk this up to some type of faith that life will provide you with all you need.
I have also learned that when someone asks, the best response is yes. After all, they didn’t ask so I would say no. It keeps life fun and improvisational and keeps me on my toes. Isn’t that what living is all about?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MEGA Life!
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy: I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
—John 10:10
In the meantime, I maintained my sobriety, which remained my number-one priority. While doing so, I encountered other musicians whose paths had also led them into addiction.
Randy Blythe (Lamb of God):
The first time I met David was in Phoenix, when he was working for Peavey. He was backstage and my drummer, Chris Adler, a huge Megadeth fan, introduced me to him. We had a lovely talk. He’s a very well-rounded man who takes things as they come. You don’t see a lot of anxiety in him, which appeals to me.
I had a long struggle with alcohol. It can be a lonely place trying to stay sober when everyone else around you is partying, so when I want to know how to do something, I look to older, wiser people who have done it before. David is one of those guys. He’s been sober a long time, and he’s continued to play music. I talked about him with some other sober musicians, and they said, “He’s a good guy to talk to. He knows the deal.”
The fundamental question I ask myself is: What makes an addict an addict? What I’ve discovered is that it’s different for everybody. My sponsor Craig S. always said that trying to figure that out is like trying to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic. You’re going down, so get the heck off the ship! In other words, rather than throw another rock of crack into the crack pipe and sit and contemplate, get out of the crack house.
It has been written that when a substance goes into an alcoholic’s body, something happens that does not happen in a normal person: a phenomenon of craving develops and they’re off to the races. After they’ve gone on a few sprees and possibly been to jail, or gotten divorced, or been made homeless . . . they come to their senses and realize that they have to stop. A normal person would just stop before that point, if it ever got that bad. An alcoholic’s mind will justify their behavior because the lure of the bottle is so powerful that they have no defenses against it, and they keep going back to it.
So it’s a twofold thing: a physical addiction and a mental urge to return to the substance, sometimes even when the addict is already sober. That is where the recovery process comes in: it’s the spiritual medicine that fixes it. That’s why you can’t just give a pill to an alcoholic and say, “Take this and call me in the morning—everything should be better.” That was what I thought rehab was going to be: I thought they would give me the “don’t drink” pill and I’d be good to go. But it isn’t like that: the spiritual enlightenment and awakening that occurs is sudden for some people.
In Acts 9 of the New Testament, Paul witnesses a white light on the road to Damascus. He hates Christians and he kills them, and suddenly he experiences this light and he is completely transformed and born again in that moment. It’s as if the Holy Spirit tapped him and said, “You’re done doing that: I need you over on the winning team!” I realized that alcoholics and addicts get tapped, too. This can occur through a “come to Jesus” vision or through a slower, more educational experience—in my case, one that took place over an eighteen-month period, from 1988 to 1990.
I came to believe and then I walked away from my drink and my drugs. I had a week of sobriety, then a month, and then a year. Over time I was transformed. We all need to be transformed in order to defeat our addictions. We learn new disciplines to replace the old ones. It takes work: it’s not enough to simply sit at home and say, “Isn’t this great? I’m saved! I’m good to go.” No. We need prayer and instruction and fellowship. We need all of those things, because they form the process of recovery.
Are we all addicts? Well, my pastor would argue that we’re all addicts to sin. Each of us has some form of hang-up in our lives, our cross to bear, if you will. For some it may be greed or lust. For others it’s work. Others seek to avoid confrontation. You can fill in your own blank. I agree with my pastor on one level; however, I think that a chemical addiction lies outside that realm, because drugs and alcohol were never meant to be put into our bodies in the first place. We can clearly do without those things.
In my case, my early sponsors approached my behavior not as a sin but as a misalignment of my natural qualities. This misalignment occurs in many instances. For example, money is given to us so that we can provide for our families and be self-sustaining, but used selfishly it leads to greed, which is selfish. Every one of the seven deadly sins is basically a naturally occurring quality in humans that is abused and becomes a sin. Sin can simply be described as something that separates us from our Creator and our fellows. In other words, we play God because we are deluded enough to think that we know better, and that we can handle
it on our own.
We all become a product of our environment. Drugs and booze are everywhere when you’re in a rock band. Some people have to get off the road and even out of the business entirely to save themselves, because it’s an environment that takes them down every time they get into it. My personal experience that I refer back to is the time I got started playing bass when I was eleven years old. Did I do it for sex and drugs? No. I did it for my love of rock ’n’ roll. I fell into those other things along the way, and I definitely needed spiritual help to get out of them and remain out of them.
In the Bible, there is also talk of spiritual warfare amongst us. It declares that this war is fought in the heavenly realms and that it is between God and Satan. However, those attacks are made toward us. Whether you subscribe to that belief or not, it certainly explains a lot of otherwise unexplainable stuff. In Ephesians 6 it says that we should put on the full armor of the Lord so that we will be protected. For me, that is the right approach. I get up each morning and put on the protection of the Lord, because I know from personal experience that the enemy is out there waiting.
When I’m physically fit, I’m healthy: when I’m spiritually fit, I’m healthy. If I fall short in either of those things, it’s easy to get off track. I have a responsibility to stay fit on both levels, so I’m covered. Addiction is selfish: it’s all about wanting to feel good right now, so you say, “Hand me the joint,” to get immediate gratification. Recovery is all about letting that process do for you slowly what the dope does quickly. More than that, it is about serving others, so as much as I might want to do something to feel good right now, my ultimate responsibility now is first and foremost to my sobriety, which is obedience to the Creator. This aligns the will to do His bidding on this planet. From there, we can serve our other purposes. I do my best to align them as God, family, work. Those are the priorities I’ve learned work best.
For me, prayer is huge. It is the one method of spiritual communication I’ve seen work wonders in my life. So I pray every day, wherever I am in the world. In the beginning, I didn’t know who or what I was praying to, but things started to happen. Skeptical though I was, the evidence ruled against my doubts.
Part of any spiritual awakening is the journey itself. That journey usually includes seeking out fellowship with like-minded believers. This is what led me back to the doors of the church, if for no other reason than for my family to have a home with God.
These days, I find that modern church culture is fantastic. It is much different from what it was when I was growing up. Nowadays it is tied in with social media and with cool, uplifting rock music. For people of my age it needed to make that shift to remain relevant. In fact, that musical shift inside the church came from people of my age, many of whom are musicians who have toured and played out, gotten married, grown up, and realized that at some point, they can bring their guitar or bass into church and continue to rock out for a different cause. Even better, in church you don’t have hecklers, and you can bring your wife and kids, because no one’s drinking beer, throwing up, and spewing vulgarities at you. It has really expanded in that direction.
I have become good friends with a number of Christian musicians, one of whom is Jesse Reeves, who plays bass with the singer-songwriter Chris Tomlin.
Jesse Reeves (bassist, Chris Tomlin’s band):
I first met David in the mid-2000s at a Christian music summit in Seattle. The worship leader pointed him out to me and told me his name was David. I looked over at him and said, “Is that David Ellefson from Megadeth?” He was like, “You know who he is?” and I said, “Man, I grew up listening to him!”
The Bible tells us to be a light in a lost world, and the danger of that is that you have to be in that lost world. You have to immerse yourself in it. Sadly, more times than not, the world brings the Christian down, instead of letting the Christian raise up the world, and what I’ve come to appreciate about Ellefson is that he is really trying to make a difference in the world. I have nothing but respect for him.
Here’s a quick footnote from history which I find fascinating. In 1517, the German theologian Martin Luther challenged the political agenda of the Catholic priesthood, which taught at the time that believers could buy their way into heaven. Luther went back to Scripture, read it, and declared that the church was doing it all wrong. They were not following what Jesus said. Instead, they were really using it for their own political and personal gain.
That was the start of the Reformation, the Protestant movement, and the origins of the Lutheran Church. This process extended when people such as my ancestors in the Ellefson family began to migrate en masse from northern Europe to North America in the seventeenth century. They brought their religion with them, in much the same way that Irish and Italian immigrants brought Catholicism with them.
Speaking of this development, there is a board of elders at our church, and at one point they wanted to elect me to be an elder. At that time I couldn’t do it because I was traveling so much. A few years later, they asked me again and I was able to say yes. I was brought in as an elder for a two-year term. I was initially reluctant because I didn’t know what it entailed, although they turned out to be a pretty relaxed bunch of guys. In fact, one of the first meetings took place at a Mexican restaurant and these guys put away quite a bit of beer. It was cool, though: these people weren’t alcoholics and they were perfectly entitled to a beer with their chips if they wanted one.
I believe, as Luther did, that the Bible speaks the truth, and that is why I was honored in 2006 when Pastor Jon Bjorgaard of the Shepherd of the Desert Lutheran Church and School asked me to lead a new contemporary worship group. He knew about my history in the rock world and also about my life in the Christian community, and he suggested the name MEGA Life!, an obvious play on my former band name as well as the basis in scripture of John 10:10.
Pastor Jon Bjorgaard (Shepherd of the Desert Lutheran Church, Scottsdale, Arizona):
David and I began MEGA Life! as a Sunday-evening service. As it grew, after a year and a half or so, we moved it to Sunday morning. He has a real passion for helping people who are struggling with addiction and he is very involved in mentoring and sponsoring people. The area of ministry that we’re looking for him to work in is community outreach, where we connect the church with the outside world. It’s been really interesting to watch David travel the world with his band and sponsor people while he’s away.
David is a great guy: he’s one of the most genuine people you could ever meet. Sometimes I forget about his celebrity status: we’ll go out to lunch, and people will walk up to the table and ask for his autograph. Ours is a pretty conservative denomination, and he’s not really from the typical mold—which is a good thing, in my opinion, because that will help us to reach out to people who we wouldn’t normally reach. He has a wonderful family, too: his wife and kids are fantastic.
I didn’t grow up listening to Megadeth: I was more into mainstream groups like Foreigner. But I’ve become a Megadeth fan through David: I really like some of their music. The vast majority of the congregation are very supportive of the fact that he plays in the band. It’s a great thing for our church. He brings in a new perspective.
I was honored, of course, although I was a little worried that Megadeth fans would consider it a bit dorky that I had gone from playing bass in stadiums to playing bass in church. My human pride kicked in a little there, I suppose, but I realized that anyone who would want me to stay in the same spiritual place of addiction that I had previously occupied is not someone whose approval I needed anyway. That was a revelation to me, and it took a long time for me to get there.
I started the new MEGA Life! group, holding auditions for musicians. On the first day of auditions, Julie and my kids came rushing into the church and told me that my mother had suffered a severe stroke back in Minnesota. She was only seventy-two years old. She had survived it, but she was at the hospital back in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I immediately booked a fligh
t and flew up to see her. My mother had been somewhat of a shining star in VH1’s Behind the Music special on Megadeth for her sweet candor. When she had her stroke, a friend put the word out to the metal community, and we were showered with prayers and thoughtful words to her from the fans. It was truly a touching moment. Within a week, she’d taken up residence in the same nursing home where she had worked for the twenty years since I’d left home, back in Jackson, Minnesota.
My pastor told me when I came back to Arizona that when the Lord decides to do something like the MEGA Life! project, Satan tries his hardest to distract leaders away from him. Not that my mother’s stroke was an act of Satan, but rather that it could be a distraction for me to not pursue the worship service. That was the first time I really connected the personal issues of spiritual warfare that I mentioned earlier.
As the MEGA Life! leader, I was on the church staff for about three years, and I learned many things. I realized that to people who don’t go to church, it can seem from the outside like a bunch of self-righteous, flawless people who run the place. Well, I’m here to tell you something: it isn’t just the holy who go to church! All of us have earned our place there, including the sickest of the sick. Ironically, as a supposed rock star and heavy metal guy, I was able to enter the church with a fairly practical approach to it, not trying to be grandiose and using it as a platform for my own notoriety. My approach was much more street level.
The benefits of attending church are many. When I was growing up, my life was a lot more stable and I felt a lot less fear. I felt better about myself and my place in the world as a regular churchgoer. That feeling of safety has come back to me in my adult life from my church attendance. I didn’t realize this a few years ago, though. My feelings about church were that it was culturally irrelevant, that it was dated, and that it was for my parents’ generation, not mine. Then, like I said, the church reinvented itself, and that was something that I wanted to continue with MEGA Life!
My Life With Deth Page 17