Good news on the Megadeth front. The band is finally getting back in the studio to work on a brand new album.
During an interview with The Metal Circus, bassist David Ellefson revealed that he had been in Nashville, TN working with the band on the album’s initial recording sessions.
“Recording happens in various stages,” Ellefson told the program. “First, the basic tracks, which, for us, is bass and drums. And then the rhythm guitars, and then starting to put some vocals down and solos and all the embellishments of extra guitars and whatever layers of melody and stuff. The main thing, the first thing we wanted to get done was drums and bass, so me and Dirk [Verbeuren, drums] were working on that this last week.”
According to Ellefson, the band has been writing the album since 2017:
“So, look, it’s underway. I think that’s the good news now — the album is officially underway. We’ve been writing it since late 2017 — our last show was in Buenos Aires, Argentina back in November of 2017. And then the intention from there was just to get started composing. But it’s on its way — the ship is sailing, which is great.”
Asked if fans could expect something different or more experimental from the band, Ellefson said,
“There’s a saying, you have your whole life to write your first record, and then you have about a year to write your second one. And once you put the first one out, the die is cast — now there is sort of a sound that people expect when they hear the next record. And if album two is too much of a departure, people go, ‘Eh, this is kind of weird. I like the first one better.’ And I think with Megadeth, this is album sixteen, so we have a lot of experience doing this. We’ve been able to expand and try a lot of different things.”
“Look, there’s been some missteps — of course — but you have to also, in our opinion, be bold and be adventurous and try some new things. If you just do what you always did, it’s, like, why put out another album? Everybody can just go buy the previous one. You’re dealing with the creative. Yeah, there’s business and there’s marketing and all this stuff. But [it’s called the] music business. We’re dealing with music; the business always comes after the music. So I think for us, what we find is that when we’re in a room and we’re playing something, and if we’re all going, ‘Yeah, that’s freaking awesome,’ if we like it, chances are you’re all gonna like it.”
News confirming the recording of a new Megadeth album came back in December 2019 when frontman Dave Mustaine teased that the band had a handful of “heavy as hell” new songs lined up. The band was supposed to start recording on the album in earnest following their appearance at Hell & Heaven Festival, but pandemic hit and derailed their plans. In early May, the band gave fans hope that the album was back on track when they posted photos of Mustaine recording vocals.
Megadeth released their last album, Dystopia, in 2016. The new album will be the band’s sixteenth studio album and first to feature new drummer Dirk Verbeuren.
The band was supposed to head out on a summer North American tour with Lamb of God, Trivium and In Flames, however those dates are being rescheduled for 2021. A second leg of that tour is still slated to begin on October 2 in West Palm Beach, FL.
