BLABBERMOUTH.NET
Dave Mustaine says that he is "thrilled" about the return of bassist
James LoMenzo to the
MEGADETH ranks.
LoMenzo joined
MEGADETH in 2006 and appeared on two of the group's studio albums, 2007's
"United Abominations" and 2009's
"Endgame". He was fired from the band in 2010 and replaced with returning original
MEGADETH bassist
David Ellefson.
In addition to
MEGADETH,
LoMenzo has played with
Ozzy Osbourne,
Zakk Wylde and
WHITE LION. For the past nine years,
LoMenzo has been performing with iconic rocker
John Fogerty.
LoMenzo played his first show with
MEGADETH in nearly 12 years last August in Austin, Texas. The concert took place three months following
Ellefson's dismissal from
MEGADETH after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving him were posted on
Twitter.
During an appearance on this past Wednesday's (March 30) episode of
SiriusXM's
"Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk",
Mustaine discussed
MEGADETH's reunion with
LoMenzo, saying (as transcribed by
BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I'm thrilled. I think he's a really awesome person to have in
MEGADETH. He was when we tried it the first time. And for whatever reason that things happen, things happened and we took a little sabbatical from playing [together]. And when things happened as they did, it was obvious to me that I needed to get a super kickass bass player to come in and cut all the tracks and learn 'em in relatively no time, because we were in the studio already, so I needed to get somebody that could really do all that stuff. And I hadn't made up my mind on
James yet. So I ended up asking a super, super legendary bass player in the metal community,
Steve DiGiorgio. I asked him if he would come in and guest on the [upcoming
MEGADETH] record and help me to finish the record and cut bass parts. So he came out, and that was really wonderful to hear his interpretation of my songs and the stuff that
Kiko [
Loureiro,
MEGADETH guitarist] and
Dirk [
Verbeuren,
MEGADETH drummer] and I, the stuff that we're starting to write together; we're starting to really develop our chemistry. And
I like it because there's elements with
Dirk and his writing that obviously remind me a lot of [late
MEGADETH drummer]
Gar [
Samuelson]. But he's actually a really good rhythm guitar player too, and that reminds me
a lot of the
'Peace Sells' era. Because each one of the guys grew up with a different era of
MEGADETH, so they've all got their
MEGADETH. Like,
Chris Adler [the former
LAMB OF GOD drummer who played on
MEGADETH's 2016 album
'Dystopia'] had said to me once before, 'This is my
MEGADETH.'"
Asked by host
Eddie Trunk if having different people in
MEGADETH over the course of the last 40 years has been a benefit in terms of keeping the band recharged and refreshed or if he would have preferred it if
MEGADETH could have been composed of the same four guys the whole time,
Mustaine said: "Well, I think that the answer is… It's a very complicated answer to a really simple question. For me, what I probably would say the short answer is have the same people the whole time, the ones that I've grown to love the most and that are the easiest to get along with, that have the most common view to mine and have guys that are willing to constantly improve themselves.
"One of the things that we do backstage,
Eddie — I know you've seen this with me; we've been friends for so long, and there's been so many concerts we've hung out backstage," the
MEGADETH leader continued. "Part of my routine, for your listeners, is before we go onstage, we have the crew guys come backstage, and before we hit the deck, we go over a couple of songs; each night it's a couple of different songs. We change the setlist, hopefully, every night, but we're constantly in review. So once we get to the very last song,
'Holy Wars', and we've gone over that with our soundman and our engineers and so on, we start all over again. And I think that's something that if we had the same guys the whole time, for familiarity and security and steadiness for the fans, and they were constantly trying to improve themselves, that would be the perfect scenario."
MEGADETH's new album,
"The Sick, The Dying, And The Dead", is tentatively due on July 8. The follow-up to
"Dystopia" features a cover of
DEAD KENNEDYS'
"Police Truck" and
Sammy Hagar's
"This Planet's On Fire", the latter of which includes vocals from
Hagar himself.
DiGiorgio is widely renowned as a pioneer on the fretless bass in heavy metal music, having played with
TESTAMENT,
DEATH and
SADUS, among others. Within his genre,
Steve is respected for his playing skills, versatility and incredible technique. He has more than 40 studio album recordings and over 20 years of touring the world.
Three months ago,
Mustaine confirmed that
James LoMenzo will play bass for
MEGADETH when the band returns to the road in April for the second U.S. leg of
"The Metal Tour Of The Year". Joining them will be co-headliners
LAMB OF GOD along with special guests
TRIVIUM and
IN FLAMES.
Ellefson laid down his bass tracks on
MEGADETH's sixteenth LP in May 2020 at a studio in Nashville, Tennessee. A short time later, he raved about his performance on the record, telling the
96.7 KCAL-FM radio program
"Wired In The Empire" that his musical chemistry with
Verbeuren was comparable to the interplay between
Geddy Lee and
Neil Peart on classic
RUSH albums. "I feel like on the new
MEGADETH record, me and
Dirk have those same moments," he said. "It's
MEGADETH — it's not
RUSH, obviously — but in the field of what we do, there were these moments that I was just going, 'Oh, my God.' This is me as a kid going, 'This is my
Geddy/
Neil moment right here.'"
In June 2021,
Mustaine announced during an episode of his
Gimme Radio program
"The Dave Mustaine Show" that
Ellefson's bass tracks would not be used on the new
MEGADETH LP.
Ellefson was in
MEGADETH from the band's inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest departure.