Former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson has called one of the band’s most maligned albums “one of the great Megadeth records”.
The 59-year-old gave the dubious honour to 1999 effort Risk. Upon its release, the record received backlash from both fans and critics, who were disheartened by its rejection of Megadeth’s thrash metal roots in favour of an electronic rock sound.
Looking back on Risk 25 years later in an interview with Overdrive, Ellefson commends the music in its own right, but admits it didn’t sound like what Megadeth were known at the time.
“It still remains one of the great Megadeth records, even though it doesn’t sound like a Megadeth record of the past, leading up to that point,” he says (via Blabbermouth). “But we didn’t have enough time to let it just kind of absorb into us.”
The bassist continues: “And then next thing you know, we’re right on the road playing these songs and it’s like, ‘Oh, shit. These songs aren’t really connecting so much.’ [We needed] to just have the time, to let the stuff, to let the material absorb.”
Nonetheless, when asked if he’d turn Risk into something different given the chance, Ellefson says no. “Because you’d have to start all over on that,” he reasons. “You’d have to go back to the rehearsal room.”
He goes on, revealing there were more ‘metal’ songs planned for Risk. However, they were left on the cutting room floor.
“And the truth of it is it took so much time crafting the other songs for the record that we didn’t really have the time or the mindset to make those metal songs that the record should have had to sort of balance it out,” Ellefson remembers. “So it tended to be a record that was skewed more as a crafted radio album.”
Risk wasn’t just controversial; it also disappointed commercially. It reached number 16 on the US Billboard 200 album charts, Megadeth’s lowest placement there since 19990. In a 2010 Vice interview, singer/guitarist Dave Mustaine said the band “came close to making a serious, career-ending mistake” when they put the album out.
“I like that record, and a lot of other people do too, but our hardcore fans don’t,” he explained. “They prefer the heavier, faster stuff. Because the album said ‘Megadeth’, they expected a certain type of thing and it wasn’t what they expected.”
Ellefson, who co-founded Megadeth with Mustaine in 1984, was dismissed from the band in 2021 following a sex scandal. His parts on latest album The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! were re-recorded by Steve Di Giorgio. James LoMenzo now acts as the band’s full-time bassist.
