DAVID ELLEFSON Says MEGADETH Took Credit For 'Soldier On!': 'Just Wiped My Name Off'

Summary

• David Ellefson says he co-wrote Soldier On! with Dave Mustaine, but wasn’t credited or paid after being fired from Megadeth.
• He compares Megadeth’s credit practices to Metallica, calling Lars and James ‘pretty generous’ for keeping Mustaine’s name on their records.
• The ongoing Mechanix vs The Four Horsemen debate resurfaces, with Ellefson calling it a unique case of ’two songs with the same DNA.'

David Ellefson isn’t done unpacking his past with Megadeth,and he’s brought receipts.

In a new interview with The Delz Show, the former bassist draws some not-so-subtle contrasts between how Metallica handled songwriting credits with Dave Mustaine and how Mustaine allegedly did the opposite when it came to Megadeth’s own track, Soldier On!.

“Metallica kicked him out, used his songs, gave him credit, paid him,” Ellefson said. “Dave kicks you out, uses your stuff, changes the title, wipes your name, and walks off with it.” So much for what goes around comes around.

Mechanix vs Horsemen

Ellefson revisited one of thrash metal’s oldest soap operas: the split between Mechanix and The Four Horsemen. Both tracks share a musical backbone, originally composed by Mustaine before his infamous ejection from Metallica.

According to Ellefson, Mechanix was “very much Dave’s song, for sure… lyrics and music,” brought intact to Metallica, then reworked post-exit.

What’s bizarre, Ellefson notes, is that both songs legally coexist as separate entities:

“Two different names, two different lyrics, musically the same, two different copyrights… I don’t know in the history of recorded music if that’s ever happened before.”

Comparing Band Cultures

While acknowledging that Mustaine was shortchanged emotionally in the Metallica split, Ellefson emphasizes that he was still treated with what he calls a surprising level of fairness.

“They used your songs, they put your name on the credit, and you got paid. That’s like a triple win, man.” That kind of credit-sharing, he claims, was not the norm in Megadeth.

When Ellefson left Megadeth, not exactly on friendly terms, he alleges the generosity stopped.

“The song Soldier On! on the last Megadeth record? I brought the lyric and the melody in. Me and Dave were working on it together… He just took my words off, kept the song, and took all the credit.”

A Bit of Corporate Philosophy

Ellefson even reached for a business metaphor to explain how creative ownership tends to work in bands, or rather, how it should work.

“When I worked for Peavey, we did a David Ellefson signature bass. When I left, they took my name off it, but they kept the bass. It’s Hartley Peavey’s company. Same thing in Metallica, Lars and James’s band.”

By contrast, Ellefson paints Megadeth as a place where Mustaine has the last word, creatively and legally.

That’s not a flattering image, especially when placed side-by-side with Metallica’s alleged magnanimity.

Mustaine’s Side of the Story

To be fair, Mustaine has been clear about his contributions and his bitterness over them being used after his exit.

In a 2011 interview, he recalled bringing Mechanix and the idea of “The Four Horsemen” into Metallica’s early sessions. He even joked about slowing Mechanix down into the eventual structure of The Four Horsemen by sarcastically riffing Sweet Home Alabama during rehearsal.

Still, none of this rebuts Ellefson’s more recent and personal accusations. In his telling, Dave kept taking while giving nothing back.

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