Megadeth's David Ellefson - Top 5 Megadeth Bass Riffs

hey everybody David Ellison from Megadeth Here I am at Guitar World in New York City today got my brand-new Jackson signature bass with my SAT strings on it ready to throw down some bass parts I want to run down my top five favorite Megadeth bass lines throughout the Megadeth Catalog let's go first up is fatal illusion which is off the brand new Megadeth record dystopia a very very tricky bass line because a lot of pull offs and you're also right down here next to the nut where the tension is very high on the bass so there's the pull offs hammer ons and it's kind of one of those riffs it's like when you're on a teeter totter you know once you kind of get the motion going it sort of takes you into the riff so the important thing is is to start it off right because if you start it off wrong you'll never get it right so if you get the thing right on the downbeat and you kind of just starts to get this this real easy flow to it so check it out fatal illusion from dystopia all right now let's go back to the very beginning P sells but who's buying I'll never forget in our band department one day we had MTV on and all of a sudden they did MTV News and all of a sudden the P cells rift came on it was one of those was that our song they just played right there so and of course to carve out the bassline very lucky as a bass player to have that be one of those iconic tracks that is kind of identified my name and Megadeth and and this in this particular bass line this line is actually a little tricky I get fans lots of times you know I'm learning about just learning bass I learned P cells and I Got News for you might want to start with an easier one as simple as it sounds there's a lot of little nuances to it in particular the little hammer on piece from the seventh up to the eighth fret up here on the on the second string very tricky I find off and have to hold the bass out away from me a little bit so that my hand kind of falls naturally on the necked in order to be able to play that so sometimes body positioning is going to be really important on that lick I of course play it with a pick if you dare to try it with your fingers good luck I definitely recommend the pick just the way that the riff flows it seems to flow a lot easier with the pick so check it out P sells but who's mine next up is the song Dawn Patrol which I guess for all intents and purposes would be considered The Ballad of the rust in peace record the final little law before the big final Grand Slam at the end of the record and interesting I we had just done the tour with Dio Megadeth and sabotage on the so far so good so what record for us and became friends with the the late great Jimmy Bain and I went over to his house and he just kindly offered me an eight string bass that he had to take home to my apartment so that I could just play and and it was a very gracious man and so I took it home and I pulled it out of the case and bang out fell Don Patrol I mean literally like that and which taught me that instruments sometimes have songs in them and oftentimes in order to create and innovate it's cool to pick up different instruments and play different things because it'll it can inspire you to write different things so of course I then recorded it on my Jackson 4 string bass for the Megadeth record but it was correctly created on an eighth string bass so one of the fun parts of the show for me and kind of a nice big transitional part of the other Megadeth live show and and just in you know all bass just bass drums and a slight little bit of cool little you know haunting vocal so here it is off rust and peace this is Dawn Patrol in a world where everybody's trying to dress to impress and play all kinds of fancy licks sometimes it's fun to just be a bass player and just play really heavy riffs that just rattled the roof of you know all the stadiums and the arenas that we play symphony of destruction is that one song people often ask me what my favorite song is and my favorite song is your favorite song and especially in the live setting symphony of destruction is that one and as soon as we start it and the audience kicks in in fact down in Argentina they even coined aguante Megadeth so it even has its own Spanish lyric that goes with it that our fans have created so it's just one of these bass lines it's so much fun to play and a lot of it really did a lot of nuance in it quite honestly because I'm picking up the hand the palm muting so a lot of the the actual you know notating of the riff to actually hit the notes exactly the way that the guitars do it is a big part of the feature of this riff so as simple as it sounds there's a lot of nuance in it and it all comes down to the pick and the the palm muting back on the bridge so check it out have fun with it and really listen closely to this one because there's a lot involved in it this is symphony of destruction okay this is my everything I've ever learned on the bass riff in holy wars this song really encompasses everything as far as hammer-ons pull-offs double picking even double stops with some using some thirds in there for the chords that actually accentuate what the guitars are doing and even though this this particular part of the song follows the guitar part it's very very tricky for bass and again I use a pick so that I can they can really play along with the guitars and really accentuate it I also use the same up strokes and down strokes and the picking that the guitars do very I think kind of thrash 101 in that sense that there comes this time when when the bass really needs to just lock in and hunker down with what the guitars are doing so again a lot of intricacies in this one and the tempo extremely fast so start slow with this one learn that learn it properly learn all the notes and all the nuances properly and then start to speed it up as you become more adept at playing it so from rust and bass this is holy wars so there you have it my top five bass riffs from Megadeth I hope you guys enjoyed watching this maybe some of you at home are actually learning some of these so I hope you enjoy learning them and playing them as much as I do over all the years and we look forward to seeing you on tour soon

Channel: Guitar World

Views: 1,334,549

Rating: 4.9532013 out of 5

Keywords: guitar world magazine, guitar world, guitar, gear, guitar lesson, dave ellefson, david ellefson, megadeth, bass player, bassist, megadeth bassist, top 5 bass riffs, peace sells but who's buying, fatal illusion, dawn patrol, symphony of destruction, holy wars, holy wars the punishment due, rust in peace

Id: okeSIYi79kw

Length: 8min 20sec (500 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 06 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks for posting this, it's content like this that makes me happy I subscribed to this thread.

The Holy Wars... riff is fast!

[u/Anon_Guy1985]

David sounds like he is a super nice guy.