As one of the most prolific veteran acts of the past years, Megadeth
are already gearing up to kick off the work on last year's "Super Collider
" follow-up. And while fan reactions vary regarding the fast release pace, bassist David Ellefson
has recently stressed that staying creative is the key to staying vital as an artist."It's important for us to keep new music in the pipeline and to always be creating because, I think, when you stop creating, you start dying,"
Ellefson told Orilliapacket.com
. "As humans, we are wired to look forward to the future. We can remember the past, but we always have to remember to write the script of what our future life is going to be and, for Megadeth, that's what creating new music is. In a lot of ways, it makes it more challenging because we've created a lot of music and we're very hard on ourselves."
Elaborating further, the bassist added, "That's a common fault in artists who have a legacy of work - it's easy to just defer back to, 'Well, this sounds like something we'd do, so maybe if people think it's familiar, they'll like it again.'
"There’s already one 'Symphony of Destruction
' and there's already one 'Holy Wars
' and we don't need to go rewrite those. We need to always keep creating new things. For us, that's the exciting and challenging part."
During a separate Niagara Gazette
interview, Dave discussed the matter of the band's relatively frequent lineup changes, explaining how metal fans don't like change. "I am a KISS fan; they were the first band I was a full-blown fan of. They lent themselves to that kind of adoration and I learned a lot from being a fan and it gives me a better understanding of why fans get upset about things like lineup changes,"
he said."A band is about a lot more than just the songs, it's about an identity. Fans identify with lineups and individuals and they don't like change. But bands like KISS and Megadeth change, and we have both managed to keep our core sound strong,"