Kings Of Thrash, featuring Megadeth alumni bassist David Ellefson and guitarist Jeff Young, recently returned from their Thrashin' Down Under Australian Tour as the band continue to tour the world, playing some of their most widely-known early material. Young, who only appeared on Megadeth's 1988 album, So Far, So Good... So What!, before quitting the band, talked about those dark and hazy days in our upcoming Streaming For Vegeance video interview.
“When I was in the band I was just the biggest guitar geek," he looks back. "I would just be in my room playing guitar, I was hiding in a bathroom at a Holiday Inn while ‘that guy’ was trying to sleep hungover in the room. And if you’re playing hockey arenas, I was able to set up in the shower. We had a little Marshalls so I would set up mini stacks in the shower and it had a great reverb. I was playing like every waking minute. And when you’re not doing that, you’re either at a record store doing a signing or you’re sitting on MTV, doing a photo shoot. We did a ton of phone interviews back in the day. All four of us will be doing a bunch of interviews a day. We are really working to promote the record, and spread the word.”
BraveWords: That was a pretty dark era for Megadeth. I’m guessing you weren’t lead party animal?
“I’m kind of like Ted Nugent, I don’t like to be here around drunk people,” Young says. “So I don’t like to be around fucked up people. That’s why I ended up rooming with Nick (Menza - drum tech at the time). I was just trying to be in it, but not of it. I was just trying to be the best that I could be, because the music is challenging right? I just wanted to play my best every night, the best show that I could give. And I knew that I couldn’t do that being buzzed. I was just amazed that they were trying to do that buzzed. ‘How are you getting up in the morning man?’ Because I hate that feeling. I don’t wanna go on stage feeling like that. Like hungover and ready to sleep. I want to be energized. We were just all on two different frequencies, so that’s why my duration in the band wasn’t long because I didn’t wanna be around that low vibration. It brings you down.”
Jeff Young will be on BraveWords' Streaming For Vengeance tomorrow (Saturday, August 5th) at 3:33 PM EST. You can watch/listen Streaming For Vengeance on the BraveWords Facebook page and the BraveWords YouTube channel.
Young gave BraveWords an update on the original material the band is working on.
"It’s not frightening at all,” he says about creating new music that measures up to the band classic repertoire. “We have five tracks in the can. David lives in Arizona and we have this amazing underground recording studio. And in Arizona with that heat, it’s great if you’re underground because it’s like an oven there. That first song that David and I started which was spawned by the Menza movie. That song has come to life, and it’s called “Bridges Burned” (which has its origins from a riff Jeff brought in back in 1988, intended for what became Rust In Peace). We were doing it on the road with Kings Of Thrash. We’ve kind of taken a turn to where we are going to proceed. And David has talked about it a little bit, so I guess I can be the next one to leak out the next bit of news. Kings Of Thrash are going to continue to do exactly what we do. Doing the best of the classic Megadeth that we were a part of. It’s part of our heritage. We’re doing extra stuff in the encore like Riot’s ‘Swords And Tequila’. We even got Rick Ventura, the original guitar player, joining us when we were in New York. And I think we inspired them because Riot Act are out on the road performing Fire Down Under and it’s entirety. We are expanding and doing Metallica songs and Def Leppard’s ‘Wasted’ which is on David’s covers album. So Kings Of Thrash is going to continue on this path and play as many shows that people want to see us. For the original material, we are going to use a different singer. We are working with somebody who is frighteningly good. He’s already finished the vocals on 'Bridges Burned'. It’s really brand new, so I can’t really say too much more about it. The originals, they have thrash elements, but there’s everything because David and I have lived 10 different lives since Megadeth. We’ve grown as musicians, so we’re gonna bring all that stuff and the energy we had in our 20s and combine that with everything that we’ve learned in our 30s 40s and 50s is in that music. There is a thrash element, and it’s got the speedy, shreddy stuff, but we had much more. It’s like a jambalaya. I just love the songs. Each of the songs are quite different, but they all sound like the same band.”
Kings Of Thrash “The MEGA Years” features Grammy Award winning bassist David Ellefson, along with guitarist Jeff Young, reuniting to perform the early thrash classics upon which the genre was built and defined in the 1980s. Showcasing the songs from the above mentioned albums in their entirety, Ellefson & Young stay true to material not performed live in several decades, along with the spirit of the era which launched one of the greatest genres of heavy metal music, and one of the biggest names in metal, the mighty Megadeth!
Says Ellefson, “I think we’ve assembled an energetic song list and group of musicians to capture the spirit of a genre we helped create & define so many years ago. Fans have been requesting these songs for a long time now and it seems like a good moment to bring them back to the stage”.
Jeff Young adds, “The mission here is to bring a connection of goodwill through the music, with a collaboration of musicians and friends in our community. Our thrash tribe casts a wide net to give people hope in a time when they’re looking for something positive and uplifting. What better way than to do that than through the music which has become the soundtrack to our lives.”
(Photos by Jeremy Belinfante and Kings Of Thrash)
