Pastor and occasional Cross Rhythms writer Jonathan Hanley spoke to bass player David Ellefson of the metal band with 38 million album sales, MEGADETH



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We go on bike rides every day. We have three mountain bikes with us. When we go on tour, I and Dave and our security guy, we go out on these bike rides. And sometimes we get lost. And I always say, "Hey, getting lost is part of the journey." We've all got GPS in our phones, so we can always find a way back to the hotel or wherever we've got to go. But getting lost is part of the journey. Not knowing where you're going and seeing a wild beautiful church, or admiring a restaurant, smelling the flowers and trees, that's part of the journey. So what I much more subscribe to is, I guess, a Celtic view of Christianity. Getting lost is part of the journey. For me, getting lost in drugs and alcohol and "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll" was part of that journey. Because if for no other reason, it took my eyes off due north. I think that the Church has a problem with that.

Jonathan: How have Christians treated you, especially with regard to playing in Megadeth?

Megadeth: David Ellefson, bass player for the metal stars, talks about his faith

David: I would say that Head (Brian "Head" Welch from Korn) is the only guy who has been accepted by the Church, then he went back to rock 'n roll, and is still accepted in both communities. When I really dug deep into my religious journey, I started a church service. Me and my family did it at home. We started the Megalife ministries. I was the worship leader. My wife did the hospitality, and my kids were mandatory ushers, greeters. It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun. It was certainly a labor of love. And it was very cool. Our church loved it. They thought it was a wonderful story.

But as I've written books and done other things, the Church as a whole, they don't like that. "The guy still plays in Megadeth." In fact, there were problems even in seminary. Big time. Like, "How can we possibly deal with this guy?" They were reading through Megadeth lyrics, Motorhead lyrics. . . Whereas the rock 'n' roll people, they were like "Dude, that is so cool! You're studying to become a pastor!" They were the ones I was supposed to be most scared of, that they would reject me for being a Christian. But they were like "Dude, that's so cool. We just think that God is the most awesome thing." So I could be in Megadeth and have a spiritual exploration, and they were fine with it. Meanwhile, it seems that the Church, at least in America, they were not okay with it. They were like, "How can you possibly sing those songs and do this thing?" But our lyrics are generally more human. On topics, even like on Peace sells, but who's buying?, it's kind of a more "Get off my back, I'm doing the best I can" kind of thing.

Jonathan: What about the music? Do you enjoy church music?

David: It seems that in the Church, unless you're just singing songs of praise. . . Even the praise movement, it's weird too, you hear the same lyrics, "All honor and glory and power and praise." I'm saying "Man, come on, can't we write some different lyrics than this?" There's more than that in the vocabulary. I'm not faulting that it's the basics, but it would be like if every song in rock was about "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll". It would be like, "Can't we write about something else besides that?" There is a ton of great worship music out there. The Word tells us to "Sing songs of praise, make a glorious sound" - that's fine, but I've come to appreciate some of the lyrical content of the hymns.

I do love Paul Baloche. He is one of my favorite worship leaders. I've been able to do some worship conventions with him. And he goes, "Man, I just kind of write music around my prayers." He's like "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord" just singing a prayer. It's kind of like U2 music, these hymns. There's these melodies and these lyrics, and it comes together as music. What I like about Paul's music is that in his lyrical content, it's a prayer. A prayer is never wrong, because a prayer is vertically connected at all times. I've learned a lot from him with that. The important thing is being vertically connected. That means you can transmit horizontally. And I guess that's the thing with music, all music really, heavy metal, or whatever - if you're vertically connected and you get vertical inspiration, it will always translate horizontally. I've taken that, even into Megadeth. If a song that I write connects horizontally, it's probably because it has some vertical connection.

Jonathan: How do you feed your faith when you're on tour?

David: Well, same as at home. My life on tour and my life at home are similar. When I wake up, I have a little set thing I do. It's a ritual, part of my 12-step recovery. I remind a lot of the people I work with that getting sober is a priority for me. Then immediately, I have a Lutheran devotion book Portals Of Prayer that I read. It's from the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. I carry it with me. Every day, there is a devotion. I read the Word too. I've found that over the years, it's nice to hear flowery things, watch videos and hear things, but I have to be in the Word. Because it is the inspired Word of God. In the book, there is always a Psalm, and generally, a New Testament reading. Sometimes it's an Old Testament reading, because in Lutheran circles, we teach and preach one Gospel. There's Old Testament and New Testament, and they're very tied and connected. So this week, we did something out of 1 Kings, but for the most part, like today, it was out of Luke. And a Psalm. And so I do that, and I read, obviously, the little devotion that goes with it. And then there's a prayer. A morning prayer and an evening prayer. And so I give it a good 15 minutes or so. I do that first thing. And then before I go to bed, I do the same thing. There's an evening prayer, an evening inventory of my day - maybe something that I may have left undone, or I need to take care of. Then I do the devotion. And I pray over meals, I pray with people.

Jonathan: I was going to suggest. . . would you like us to pray together in a minute?

(photo: Stephen Birlouez)
(photo: Stephen Birlouez)

David: Yes, by all means. I always pray over meals, and I love praying with people who may be unbelievers, or maybe don't know how to pray. When I say "Hey, can I pray?" when we're at a meal, I have yet to meet anybody who just gets up and walks away from the table. I've always found, and this is the deal with Megadeth, that when I make it about serving my own needs, it's just always a headache. It's confusion. One day, something clicked, years back: maybe I should just use Megadeth as a mission tool. It's not every day. I mean, I've got a job, I've got to play songs. Like you, I've got other commitments in the day that I have to tend to, as part of the gig. But in the bigger picture, "You know, Lord, you lead me where you need me."

Jonathan: A few years ago, there was a big controversy here in France, where some Christians tried to get Hellfest banned. They talked about the festival of hell, celebrating Satan. What would you answer Christians who are on that bandwagon?

David: I'd say, "Come over here and investigate it." Because you can't have heaven without hell and you can't have hell without heaven. So if you're going to believe in God, you'd better be very aware of the devil. And I think one thing that happens in the Church is that we get saved, and then we immediately only hang out with Christians. Because we don't want to hang out with the "bad" people. And we've lost the entire point of the whole thing. The reason Jesus came here was to go meet the sinners and bring them in.

Really, what is a Christian? It's someone who follows Jesus. And so if we're going to follow Jesus, we need to learn to do what He did. He spent his time here, at least his three years of ministry, on the front lines helping the sick and the lost and the wayward to come back. So we are not called to get saved and sit in our ghettos of Christianity. Quite honestly, it's one of the reasons I started reading the Bible and got into this whole thing.