Watch: DAVID ELLEFSON Performs With MEGADETH Tribute Band RUST IN PEACE In San Antonio

Former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson teamed up with HELSTAR singer James Rivera‘s METAL ASYLUM for a night of jamming at a New Year’s Eve party this past Saturday, December 31 at Fitzgeralds Bar & Live Music Venue in San Antonio, Texas. Ellefson also played a set of MEGADETH classics with the MEGADETH tribute band RUST IN PEACE earlier in the night. Video of the performances can be seen below.

Ellefson left Jackson, Minnesota in the early ’80s to move to Los Angeles, where he met former METALLICA guitarist Dave Mustaine, and the pair launched the multi-platinum, Grammy-winning hard rock act MEGADETH, going on to become one of the “Big Four” of thrash metal. Ellefson‘s smalltown Jackson roots have been immortalized in MEGADETH lore as the subject of classic songs including the smash hit “Foreclosure Of A Dream” and the underground classic “Mary Jane”.

Ellefson, who has lived in Scottsdale, Arizona since 1994, was fired from MEGADETH in May 2021, just days after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving the bassist were posted on Twitter.

David, a Christian who launched the Mega Life Ministries worship group in 2007, studied for a year at Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis a decade ago.

Ellefson was in MEGADETH from the band’s inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest exit.

An influential force in the American power metal movement, HELSTAR was formed in Houston in 1982 by guitarist Larry Barragan, who quickly assembled the band’s original lineup, including Rivera. HELSTAR released its debut LP, “Burning Star”, in 1984 via Combat Records, and followed it up with a string of seminal releases, including “Nosferatu”, before a ’90s hiatus. The band became active again with Barragan and Rivera in 2006.