What’s it like listening to “Master of Puppets” for the first time?

There is a before and after listening”Master of Puppets” of the Metallica. For everyone. Even for those who, like David Ellefson, played for the “rival” band, i Megadeth.

Speaking to “Metal Hammer”, Ellefson (who played in Megadeth from 1983 to 2002 and again from 2010 to 2021) recalled his first impression of his historic thrash rivals’ legendary third album. He remembers thinking the album sounded “extremely expensive“, thanks to the production of Flemming Rasmussen:

It sounded great. I remember thinking, ‘These guys are serious, dammit.’ There was the intensity of Batterywhich had really raised the bar for thrash, then there it was Welcome Home (Sanitarium)which was this dark ballad, and finally Orionwhich almost could have been on a King Crimson album.

“In a way, it was the first prog metal album“, adds the bassist. “The whole record was almost an hour long, but there were only eight songs, and the songs were five, six, seven minutes long. No other thrash band was doing that at the time.”

Although Ellefson considered the album revolutionary, he admits that he kept his admiration somewhat hidden from the frontman Dave Mustainewho was a member of Metallica from 1982 to 1983 before founding Megadeth.

Obviously, Dave Mustaine had some history with Metallica. I let it be known that I liked the album, but I definitely changed the channel when he got in the car. But when we were on tour, I listened to it in my bed on the Walkman, in private. I studied that record and what they were doing: ‘Fuck, we have to do it too. How do we do it?’.