By Greg Prato
Although Megadeth will forever be associated with thrash metal (after all, they helped trailblaze the style, and are part of thrash’s “Big 4”), they also took non-thrash bands out on the road during the ’90s. Which, certainly contributed to these band’s subsequent commercial breakthroughs.
Case in point, Alice in Chains in 1991 and Stone Temple Pilots in 1993. In my new book, The World’s State-Of-The-Art Speed Metal Band: The Megadeth Story 1983-2002, Megadeth’s former bassist, David Ellefson, shares his memories about touring with both bands.
Concerning Alice in Chains, Megadeth first took the lads from Seattle out on a Euro tour in early ’91, before then hooking up with them again as part of the Clash of the Titans Tour in the summer (a bill which also included Anthrax and Slayer). However, Ellefson remembered being shocked by an unexpected discovery upon the Titans’ tour launch.
“I remember we started at the amphitheater called the Starplex in Dallas – at that time. And we all got together, we’re just kind of saying hello before the first show. And I remember Layne Staley getting off the bus or coming into the room, and he’s all blonde hair high and tight, looking great.”
“I was like, ‘Whoa man, you look freaking awesome. How was your break?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, I was in rehab.’ I was like, ‘Rehab? For what?’ And he goes, ‘Heroin.’ I’m like, ‘You guys were on heroin when you were over there in Europe?’ That’s when I kind of got to know the deeper story of Alice in Chains and Seattle I guess in general. But he looked great, he sounded great on that tour.”
“Me and Dave [Mustaine] invited him over into our world, and said, ‘Listen, we’re both clean, and if you need a place to get away and have kind of a safe harbor – a place to hang out – you’re welcome to come and hang with us anytime. And Alice in Chains were a young rock band doing what young rock bands do: drinking and rocking and raging.”
Fast forward to early 1993, and another grunge band had caught the ear of Megadeth – Stone Temple Pilots. So much so, that they took them out on tour just as their now-classic album, Core, was breaking in a big way.
“I remember we were on tour, and we got a copy of their CD sent to us for consideration for the tour,” Ellefson recalled. “I remember being on the bus, listening to it, and really being blown away by it. It had such a unique, different sound to it. It was very organic. It was kind of sleazy, slinky rock n’ roll. To me, it was kind of a combination of Guns N’ Roses meets Alice in Chains.”
“It struck us as something very different, and we liked to put together bills for our tours that wasn’t just a package of four heavy metal bands. To us, just like Megadeth music has a lot of different transitions and dynamics to it, we liked our concerts to have the same thing with the bands that played on it. They were a perfect fit, and that was the Countdown to Extinction tour in ’93.”
“I think the first show they did with us was New Year’s Eve, Long Beach Arena – ’92 going into ’93. And then they carried on with us through January and February of ’93. I think initially it was a little hard for them, because we were selling out arenas, we were all over MTV, we had a pretty well-established thrash metal fanbase, and was now crossing over very successfully into the mainstream. So I think probably for people that listened to the radio and watched MTV, it was an easier fit for Stone Temple Pilots. But certainly for the thrash audience who liked only one thing – which is thrash metal – they were definitely having to work every night to try and win that part of the crowd over, for sure.”
The World’s State-Of-The-Art Speed Metal Band: The Megadeth Story 1983-2002 is available as paperback, hardcover, and Kindle versions. Click here to order.
