David Ellefson & Jeff Young will perform two Megadeth albums in full
Former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson and guitarist Jeff Young have announced The Kings of Thrash, a new group that will perform two Megadeth albums in their entirety. The Mega Years Tour runs this October with the first four shows set for San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, respectively.
The band, which also includes drummer Fred Aching as well as guitarist/vocalist Chaz Leon, will perform the classic thrash albums Killing is My Business…and Business is Good and So Far, So Good…So What in their entirety. Joining the band for these four dates will be ex-Megadeth/Ohm guitarist Chris Poland.
Tickets for all shows go on sale Friday, July 29th via Ticketmaster. VIP packages will also be available and include a meet and greet with the band, a laminate and piece of merch.
In May, Ellefson and Young reunited at The Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood for a special tribute to Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, known as the Big Four of 1980s thrash metal. It was the first time the pair performed together since 1988.
In 2021, Megadeth parted ways with Ellefson following sexual allegations with a younger woman. Ellefson was accused of “grooming” the teen while she was underage, although both parties have disputed that information.
“I ran toward the bullets and dealt with it right away,” Ellefson shared with Eddie Trunk in October. “The night it happened, some people said, ‘Hey, don’t say anything.’ In particular, the Megadeth camp didn’t want me to say anything. But my legal [team] said, ‘Hey, I think you should say something. I think some people have done some really shitty things here and made some false allegations about you, and you have every right to defend yourself.’ And I did,” Ellefson says.
“Ultimately, that led to my dismissal from Megadeth. But I have every right, as anyone does, to defend yourself, especially when somebody is making, you know, false allegations about you like that. So I dealt with it that night, and quite honestly, that was it, it was over, and it was really kind of done. I think the Megadeth camp in particular jumped in and had addressed it — and not that they shouldn’t, but they did. You know, that pretty quickly led to them making the decision to part ways with me and to move away from it. There’s obviously the tour that they just did — The Metal Tour of the Year — coming up.
“We had originally talked about doing a joint statement of sorts, and, of course, that was not what happened. So I was disappointed in probably the way it went down.”
King of Thrash 2022 Tour Dates:
Oct 12 – San Diego @ Brick by Brick
Oct 13 – Phoenix @ Crescent Ballroom
Oct 14 – Las Vegas @The Space
Oct 15 – West Hollywood @ The Whisky a Go-Go
