Former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson says that nobody took it personally that the house band played the song “Master Of Puppets” from Dave Mustaine’s former band METALLICA when MEGADETH was honored with its first-ever Grammy eight years ago.MEGADETH was nominated for a 2017 Grammy Award for “Best Metal Performance” for the title track of “Dystopia”. This marked the band’s twelfth Grammy nomination in this category (including nominations in the discontinued “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance” category).Mustaine was fired from METALLICA in 1983 — some three years before “Master Of Puppets” was released — over substance abuse and anger issues. Although he later conceded that he was “bitter” for a period of time after being dismissed, he insisted that any perceived feud with his former bandmates was an illusion.In a new interview with Joshua Toomey of the “Talk Toomey” podcast, Ellefson was asked if he and his former bandmates ever found out why the Grammy organizers thought “Master Of Puppets” was the right song to accompany MEGADETH’s walk up to the stage. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “So here’s what it is. So, our number — I think we were number 69 out of, I don’t know, 70 or 71 Grammys given away that afternoon. ‘Cause they give away, like, 12 [awards] during the televised portion, because it’s basically a TV show. Let’s face it — your competition is the NFL; either the week before or the week after is the Super Bowl. So it’s all about eyeballs on TV. That’s why they get the biggest stars. They give the Grammys to the biggest ‘Album Of The Year’, ‘Song Of The Year’, this big stuff. And then they give out another 70 or so Grammys during the afternoon for like ‘Best Children’s Book’, ‘Best Tejano Record’, ‘Best Jazz With A Vocal’, all kinds of stuff.”The way they did that — I kind of got a real view of it because we were there all afternoon waiting — they already had the song set,” Ellefson explained. “So David Bowie had just put out his record and then he had died. So posthumously he was winning all these Grammies right before us. And even while he’s winning, they’re playing THE WHO, they’re playing all kinds of stuff. I assume they go through every category and they pick who’s either a past Grammy winner, so they could play their music. And to give you an example, in 2014, I took my daughter Athena — we went — and it was like her entire Spotify playlist; Taylor Swift opens the show, then it’s Bruno Mars… She was like, ‘Oh my god. Yeah, best concert ever.’ But I remember during the afternoon, we were waiting, same thing, ’cause they always did metal kind of toward the end of categories. But I remember ‘Best Children’s Book’, dude, they played [GUNS N’ ROSES’] ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. I’m, like, ‘Okay. All right. I get it.’ But so look, I assume for metal — who’s the most winning metal artists ever in the Grammys? For sure, METALLICA. So I’m sure they probably just went, ‘All right, let’s look through the Rolodex. Who’s our metal? Oh, yeah. METALLICA. Play that. Okay. Next category, ‘Rock’.’ I don’t know. ‘THE WHO. Sure. Play them.’ So I’m sure that’s what they did. ‘Cause there’s no way, on demand, they could have six nominees… ‘And the winner is…’ Cue it up. ‘MEGADETH!’ ‘Oh shoot, let’s flip to the MEGADETH page in the book.’ And 20 people in the orchestra suddenly have ‘Dystopia’ in front of them.”David added: “I forgot even who [else] was in [the same category as MEGADETH]. It was us, KORN, whoever, GOJIRA. I can’t remember. It was a few years ago. But I remember GOJIRA and KORN, et cetera. So imagine if they got KORN queued up and then MEGADETH wins. That would be kind of insulting. So I think they just pick one that’s not even in the category. They just go, ‘All right. It can’t be one of the six nominees. So let’s pick [something else].'”David went on to say that no one in MEGADETH was particularly bothered by the house ensemble’s choice of a song to play while they walked up to the stage. “I don’t think anybody took it personally,” he said. “But it was funny, the irony that it would be that artist. But they were very happy for us that we won it.”Less than two weeks after MEGADETH was honored with the 2017 Grammy, Mustaine was asked by Grammy.com what it was like winning his first award, Mustaine said: “It was really exciting. We were all sitting in a row, and when Margaret Cho [one of the pre-telecast hosts] had said, ‘Dystopia’, we were all ready to hear ‘M_’ [for MEGADETH], and she went ‘D_’ [for ‘Dystopia’], and I think it kind of faked all of us out for a little while. And then after she said ‘Dystopia’ and said ‘MEGADETH’ really loud, I was, like, ‘Oh my God! We got it.’ So I remember standing up and being pretty excited.”He continued: “It was a long way from our seat to the stage, and a lot of people are making a big deal about the house band playing a METALLICA song. I don’t care. I didn’t care at all. It was about the award. I thought winning the award was great.”Mustaine added: “I wish that there would have been more time so that the [other] guys [in MEGADETH] could have had something to say too, but I know they’re all gonna get their chance to say whatever they wanna say about winning the award.”A few days earlier, Mustaine told Radio.com that he “didn’t even notice” “Master Of Puppets” being played as he walked toward the stage to give his acceptance speech. “It just sounded like some music in the background,” he said. “The funny thing is that when I went back and listened to my acceptance speech, and I heard the song, I was, like, ‘Wow!’ Everyone was asking me, ‘What about the METALLICA thing?’ And I said, ‘I didn’t hear it, I just saw it.’ ‘How could you not have heard it?’ I didn’t know what they were talking about. I thought that they were talking about METALLICA’s performance. Because we split [after the pre-televised awards]. By the time they did their thing with Lady Gaga, we were across the street eating dinner. So I went back and listened to my acceptance speech and I went, ‘Wow!'”He continued: “I didn’t mind them playing it at all, it’s a house band, and they’re doing cover songs. They were probably saying, ‘We don’t know any MEGADETH songs. How about if we do a METALLICA song?’ But when I went back and listened to it, I was, like, ‘Oh my God! That’s the worst version of ‘Master Of Puppets’ I’ve ever heard in my life!'”When the interviewer pointed out to Mustaine that the house “house band seemed to be playing pretty random songs,” Mustaine agreed: “They could’ve done a Cyndi Lauper song! [Laughs] I was just happy to be up there. It’s about being recognized.”The members of METALLICA have been mostly respectful while discussing their onetime member, with guitarist Kirk Hammett saying on a podcast in 2016: “I’ve always seen Dave as someone who was just really, really sad, really angry, really frustrated about his situation with METALLICA, and he never could let that go. And, you know, I’ve always shown a lot of empathy for him, understanding that he was just pissed off. It’s the equivalent of the woman of your life leaving you.”Less than two years ago, Ellefson brought up Mustaine’s dismissal from METALLICA while discussing the way he was fired from MEGADETH in May 2021. Ellefson told Brazil’s Heavy Talk: “We’re all human, and it is what it is. You can’t lament it. I’ve watched how [Dave has] treated his dismissal from METALLICA, still bitching about it 40 years later, and I think it looks fucking pathetic. And it’s, like, ‘You know what? Fix you shit and move on.’ And that’s how I’ve chosen to deal with it: fix your shit and move on. And that’s why I put out four records [with various other projects] in the time the last fucking MEGADETH record came out, and I think every one of ’em are as good or better than the latest MEGADETH record.”Ellefson was in MEGADETH from the band’s inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest exit.Photo credit: Maciej Pieloch (courtesy of Napalm Records)[embedded content][embedded content]