Mustaine has yet to reveal who played bass on the new MEGADETH album after David Ellefson‘s tracks were removed from the LP following his dismissal from the band in late May.

Ellefson laid down his bass tracks on MEGADETH‘s sixteenth LP in May 2020 at a studio in Nashville, Tennessee. A short time later, he raved about his performance on the record, telling the 96.7 KCAL-FM radio program “Wired In The Empire” that his musical chemistry with MEGADETH drummer Dirk Verbeuren was comparable to the interplay between Geddy Lee and Neil Peart on classic RUSH albums. “I feel like on the new MEGADETH record, me and Dirk have those same moments,” he said. “It’s MEGADETH — it’s not RUSH, obviously — but in the field of what we do, there were these moments that I was just going, ‘Oh, my God.’ This is me as a kid going, ‘This is my Geddy/Neil moment right here.'”

In July, Mustaine announced during an episode of his Gimme Radio program “The Dave Mustaine Show” that Ellefson‘s bass tracks would not be used on the new MEGADETH LP.

“I just wanna thank you for all the kinds words and support as we get ready for this next tour and continue to hunt for a new bass player,” the MEGADETH leader said. “We are making progress. The record’s being completed, and we’re gonna have someone coming in in a couple of weeks to replace the bass tracks that we had. Which should be relatively quick because the person we’re talking to is a stellar bass player. And hopefully this will be an ongoing thing after the recording. Or we will find someone prior to the recording that will be our permanent guy going forward.”