In September 2021, Screaming Butterfly Entertainment announced a partnership with former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson and his Ellefson Films on the upcoming feature-length documentary “This Was My Life: The Story Of Nick Menza”. Ellefson signed on as a co-producer of the film, and also will provide narration to guide the viewer through the exploration of the late MEGADETH drummer’s life. The “This Was My Life” soundtrack will consist of eight or nine songs built around Nick‘s unearthed and previously unreleased drum riffs that Menza recorded for a project he started working on between 2013 and 2015. Ellefson played bass on a few of the tracks and is also serving as the project’s executive producer.

Asked in a new interview with Dr. Music what the status of the Menza documentary is right now, Ellefson said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We’re editing the video component of it now, so getting the movie part edited. The soundtrack, in fact, almost daily we’re still (touching up) a few things, trying to get the last couple of tracks done, ’cause we’ve got some terrific music on here. And trying to get that wrapped up, so that we can get the soundtrack (completed).”

He continued: “I didn’t wanna commit to saying, ‘We’ve got 15 songs (for the soundtrack),’ cause what if we only get five that are awesome? Or why say five if you get 15? So I said, ‘Let’s just let it flow. Let’s see what we come up with. Let’s see who the collaborators are.’ ‘Cause, again, we wanna hear Nick play. What I like about the soundtrack is there’s some Nick stuff that he… I was surprised how much stuff he did after MEGADETH. There was some modern stuff, some very kind of almost industrial tracks that he had that were available. So there was a lot of other stuff. And then, of course, there’s just some good old Nick wide-open-in-the-room, room-mics-up banging on the ride cymbal, playing as we would have known him from the MEGADETH days — that type of playing, some tracks that he had that were available.”

Ellefson added: “My idea was, ‘Let’s collaborate around Nick, since he’s not with us. We’ll take some tracks that were available and we could use and then compose around that. And like I told people, I said, ‘Look, we could chop these up. It doesn’t have to be exactly as it is. We can chop it up. We can do things with digital and analog technology. And let’s write a song, and let’s write a good song. Let’s make it something good.’ I didn’t play on everything; I played on a few things. It doesn’t have to just be about me and Nick. It’s about Nick and his thing. And we’re gonna take the money from it — any of the co-writes; Nick is a co-writer on all of it — so that way the money goes back to his family and to his kids. And it’s a nice way to kind of send something back to the family.”