Watch MEGADETH’s DAVID ELLEFSON Play His Favorite GENE SIMMONS Riffs

Sweetwater has uploaded a six-minute video in which MEGADETH bassist David Ellefsonshows you four of his favorite bass riffs that were instrumental in his progression on the instrument — and they just so happen to all originate from Gene Simmons of KISS.

Earlier this year, Ellefson spoke about his appreciation for Simmons‘s playing during an interview with Sweden’s RockSverige. He said: “Gene‘s one of my favorite bass players. I defend Gene to the grave. Absolutely one of the greatest rock players ever.

“I missed THE BEATLES. I was born in ’64 the year they came out and they were broken up by ’71 and I started to listen to music about ’74, so I just missed them completely. Gene and Paul [Stanley] very much credit THE BEATLES for the whole concept of KISS. KISS were my BEATLES and it’s funny, as big of a KISS fan as I was and I was the biggest, as we all claim to be, funny thing is that in my bands growing up, we never played any KISS songs because they were hard to play. Paul‘s guitar, his voicing and chord choices were so avantgarde and just really out of character and that’s what made them so cool. They were riffs, but there were these chords… whereas you listen to this kind of 12-bar blues kind of stuff that was going around at that same time… the KISS stuff was very challenging and they tuned down a half step