Megadeth’s Ellefson offers free lessons to kids
Ed Masley
The David Ellefson Youth Music Foundation has launched what the Megadeth bassist is calling the #SCHOOLSOUT initiative, offering one-on-one mentoring sessions and music lessons via Skype to students who can’t go to school because of new coronavirus restrictions.
Ellefson was at a grocery store, he recalls, on a “hunkering down” supply run when his business partner at the foundation, Thom Hazaert, called and suggested he offer free bass lessons for students while everyone’s keeping a safe social distance. The inspiration behind it was pretty simple.
“We were trying to figure out some ways to do some positive things while all this craziness is going on,” Hazaert said. “I was sitting here with my kids who are out of school and going crazy. And obviously the whole purpose of our youth music foundation is to push forward music education in school. But what happens when kids can’t get to school?”
Music ‘to lift people’s spirits’
The more they talked it over, the more it became clear.
Ellefson realized that they could call on musicians who aren’t able to tour due to COVID-19. He recalled thinking, “Everybody’s off the road right now, and I’m sure everybody’s gonna start to feel a little stir crazy and quite honestly, this will help keep all of us in a charitable mode. It’ll help us to stay positive.’ I said, ‘Let’s use music right now to lift people’s spirits around the country and around the world.’”
Within a couple hours of reaching out to friends, they were able to gather support.
“We had an amazing list of gold, platinum and Grammy Award-winning artists ready to go,” Ellefson said. “So it was really just a wonderful moment in time for everybody to rally together.”
By the next morning, when the #SCHOOLSOUT initiative was announced in a Facebook post, instructors included:
Chris Kael (Five Finger Death Punch).
Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth). Jimmy Degrasso (ex-megadeth, Alice Cooper).
Chad Szeliga (Black Star Riders, Walking With Lions).
Phil Demmel (Vio-lence, ex-machine Head).
Bumblefoot (Sons of Apollo, exguns N’ Roses).
Chris Poland (ex-megadeth).
Kiko Loureiro (Megadeth)
Clint Lowery (Sevendust)
Since then, they’ve added Nita Strauss and Alex Snowden of Doll Skin.
“It quickly went from ‘Hey David, we should do this’ to having 20 of our friends on board,” Hazaert said. “And once the train starts going with us sometimes, it’s just, ‘Get out of the way.’”
Within hours of announcing the initiative, they’d gotten 100 submissions from potential students.
How students can sign up
“Everybody’s giving of their time,” Ellefson said. “These lessons are at no cost. This is all of us just pitching in and donating some of our time in our down cycle right now to help give people some hope and get excited about music.”
Students 18 and younger can sign up and find more information through ellefsonyouthmusicfoundation.org.
These are one-off music lessons and mentoring sessions on guitar, bass, drums and vocals. Students can choose the instructor they want in the application. Ellefson’s hope is that the process helps student and teachers alike.
“The charitable mind keeps the troubled mind at bay,” he said. “And with all the stuff going on right now, when we’ve got guitars in our hands and we’re communicating with our fans and students, I think that’s a perfect way to keep all of us out of trouble as well.”