Q: "Endgame" only came out last year. Is it too early to start talking about a new album?
Ellefson: A little bit. It's funny because people are happy that I'm back and the first thing is, "How about the Big Four?" and then it's, "Hey, when are you going to do a new album?" It's because people are excited. People say they can't wait to hear new material with me and Dave playing together. We have one track called "Sudden Death", which is on "Guitar Hero VI", which is coming out and as soon as I played on it, right away it sounded like MEGADETH. That's the chemistry that Dave and I have playing together and it was really, really cool for that to happen. That'll be the first thing and then next year before we get to look seriously at the new record. Trying to do it when you're out here jumping from city to city, show to show, setlist to setlist, you're not focused. You're out here as a performer and when you go into that creative mode to write a record, you can't be thinking about "Are my clothes ironed?" and "Does my hair look okay?" and "Is my bass in tune?" It would probably take most of next year to make it, quite honestly. It could be next year, but my thought is that it's probably most likely a 2012 release, which supposedly is the year the world is going to end anyway, so it'll be perfect.