Ex-MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson will perform in his former hometown of Jackson, Minnesota during this summer's Jackson County Fair. The homecoming event is scheduled to take place on Friday, July 29 at 6 p.m. David will talk about his rock and roll journey before the races at Jackson Motorplex and will reunite with his high school bandmates from TOZ after the races. Ellefson said in a statement: "I'm excited to make a return and visit my hometown of Jackson, Minnesota and especially for one of the most celebrated events which is the Jackson County Fair and stock car races. I look forward to giving praise up close and personal talk about my rock and roll journey which all began in Jackson and many of the ballrooms in night spots in the area. Just as much, I'll be reuniting to jam some classic songs with my friends and bandmates of the group TOZ, a band that we formed as middle and high school students in Jackson back in the early '80s. Music is all about connection and it's great to be reconnecting with my lifelong friends that from Jackson." Tickets will be $10 in advance or $15 at the gate. Ellefson left Jackson in the early '80s to move to Los Angeles, where he met former METALLICA guitarist Dave Mustaine, and the pair co-founded multi-platinum, Grammy-winning hard rock act MEGADETH, going on to become one of the "Big Four" of thrash metal. Ellefson's smalltown Jackson roots have been immortalized in MEGADETH lore as the subject of classic songs including the smash hit "Foreclosure Of A Dream" and the underground classic "Mary Jane". Ellefson, who has lived in Scottsdale, Arizona since 1994, was fired from MEGADETH last May, just days after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving the bassist were posted on Twitter. At the time, Ellefson released a statement on Instagram denying all social media chatter that he "groomed" an underage fan. He also filed a report with the police department in Scottsdale, Arizona alleging unlawful distribution of sexually explicit images of him by unknown offenders. In the report, Ellefson admitted that he had been exchanging sexual text messages with a Dutch teenager, who captured a video of several of their virtual "masturbating encounters" without his consent and shared them with friends. (According to Ellefson, the woman was 19 at the time of their first virtual sexual encounter.) David, a Christian who launched the Mega Life Ministries worship group in 2007, studied for a year at Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis a decade ago. Last October, Ellefson told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" that there is a perception that people of faith must set a higher standard of how they live with and treat others. "It's almost like you're this entity that's floating up toward the heavens: 'Oh, he's such a wonderful man. He's a man of faith. He's got his family. And then this happens.' It's, like, 'What the hell is this?'" he said. "I mean, look, admittedly I've sort of trained the public to think that I'm one of the more well-behaved rock stars out there, and for the most part I have been," he continued. "But at the same time, and this isn't to claim anything other than just, oops, shit happens. That is what it is." Ellefson was in MEGADETH from the band's inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest exit. In July, Mustaine addressed the possibility of Ellefson returning to MEGADETH while filming one of his own video messages on Cameo. Asked by Rock Feed if Ellefson could once again play with MEGADETH at some point down the line, Mustaine said: "Any chance on Ellefson coming back later on? The answer to that is no."
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