David Ellefson Recalls 1992 Photo Shoot

One of my fave promo photos ever, during the CTE campaign! But the shoot has an even more interesting background; To capture the photo, we were seated and leaning over a large flat mirror, which gave the upward reflection. We kept commenting to the photographer that the concept reminded us of the band ANGEL and their album cover On Earth as It Is in Heaven. In a way, that made it even cooler, as I was a fan. Photo Fun Facts: This shoot was done during the height of the Rodney King riots in LA 1992, and martial law required everyone be off the streets by 6 p.m. that evening. Even worse, many businesses were closed early and it made our efforts of getting this photo completed difficult, too. Capitol Records needed the photo immediately before our world tour kicked off, so the photographer Gene Kirkland was able to obtain a few hours access to an available adult film studio in North Hollywood where we shot this photo in only a couple of hours' time, as other studio options in LA were unavailable. Funny enough, there was a full bedroom film set just to our left off camera and a bank of high speed duplication machines at the entrance of the building... nothing shocking in Hollywood! As for us, just another day in the life of Megadeth! David Ellefson