Megadeth's David Ellefson is offering free music lessons to kids displaced by coronavirus

The David Ellefson Youth Music Foundation has launched what the Megadeth bassist, who lives in Scottsdale, 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 Fry's, he recalls, on a "hunkering down" supply run Tuesday evening 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?"

'Let's use music right now 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 Wednesday 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, ex-Guns 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.

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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."

Ellefson and Hazaert, who also sings in Ellefson's solo project, started the Youth Music Foundation in 2018 to help underprivileged and rural music programs get the education and supplies they need to have a viable and successful music program.

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'Music programs have a special place in my life'

Ellefson was born and raised in Jackson, Minnesota, where graduated high school in May 1983, five days before he moved to Hollywood.

"Because I grew up in a rural area," he said, "the rural school and music programs have a special place in my life because those music programs are what got me into music. I played tenor saxophone in the orchestra, the marching band, the concert band. Then I took up the bass guitar and joined the jazz band. Those music programs educated me and have propelled me into a professional music career."

The #SCHOOLSOUT initiative is a natural outgrowth of that impulse to give back, with the rural focus.

"At a time like this, why sit around and talk?" Hazaert said. "Let's do stuff. The hardest thing was just figuring out the logistics. But a couple sparks caught fire and here we are talking about it."

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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