MARTY FRIEDMAN Has Nothing Against 'Flashy' Guitar Playing: 'I Just Wanna Be Excited By What I Hear'

In a new interview with Bradley Hall, Marty Friedman explained why he isn't too keen on listening to guitarists who play fast just for the sake of it. The former MEGADETH guitarist said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I'm not at all against anything flashy in the slightest. I just wanna be excited by what I hear. If something is very cool and fast and exciting at the peak of some really important part of the song, then I get chills or something. It's the placement of these things and the originality of it. And sometimes it doesn't even have to be original. Sometimes it can be a tired old lick, but put in the right place, it's just, like, 'Whoa, bravo.' You know what I mean?

"I've never been against flashy stuff ever, and I've never really changed my outlook on playing even from back in those days to now," he continued. "But I'm all for things having a definite meaning and a purpose. And so if something is in a place where it means something, then it hits you or at least hits me when I'm doing it enough to wanna do it. But if someone's, like, 'Here's my best licks one after another,' bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, 'it means kind of less than nothing because this is a bunch of shit that I practiced. You can see the person's life, you know what I mean? When you hear music, if you get a vision of someone sitting in front of a metronome, that's not very sexy, right? But if you hear a really cool passage and then it explodes in this very interesting turn of events that you didn't expect, that's the kind of flashy stuff that I really dig, and I've always been trying to chase that. And I'm sometimes hopefully successful, sometimes not, but that's what I'm going for."

Asked if he is familiar with Tim Henson, who is the lead guitarist of the progressive band POLYPHIA and is widely considered one of the hottest guitarists in the world, Marty said: "Oh, yes. I toured with them in Asia — and super band and super guitar playing. I really like a lot of what they're doing." As for other newer guitarists he likes, Friedman said: "My friend Ichika Nito is also just a drop-dead, fantastic guitar player and composer, the stuff he writes.

"I kind of, a long time ago, got over people being good guitar players," Marty added. "They have to come up with something musically that interests me, because, let's face it, there's good guitar players everywhere, but are they gonna come up with a nice piece of music and present it in such a way that I wanna sit down and listen to it? Technique is really kind of a given. But guys like Ichika Nito is great. Who else? There's just tons of guys that I'm probably slipping up. Mateus [Asato] from Brazil is just a super, super player. There's just a long list of guys and girls out there. Really good."

Back in June 2021, Friedman discussed why he hates being called a "shredder." He told Kylie Olsson's YouTube show "Life In Six Strings" at the time: "To me, it just sounds like someone just playing mindlessly fast. When I played in the really early part of my career and even now, sometimes things sound really fast because the choice of notes is so unusual that the notes go by and they make different clicks in your head when it's registering in your ears. If you play a succession of notes that people are used to hearing, you have to really play it fast, like two hundred beats per minute, for it to sound fast. Like, if you just play a scale up and down, it's gonna sound fast. But if you do unusual groups of notes and unusual subdivisions of notes and unusual melody note choices, it can be not even that fast at all and it'll just sound fast because so many things are going by that you're not used to; you're not accustomed to hearing these sequences of notes. So people think that, 'Oh, it's so fast,' because they try to play it and it's quite difficult. But there's a difference between speed and difficulty, for sure."

He continued: "It's a term that happens with a lot of young guitarists that doesn't exist in the real world. I think a lot of young guitarists, and myself included when I was a little kid, they're fascinated with things that they're unable to do, and one thing that they're not able to do is play really fast when you're a beginner. Your fingers just don't work that way, and your mind doesn't work that way yet. So when you see a guy across the street in his basement playing really fast, you're, like, 'How come I can't do that?', and it just becomes this holy grail for one-year-, two-year, three-year guitarists. And those are the people who are active [in online] chats and things like that, and those are the people who buy guitar magazines and buy lots of gear, those are the people that are keeping the industry of guitar alive, and those are the people who are fascinated by quickness of fingers and just really fast playing. But little do they know, playing slow is a thousand times more difficult than playing fast — it really, really is. Playing slow is where you can separate the men from the boys, so to speak… When you hear somebody play something slow, you can tell if they're any good right then and there; you can tell. When you hear something fast — even eight-year-old kids can play really fast and really clean and really accurately. So it's really an illusion, but it's the thing that keeps guitars selling. You've gotta have something that is like a holy grail for beginner people to get inspired by. So a lot of 'em hear this fast stuff and they're, like, 'I wanna do that so bad.' Okay. Now you've done it. You practiced for a couple of years. You've done it. Now what? I kind of don't like being lumped into that because there's a lot of people out there who just play really, really fast all the time, and to me, it just sounds like noise.

"Playing fast was interesting when I just picked up the instrument, but it certainly lost its interest quite quickly after you were able to do it," Marty added. "Then it became interesting [to play] interesting things on the instrument, creating interesting music. Now, it has really has nothing to do with speed, whether it be slow, medium, fast or anything in between, because music is of all tempos — every tempo is in music; every single tempo. But, again, that term is just something I don't like to be lumped into. But at the same time, if you love shredding and you think I'm a shredder and you love my music, we're bros. I still love you. It's all good. It's all terminology. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is if you like the music or not. So you can call me anything, as long as you like the music. And even if you don't like the music, it is what it is."

Friedman's latest solo album, "Drama", came out in May 2024 via Frontiers Music Srl.

Marty's first major impact in music was in the game-changing guitar duo CACOPHONY, which he founded with equally enigmatic and now-legendary guitarist Jason Becker. He then spent 10 years as lead guitarist in the genre-defining thrash metal act MEGADETH before moving to Tokyo due to his love for Japanese music, language, and culture.

Following his move, he landed a starring role for a new TV comedy "Hebimeta-san" ("Mr. Heavy Metal") and its spinoff, "Rock Fujiyama", which ran for six seasons and propelled him into the living rooms of Japan's mainstream. He has since appeared in over 800 TV shows, movies and commercials, including a two-year campaign with Coca-Cola for Fanta, authored two best-selling novels and was the first-ever foreigner to be appointed as an ambassador of Japan heritage and perform at the opening ceremony for the Tokyo Marathon.

At the same time, Marty has continued his career in music with several solo albums in addition to writing and performing with the top artists in Japanese music, racking up countless chart hits, including a No. 1 with SMAP, two No. 2 songs with MOMOIRO CLOVER, a No. 2 with SOUND HORIZON — just to name a few.

Friedman's autobiography, "Dreaming Japanese", arrived on December 3, 2024 via Permuted Press.