MARTY FRIEDMAN: 'I Didn't Think MEGADETH Were Aggressive Enough!'

Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Ultimate-Guitar.com: How does living in Japan and working in the music scene there compare to when you were living and working in the U.S?

Marty Friedman: It's wonderful and the best thing I've ever done. I've been a huge, huge fan of Japanese pop and rock music for a long time and I just can't get enough of it and this is the place for it. I'm so happy to be part of the scene and doing exactly what I want to be doing musically.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: The reason you gave initially about your departure from MEGADETH was that you felt you weren't progressing as a musician and got tired of the whole metal scene yet "Loudspeaker" [Friedman's new solo album] sees you going back to that same kind of scene?

Marty Friedman: But I don't look at it as going back. I didn't think MEGADETH were aggressive enough! When I left MEGADETH, I wanted some contrast, I wanted some stuff that was totally non-aggressive and some stuff that was really friggin' aggressive. It was getting to the point where everything was kind of mid-tempo, old school metal. And there was so much cooler nu metal happening at the time, that I really felt we needed to get modern because this shit that we were doing was not aggressive enough. And our pop stuff was not pop enough. If we're going to do a pop, I'd say "Let's do a proper pop song" and if we're going to do a metal song, I'd say "Let's do a full-on metal song and make it really metal." And that idea didn't really go over too well with the band for whatever reason. They weren't really aware too much of what was going on in the modern rock scene and weren't really adventurous enough for my tastes. And that's all good you know. I think MEGADETH are Gods for flying the flag for old-school metal and that's what they're meant to do. I think, God bless them and I hope they continue to prosper forever. But for my time in the band, I'm very happy with the history we have together and very proud of all the music we made together.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Are you in touch with any of the members of MEGADETH?

Marty Friedman: I'm in touch with all of them pretty much but we don't talk like everyday or anything. It's definitely not unusual for any of us to email each other every once and a while.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: If Dave Mustaine came to you today and offered to follow your suggestions, the ones you mentioned to me earlier in this interview, would you consider rejoining?

Marty Friedman: Absolutely not! There is not even a slightest desire to do it. We have a great history together and I like to leave that intact. I don't see anybody benefiting from that at this point, but I will never, say never. You never know what the future could bring. It definitely was a magic line-up, so who knows. But as for right now, it's not going to happen.

Read the entire interview at Ultimate-Guitar.com.