MARTY FRIEDMAN On Possibility Of Rejoining MEGADETH: 'I Have Never Said 'Never' To Anything In My Life'

Former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman doesn't rule out the possibility of rejoining the band as the replacement for the recently departed Chris Broderick, explaining that he "never said 'never' to anything in [his] life."

Friedman originally left MEGADETH in 1999 in order to make the kind of music that he was passionate about: Japanese pop music, or J-Pop, which Friedman has called "embarrassingly happy."

Asked by Myglobalmind if he would consider going back to MEGADETH or if that chapter of his career is finally closed for him, Friedman said: "I don't really have an answer for you. I know that people would want to know. Honestly, I don't have an answer. I have never said 'never' to anything in my life, so who knows? I really don't know."

Only hours after drummer Shawn Drover announced his exit from MEGADETH on November 25 to "to pursue [his] own musical interests," Broderick revealed he also quit the legendary metal band, saying that he was leaving the group "due to artistic and musical differences."

Broderick joined MEGADETH in late 2007 as the replacement for Glen Drover, who left the group in order to focus on family life.

Speaking about his decision to exit MEGADETH, Friedman told Wondering Sound last year: "I found myself touring with MEGADETH, and in my hotel room I'd be blasting this Japanese music all the time. What's wrong with this picture?"

As his interest in J-pop grew, Friedman started enjoying MEGADETH less. "I thought I was doing myself a disservice just playing the same old stuff and not really enjoying it," he told Wondering Sound. "Making money from fans who want to see you play when you're not into it didn't really sit right with me."

According to Marty, he simply outgrew metal, explaining that MEGADETH's music began to bore him, and he singled out the band's popular ballad "A Tout Le Monde" as an example.

"The melody's like duh duh duh duh, duh duh duh duh. It's kind of the same thing over and over again," he told NPR in a separate interview. "I'd go play the show at night with MEGADETH. And I'd be like, you know, what what I'm listening to is just so much more exciting than what I'm playing as my gig."

Friedman told his MEGADETH bandmates that he would leave the group at the conclusion of a 16-month-long tour, but "only stayed three more months." He explained to Wondering Sound: "It was just too much. I'm the kind of guy who can't fake it that well. It wasn't very nice, but I just couldn't go on anymore."

Focusing on the J-Pop genre, Friedman noted that going for the opposite of metal was the whole point.

"There's not a whole lot of happy music going on," he told NPR. "Especially in the heavy metal world, where everybody's just trying to out-lame each other, you know, with darkness and monsters and crap like that."

Marty's latest solo album, "Inferno", sold around 2,100 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 186 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD was released on May 26, 2014 via Prosthetic Records (except in Japan, where the album was made available through Universal Music).