MARTY FRIEDMAN Says That He Is 'Not Involved' In 'Metal All-Stars' Tour

Former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman has posted the following message on his Facebook page:

"My mailbox blew up this morning with people asking about a European tour called 'Metal All-Stars', in which my name was listed. Although this looks like a fantastic tour, I know nothing about this tour at all, I do not know who the promoter is, or why he is using my name. I am not involved in this tour whatsoever.

"The good news is I will definitely be doing a proper tour of Europe and the U.S. in early-mid 2014, and all official info about that will be here when it is announced — and that will be very soon. I cannot wait to play for you all.

"Even better news is my new solo album is nearing completion (I'm actually in the studio today working on it),and it is to be the absolute mother of all my solo albums. So if you dig my solo stuff at all, I'm sure you will love it. If you don't like my solo stuff, well… you will probably hate it pretty bad… Guitar World in the U.S. will run a story about it in next month's issue.

"OK then, back to work!!"

Friedman told the "Metal Assault" radio show in September about the musical direction of his upcoming solo CD: "[This is] by far the most intense and the most heavy and the most… How do you say this…? It's the most… If you like any of my stuff, this would be the most 'Marty' of anything. So if you hate my stuff, you're gonna really hate this record a lot. It's very uncommercial.

"I wanted to make a record that, there's no dispute that, when people say they're a fan of my music, or they like my music, that this is the representative of my whole musical sound.

"I rarely listen to my previous stuff, but sometimes I listen back to it and see what was going on. And a song called 'Forbidden City' kind of made me think, 'I'm really still happy with this song, even though it was recorded a long, long time ago. I wanted to do something, not along the lines of 'Forbidden City', but much more intense, because that was a long time ago, and I've come so far since then, and I can do so much more, and I know how to do that kind of thing so much better than I did back then. So I wanted to do kind of like the 2014 version of just the deeper, heavier, more intense version of that kind of 'Forbidden City' kind of mood. And I remember, that type of mood was very, very uncommercial at that time, so it's probably way more uncommercial now, but it's just like, the hell with it, I'm just doing it my way. So that's kind of the theme of whole album — just all abandon, all bets off, just go crazy.

"I'm constantly evolving, so for better or for worse, this is the most evolved, most intense version of myself as a guitarist and as an artist and as a songwriter and all that. But this time, probably more of a metal spirit than ever before, so that might be a little bit different."