Guitarist Marty Friedman would be best known for playing in Megadeth during the 90’s.
He would play on the group’s albums from 1990 to 1999 and would end up leaving the the band
after their much maligned 1999 record Risk. Most people likely expected Friedman would fade into
obscurity, but instead, he would unexpectedly became a huge superstar overseas. Today,
let’s explore why Marty Friedman quit Megadeth and the surprising story of what happened afterwards.
Marty Friedman was part of what some fans would consider to be the classic lineup
of Megadeth. In addition to Friedman the lineup was made up of drummer Nick Menza,
bassist David Ellefson vocalist and rhythm guitarist Dave Mustaine.
The classic lineup of the band would create the highly respected album, 1990’s Rust in Peace
and their most commercially successful record of their career, 1992’s Countdown to Extinction.
But by the turn of the century, Friedman’s own tastes had drifted away towards a sound
that was far removed from the type of music Megadeth owed its success to.
Ten years earlier by the late 80’s Megadeth had established themselves as a force to be reckoned
with but the band seemed to have a revolving cast of musicians coming and going. By 1989 the
band was three albums into their career and were ready to write their follow up record 1990’s Rust
in Peace. Ahead of the album sessions beginning, the band enlisted drummer Nick Menza and guitarist
Marty Friedman. Friedman up until this point in time had cut his teeth playing in several bands
including Hawaii and Cacaophony. Friedman would be tipped off the audition by a friend of his
who told him Megadeth were looking for a new guitar player. Friedman would call Megadeth’s
manager Ron Lafeet and book an audition. His audition would show up on the group’s DVD
Arsenal of Megadeth years later and Friedman would admit to Loudwire that by the time he auditioned
for the band in early 1990, he was borderline homeless living with women he had met and was
sporting multi-colored hair and surviving on a steady diet of rice and lollipops. Looks aside,
Mustaine was impressed with Friedman’s audition and hired the guitarist the same day.
Friedman would admit in the same interview that once he joined Megadeth he could afford
to go to the hair salon and he cleaned up his appearance to look more presentable to fit in
with what he thought was megadeth’s clean cut guy next door image. But Interestingly enough,
Friedman wasn’t the only person on Mustaine’s radar as it was reported that Slash of Guns N’
Roses was offered the spot in addition to Dimebag Darrell who agreed to join provided his brother
Vinnie was also in the group, but that idea fell through since the band already had a drummer .
Megadeth would release their first album with Friedman Rust in Peace on September 24, 1990.
It would feature classic songs including Hangar 18 and Holy Wars the Punishment Due.
The album would end up going platinum selling a million copies by 1994.
Friedman’s last album with the group would be their universally panned record Risk,
which was strayed too far from the band’s traditional sound. By 2000 Friedman was out
of the group with MTV publishing a report at the time with band leader Dave Mustaine putting
out a statement saying Friedman left to and i quote " pursue other musical interests." In the
same statement Mustaine would also reveal that Friedman was and i quote "an incredible player,"
he had been a "keystone" in Megadeth, and that the band was sorry to see him go and wished him well.
Al Pitrelli of the Trans Siberian orchestra fame would end up taking his place.
While it was believed that Friedman was largely responsible for the band’s sound on Risk,
he would clarify to loudwire that he wanted the album to showcase
the two extremes of the band as he revealed here.
On Risk It says here that you heavily encouraged dave mustaine to indulge in his pop sensibilities
for the record. That and heavier stuff too. Oh so the dynamics. I wanted it to be like either
or and or both.I didn't want it to be down the middle. Your talking about Japanese music. Yeah
i wanted like for example a band like x-japan who i was into at the time. they have these
ultra ultra heavy metal it sounds like new wave of heavy british heavy metal on 10. Sure, then
they have these barry manello ballads. Yeah. it's those that contrast them that really appeal to me
and in Megadeth i thought a name like megadeth we should be as heavy as and then we can afford
to have something that's not like a popppy ballad, but kind of a ballad that works
like I have a lot of respect for Metallica & they did a ballad and it still sounded like
them and why can't we do something like that so I always wanted to do some really heavy stuff and
something that could appeal to people who don't like their tempos that fast and there's room for
everything actually all of us at that time cooperated as best as we could. There was no
fighting about anything as far as I remember. In the same interview he would reveal
that he was he was tired of holding the flag for traditional metal and musically
wanted to do more.. He would tell LA Weekly “I would go on stage and play American heavy
metal, but then at the end of the night in my hotel room I would listen to nothing but
Japanese pop music,” “I decided that I would rather play the music that I was listening to.”
Friedman would be exposed to japanese music when he was a child growing up on the island
of Hawaii. He would first be exposed to enka a form of traditional Japanese music.
He wouldn’t be exposed to japanese rock and pop until years later. He would admit in an interview
to tofugu.com that his guitar playing was largely inspired by japanese classical music revealing
“I emulated the voices of top class enka singers with my guitar. Everyone else was copying Eddie
Van Halen, Jeff Beck, and guys like that so most guitarists sounded quite similar
then. I was on a different path of guitar interpretation altogether “he would reveal.
Mustaine had his own version of events for why Friedman left telling
colorado radio station KILO 94.3 revealing "Marty and I were going in different directions,
Of course, we're friends now and I've always loved his playing, but he wanted to do something else.
And I should have said, 'Okay, let's stop. I'll get a new guitar player. You go on your way.'
But instead, he stayed longer than he wanted and I think I kept him longer than I should have.
But Mustaine would claim in the same interview that the final straw that broke the camel’s back
was the guitar solo on the song Breadline on their album Risk. Friedman’s solo would
be removed by the group's management and replaced with Mustaine’s solo. Friedman
wasn’t aware of the decision until he heard the final mix and according to Mustaine he
quickly quit the group after that.. Friedman’s love of of Japanese music
resulted in him learning Japanese and moving to the island country in 2003 to start over. He would
tell tofugu I looked at the top ten in the U.S. and rarely found [a single] song that I liked.
I looked at the top ten in Japan, and usually 8 or 9 songs were songs I liked. As an artist, I knew I
had to be in a place where I wanted to make music. It was risky move (no pun intended) given that 80%
of the music consumed in Japan is from local artists while international acts make up the
remaining 20%. Friedman for his part had no contacts in japan, but he got a huge break when
he first arrived in the country. He would tell Rolling Stone "As soon as I got here, I got very
lucky. I joined a band with a singer named Aikawa Nanase, kind of a household name, a rock and J-pop
singer in Japan. That got me started and on my way to doing the things that I wanted to do.”
It wasn’t too long after that, that a production company approached Friedman about hosting a tv
show called Mr. Heavy Metal with him remembering to same interviewer “They wanted me to do these
skits,” “where I would play Japanese traditional songs on guitar and morph them with heavy metal
songs in such a way that the viewers and the show guests, would laugh at the ‘implied similarities’
of the two seemingly unrelated styles of music. Who else could do that?!”
He would soon get an offer to do a spin off show Rock Fujyama & couple that with solo albums and
guest appearances on other artists albums and his own radio show, his career soon had a rebirth.
He would tell Rolling Stone “A lot of people in Japan still only know me from TV,.
“At first I resented it. My attitude was that I had done all of this music,
but now I do this one TV show, everyone knew me from that. But I eventually realized
that was the best thing ever, and enjoyed everything that came from doing the TV show.”
Rolling Stone for their part would refer to Friedman as the ‘Ryan Seacrest of Japan’.Friedman
would admit to would tell Rolling Stone he likely made over 600 tv appearances including a cooking
show & he would also reveal that he moonlights as a songwriter for Japanese idol groups as well.
Even the government of Japan acknowledged Friedman’s popularity in the country naming
him Japan’s Heritage ambassador to promote the countries 2020 olympics.
His popularity in Japan soon started to make news in America and it would be an LA based heavy metal
label who reached out to the musician to reissue his Japanese solo albums stateside. The reissues
would be well received and Friedman would play his largest tour of America in over a decade.
Of course the question of a megadeth reunion of the Rust in Peace lineup is continually brought
up in interviews, but the prospect seems unlikely. In 2014 Megadeth offered Friedman
and drummer Nick Menza the opportunity to rejoin the group, but Friedman telling LA Weekly “I think
anyone that has something as good as Rust In Peace in their history doesn’t want to revisit it unless
you are going to top it,” he says. “I didn’t see any reason to mess with that. I didn’t see
a reunion being what it could be and what the fans deserved.It also came out around this time that
according to Friedman money was an issue. He would be quoted in the Dave Mustaine book Rust in Peace
the inside story of megadeth's masterpiece saying "i'd be happy to do it, but I'm not going to take
less money than I'm already making to do it. I'd been in Japan for more than 10 years cultivating a
career with solid rewards. I was making money not only for myself, but for my management and staff.
My managers been with me for 15 years. but I certainly wasn't going to take less
to join a band that, frankly, at that point, didn't seem like they had too much to offer
musically. ,and musically I hadn't heard anything that they've done in a long time.
I didn't know about how relevant they continued to be in the music business.
“It wasn't like Megadeth was on the tip of people's tongues, at least not in Japan. I had
reached the point where people stopped immediately connecting me to Megadeth and were talking about
the things that I had done in Japan. In the same interview Friedman would go on to state that he
viewed Megadeth as more of a Dave mustaine solo project due to revolving cast of musicians in
the band. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like
button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.