Marty Friedman Interview: I’m Always Surprised How Good Britney Spears Albums Are

By: Lelio Padovani
Photos: Lelio Padovani

Marty Friedman is one of the finest shredders to come out of the ’80s, and one of the survivors from that age. The two albums he released with Cacophony (also featuring the great Jason Becker) are still influential today. After Megadeth, he became very popular in Japan working on TV and in the local “J-pop” music scene as producer and musician.

Guitar International got a chance to sit down with the legendary fret-destroyer after a clinic in Italy.

Marty Friedman

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Lelio Padovani: How do you think living in Japan and “thinking in Japanese” has affected your playing? Was it something you felt even before living there?
Marty Friedman: My music changes every single day, so every experience will affect my music. Today I am in Parma (Italy), and [during the clinic] I played an Italian song, so even in the smallest way that affects my music. My surroundings, of course, affect my music.

Check out GI’s interview with Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine

Lelio: Do you have a favorite piece of gear you always have to have, like a guitar, a pedal or a microphone?

Marty Friedman: I don’t care about gear. As long as it works, I like it.

Lelio: Do you practice a lot?

Marty Friedman: Never. I haven’t practiced for maybe 25 years. I mean, I’m always playing music and making music, that’s much more valuable than practice. I don’t know what I would practice.

Marty Friedman

Lelio: Do you have some warm-up exercises?

Marty Friedman: Never, ever warm-up. Just play.

Lelio: Do you have any artist that surprised you lately?

Marty Friedman: I’m always surprised how good Britney Spears albums are, very good. She has so many problems in the media, but she still makes great, cutting-edge pop music, so I think it’s great.

Lelio: Is there an artist that you’d like to work with you haven’t before?

Marty Friedman: Many, many, but most of them are Japanese.

Lelio: How do you keep your sanity, especially on the road? Do you have any hobbies, read, or favorite websites?

Marty Friedman: No, no… (thinks) I’ve been so busy that I guess my hobby is making sure I have good food, good rest and being able to communicate with my people in Japan. Finding those things can be challenging in Europe. Not in Italy, it’s no challenge to find good food here! Food, rest and communication.

Lelio: Do you have a secret about getting your clean tone, the one you got on “Scenes”?

Marty Friedman: On “Scenes” is a secret tone, yes… That was a Fernandes guitar going through an [Alesis] Quadraverb. That’s the secret.

Lelio: Now that you’ve revealed the secrets, are you gonna kill me?

Marty Friedman: No, no… [Laughs]Try it, it works!

Lelio: On Youtube, I saw you playing a PRS with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra…

Marty Friedman: I have an endorsement with PRS, they’re great guitars. PRS is good for any situation: rock, metal, orchestra, pop, studio, live, anything. It’s very versatile.

Lelio: I was surprised to see that the sound meshes so clearly, so perfectly with the violins…

Marty Friedman: It was an experiment that I’m very, very happy to have done. The speakers were offstage but the monitor was so loud, because orchestra is very quiet, you’d be surprised how quiet it is and much, much quieter than today’s clinic. Even though there’s seventy people playing, it was so quiet that my little guitar monitor was louder than the whole orchestra. At first I didn’t like it, because my guitar was so loud I couldn’t hear the orchestra, I couldn’t feel the orchestra, I couldn’t feel timing or tempo, it takes some work getting used to.

Lelio: Must have been difficult to study Bach’s Brandenburg [Concerto] or Rachmaninoff…

Marty Friedman: Yeah, I didn’t like the Bach one so much, it was harder to do the Bach because I’m not a fan of it, it sounds like exercises. [Sings] I just get bored, so it was hard. For Rachmaninoff, it is beautiful, so I really enjoyed playing that a hundred times.

Lelio: Did it take some time to learn all the parts?

Marty's PRS Guitars

Marty Friedman: A lot. I had to learn it, but I had to learn it my own way, so the director said “Play it your way.” So I did, and they followed me, because I was the soloist, but that’s a big responsibility. It’s Rachmaninoff, “Play it your way…” What the hell am I supposed to do? So it was a good, a fun challenge. I loved it.

Lelio: You have a new instructional DVD out, 99 Secret Lead Guitar Phrases…

Marty Friedman: Yes, you can get that on my website. It’s great, it’s just phrases.

Lelio: You also have a writing career, as you wrote two books on J-pop sold on Amazon Japan…

Marty Friedman: I’ve been a columnist for the biggest Japanese entertainment magazine for five years.

Lelio: And you did a commercial for Fanta (I can’t quite understand what you’re saying in that commercial though)…

Marty Friedman: And a commercial for Sumitomo Bank. I do lots of strange things.

Lelio: I guess your current setup is one guitar, one cable and an amp. No pedals, no effects…

Marty Friedman: Well, when I play live I have like a couple of pedals but they are only used in little parts, nothing fancy. If you have a good equipment, a good guitar and a good amp, it’s like a magnifying glass of what’s playing, so if you’re a decent player and you have a good guitar and a good amp, it’s gonna sound good. It’s not rocket science.

Lelio: Do you favor 100 Watt or 50 Watt?

Marty Friedman: I don’t care. I think I’ve used a 20 Watt amp a couple days ago, it doesn’t matter.

Lelio: Strings, cables?

Marty Friedman: D’addarios 10-46, Planet Waves cords, standard tuning, occasionally drop D.

Lelio: Do you double your parts in the studio?

Marty Friedman: I usually double rhythms and triple a lot of leads. I will do like not the same thing, like an octave or a harmony or a unison, but I don’t go for the chorusing. I try to match it. I try to make it sound like one guitar. It’s quite difficult because I have to match each shake of vibrato from every note, but when I do it, the guitar sounds very thick, so I like that.

Lelio: Do you have a recording rig that you use all the time, a mic or mic pre, a digital rig?

Marty Friedman: I just let the engineer do that. I say, “Make it sound good.”

Lelio: Do you have a favorite studio, maybe in Japan?

Marty Friedman: Yes, I have, it’s the Village Recorders in L.A. It’s my favorite studio. That’s where I recorded Tokio Jukebox.

Lelio: Do you have an engineer that you work with every time?

Marty Friedman: Yes, one American and one Japanese. Steve Hardy, he did Vertical Horizon and in Japan there’s a guy named Ryosuke Maekawa. These are my favorite guys.

Lelio: I have a final question about the Fukushima disaster. I know you put up for auction some equipment…

Marty Friedman: Yes, I auctioned all my Jackson guitars that I used in the Megadeth years. I felt good, because I can do something, even if it just helps one person.