Guitarist Marty Friedman played with Megadeth from 1990 to 2000 and appeared on several of the band’s best known and best selling records. Friedman’s eventual exit from the group left him such a bad taste that the guitarist refused to speak about his former band for decades.
Friedman recently told WRIF: “I stopped doing interviews about Megadeth completely and I made it a clause in any contract having to do with a live appearance or anything, it’s, like, ‘You can’t mention Megadeth in the marquee, or the advertisement, or the headline or anything.’ And I did this for 23 years.”
Freidman said he reveals the circumstances for his departure in his new memoir “Dreaming Japanese.” “But in an autobiography, that’s a big part of my history, so now it’s time to talk about the things that really, really happened in detail and with honesty and with respect to that period of time and respect to the people in the band and the people around the band, talk about our managers and our crew and, of course, the members in the band and my relationships with them,” Friedman said.
Friedman also went on to say that how he left the band certainly paints him in a bad light. “It’s not gonna make me look good, I’m telling you this right now, when you read it. I didn’t leave the band on the nicest terms and I kind of — I don’t wanna say ‘screwed the band over,’ but it wasn’t a really nice thing that I did. Of course, I had absolutely no choice to do what I did, and you’ll see why, but I feel really bad about the way I left the band and the situation I left them in, and you can see that in the book, why it turned out that way. And there’s no excusing what I did, but it wasn’t gonna happen any other way. Things happen and that’s what happened. So, now you’ll finally read it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”
Friedman has since mended fences with Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine and even guested with the group for two shows in 2023. He said that despite the acrimonious split, it ended up working out for everyone involved in the long run.
“I think it’s interesting,” he said. “It’s definitely not something I’m happy about. But, of course, I’m very glad I left the band and I was able to do things that far surpassed my time in the band, and the band has done wonderful things in my absence, so I think everybody wins. But at that period of time, it wasn’t nice for anybody, and I think that’s what makes for interesting reading. So, I think people will — at least they’ll get some closure on it; they’ll know the whys and the whos and all that.”
Friedman’s full interview can be heard below.
