“I have always had a complete lack of interest” Marty Friedman claims he’s so “not a gear guy” he doesn’t even know how to adjust a guitar strap or coil a cable
Pop a perfectly tuned guitar into Marty Friedman’s hands, and he’s guaranteed to shred up a storm. Don’t expect him to do much to set-up however – he has confessed to being so disinterested in gear that he doesn’t even know how to adjust a guitar strap without his tech’s help. In his new autobiography, Dreaming Japanese, the ex-Megadeth guitarist has revealed he has a “complete lack of interest in anything mechanical.”
READ MORE: “I couldn’t even stand up straight. How the hell was I gonna play the guitar?”: The crippling panic attack Marty Friedman suffered during his final days with Megadeth
In an excerpt shared by Guitar World, Friedman explains his distate for the gear side of guitar – even admitting that he doesn’t know how to coil a guitar cable properly. “I was never a gear guy,” he writes. “Not back then, not now. The thought of setting up the amps and making sure everything was running correctly sent chills through my brain… I am not proud to say that to this day I don’t have the slightest idea how to adjust the length of a guitar strap or roll up a guitar cable.”
Fully aware of his aversion to setting up, Friedman called in some help for his 1990 Megadeth audition. “When I hired Tony for 65 dollars, I was living on 99-cent bags of lollipops and white rice with La Yu chili oil, so that money, a bargain for a pro tech, was extremely hard to part with,” he writes. “But something told me I had to do it, and I’m glad I listened to that little voice.
“I just knew I wouldn’t look cool humping gear, plugging it in, and setting the knobs to the right sound,” he explains. “I am not proud to say that to this day I don’t have the slightest idea how to adjust the length of a guitar strap or roll up a guitar cable.”
Tech Tony’s $65 fee was worth every penny, allowing Friedman to storm into the audition ready to riff. “Tony got technical details from Megadeth’s crew and carted my gear into the audition like a boss,” the guitarist recalls. “[He] made sure my guitar was properly strung, intonated, and tuned, got a great sound from the amp in no time, and strapped the guitar on me when it was time to play.”
“Before I hit note one, I looked like a pro,” he continues. “I’m sure this made a good impression, especially compared to how lame it would have looked had I been fiddling with knobs on the amps and schlepping in all my heavy equipment.”
Of course, Friedman did make a ‘good impression’ on the Megadeth gang. He would go on to debut on 1990’s Rust in Peace, and performed alongside Megadeth for two decades. “We sounded like a unit already,” he writes.
At the time, the guitarist was desperate for his next gig – he’d even auditioned to be part of Madonna’s band. Megadeth was far more up his street. “I was a more natural fit for Megadeth. I looked the part, and we shared many of the same influences.” he writes.
Friedman’s new autobiography, Dreaming Japanese, is out now.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
