Marty Friedman claims the idea of a feud between Megadeth and Metallica was “fabricated in the media”
Marty Friedman says claims of any historical feud between Megadeth and Metallica were unsubstantiated, and only existed in the media.
“I don’t think we cared as much about Metallica as people put in the press,” he explains in a new interview with Vanyaland [via Ultimate Guitar]. “We were definitely our own band, our own entity, as far as I’m concerned. We admired Metallica for the great work that they did.”
READ MORE: “I don’t wanna say ‘screwed the band over’, but it wasn’t a nice thing that I did”: Marty Friedman on his Megadeth exit
That admiration of Metallica led to the Megadeth members “watching their every move” and figuring out what they could learn from them, and how to adapt to their success. “We’re both heavy metal bands, and Mustaine pioneered this heavy metal rhythm guitar style. Hetfield pioneered this heavy metal guitar style. They both were very, very important in the formation of thrash metal.”
He continues, “It wasn’t like any kind of, ‘Look, we hate Metallica’ and, ‘We want to beat them.’ There was absolutely no feud type of thinking, but I have no idea what Dave’s personal relationships are with those guys.”
Instead, Friedman remembers the journalists. “It’s a juicy headline and so they go with it, and that stuff goes on to this day. But that part was probably fabricated a lot in the media.” Friedman recalls not spending too much time worrying about the situation, though. “We were just way, way too busy with our own music, our own careers, to really follow them that much. However, we did respect them a lot.”
Marty Friedman, Megadeth’s guitarist between 1990 and 2000, worked on some of the metal outfit’s most renowned records, including Rust in Peace, Countdown to Extinction, and Youthanasia. After infamously quitting the band in 2000 due to creative differences, Friedman avoided discussing anything to do with Megadeth for years.
Back in 2023, Friedman rejoined Megadeth on stage for the first time in 23 years at Tokyo’s Budokan Arena. Introduced as Mustaine’s “good friend,” Friedman joined the band towards the end of their set to perform Countdown to Extinction, Tornado of Souls, and Symphony of Destruction.
“From 2000 to maybe 2023, the publicist who books the interviews, the agent who books the tours has it explicitly in the contracts: You can’t mention Megadeth anywhere because it’s not relevant to what I’m doing at all,” Friedman explains. He says that he no longer avoids discussing the Megadeth years as “it’s important and it’s topical” especially since he speaks about them at length in his book, Dreaming Japanese.
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