Dave Mustaine reflects on Marty Friedman’s departure

Posted by on July 6, 2017

In a recent interview with AXS, Dave Mustaine revealed one of the main reasons why ex Guitarist, Marty Friedman, left the band. Essentially, it had a lot to do with the song “Breadline” from 1999’s Risk. AXS asked how he chooses which guitarist should play a solo when writing new material.

He commented:

“It’s pretty simple. It’s based on the rhythm. I’m a better rhythm player than a soloist. I consider myself an accomplished soloist, but if the rhythm gets too complicated, I can’t follow it very well. The other guys can. So I’ll take the more complicated rhythm to play and let them solo over it. But when the rhythm is simpler, I’ll have them do it and I’ll solo over it. That’s usually the most obvious way we pick who does what. There’ll be times when it just doesn’t work out that way.”

The frontman continued:

“One of the main reasons Marty Friedman left Megadeth was because of the solo in ‘Breadline’. That was a song where Marty wanted to do the solo so badly. And he did, but when we got the song back, our management said, ‘We don’t like the solo.’ Marty was already gone, so I agreed to redo it. But I told them they’d have to tell Marty they didn’t like his solo and wanted it redone, because I knew it was gonna cause problems. So then we’re sitting in the control room and the song comes on. Everyone’s there, we’re all excited. I’m fat, dumb, and happy because I think they told Marty it would be my solo, not his. So the song comes up and there’s my solo. Dave Ellefson and I look over at Marty, and he’s got tears coming down his face. I was like, ‘Oh my God! You didn’t tell him!’ I felt terrible. Those are the little things that just fuck everything up. People don’t see that part of it. They think it’s my fault. I mean sure, I had a part in it, yeah. But who forgot to tell him?”

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