MARTY FRIEDMAN On Moving To Japan: 'It's Blown My Mind What A Great Idea That Was'

In a recent interview with "Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon", former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman spoke about his decision to move to Japan in 2003 at the age of forty. "It's insane, really," he said (hear audio below). "It's really quite insane. What can you say? Sometimes if you're an artist, and I really don't like that term, but it's a little bit more appropriate than musician in a lot of cases, you have to follow your muse — which is another terrible cliché, which I also hate to use, but I can't think of anything better.

"There [was] a point in time where I was listening to Japanese music twenty-four hours a day and no American music," he recalled. "American music was really turning me off, and at the same time, Japanese music was just, like, 'Oh my God! I can't believe that this music exists.' I was just buying boatloats of CDs in Japan and bringing them back and listening to 'em on tour. Every different style, every different subgenre and every different mix of every genre, I was just eating it up. And there was so much that I liked. If there was ten songs in the Top 10, I would like nine of 'em in Japan, and the ten songs in the Top 10 in America, I would go, 'I don't like any of these songs.' And maybe I'd like one song that's, like, No. 52 or something on the chart. And I'm, like, 'I really should be in the kind of musical environment where not only can I enjoy the music that's around me but I can add my own voice to it somehow.' I knew that if I got to Japan, it would work out, but I didn't know how it would work out; I just knew that it would eventually work out. I just took the plunge, so to speak, and it's blown my mind what a great idea that was."

Friedman's new solo album, "Wall Of Sound", was released on August 4 via Prosthetic Records. It was produced by Friedman, engineered by Paul Fig (GHOST, RUSH, ALICE IN CHAINS) and mixed by Jens Bogren (KREATOR, OPETH, SEPULTURA).

Marty's latest CD was recorded in part at Dave Grohl's Studio 606 in California with engineer Paul Fig (ALICE IN CHAINS, RUSH, DEFTONES) and it features several guests, including prog-thrashers MUTOID MAN, Jørgen Munkeby of the Norwegian avant-garde jazz-metal outfit SHINING and Jinxx of Los Angeles theatrical rockers BLACK VEIL BRIDES.