MARTY FRIEDMAN On Songwriting: 'I Look At My Guitar As Almost Being A Vocalist'

September 4, 2017

Former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman was recently interviewed by Meltdown of the Detroit radio station WRIF. You can now listen to the chat using the audio player below.

Asked whether it gets more challenging to create instrumental music as he gets older, Friedman said: "Luckily, the more things that happen to you, the more things that you do, hopefully you get something out of every little experience and it hopefully widens your repertoire of things that you have to say and experiences to draw from.

"Whenever I write whatever music I'm writing — in this case, it's instrumental — I don't look at it as being instrumental; I look at my guitar as almost being a vocalist," he continued. "And that is kind of what, to me, sets it apart from other guitar music and other instrumental music. It's very much an elaborate pop-music structure. It's structured like music with vocals — it's not structured like instrumental music. It's structured like very ambitious epic vocal songs — like, for example, 'Stairway To Heaven' or 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' or something. Not your simple, two-three, verse-bridge-chorus songs so much, but kind of the big epic vocal songs are kind of what I… I don't try to mimic, but when I write my music, I don't have the benefit of lyrics, so I need to get a vocalist's existence in there, and I try to do that with my guitar. So it's kind of a unique challenge and something that I like to do."

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 new 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.

Interview (audio):

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