Dave Mustaine Guitar Technique Marty Friedman ‘Never Got Good At’

Marty Friedman recently reflected on his inimitable guitar chemistry with Dave Mustaine during his time in Megadeth, praising the bandleader’s unique skill set and naming one technique that he “never got good at.”

Friedman handled lead guitar duties in Megadeth from 1990 to 2000, playing on such landmark albums as Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction. The virtuoso broke down his and Mustaine’s musical push-and-pull on a recent episode of Masters of Shred, which you can watch below.

“At the time, I wasn’t really so conscious of it, but Dave really has a unique rhythm style that’s really his, and it’s very important to the sound [of Megadeth],” Friedman said. “And I believe that I have a very unique lead style, and the fact that they, very luckily, worked together, like a watch … you know how in the watch, things interweave. They just happened to — like peanut butter and chocolate — they happened to work out. They could’ve just as easily clashed, and it would’ve been a dumpster fire.”

Friedman spent extra time praising Mustaine’s rhythm work, saying that it differed wildly from his own approach. “I think his rhythm playing, I remember when I joined the band, I’m like, ‘This is really, really unique.’ It was very difficult for me to get to the point where I was confident with it,” he explained. “I never got good at it. I got passable at it, long enough to play in the band for 10 years. But I never really got good at it.”

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Marty Friedman on Unique Guitar Playing Styles: ‘It’s a Person’

It obviously takes years of rigorous practice to achieve Friedman’s (or even Mustaine’s) level of guitar virtuosity. But how does Friedman account for their drastically different playing styles?

“It’s one of those things — it’s a person,” he said. “I can’t be that person. And no one can be me when it comes to leads.”

He continued: “There’s guys who think, ‘Okay, I’ll do a half-step bend and then I’ll sound like Marty.’ No, it’s not that simple. Or you can say, ‘I can mute the string like this with my palm, and I’ll sound like Mustaine.’ No, it’s not that simple. It’s a lot of very personal choices, lifestyle choices, that translate into guitar. And I don’t really know to explain this very well, but you’re hearing somebody’s life. You’re not hearing techniques learned from a book.”

All of these elements culminate in a unique, instantly identifiable playing style, Friedman explained. “I think Dave’s playing is very — the second you hear it, you know it’s him,” he said. “And the same thing goes for my playing, and I think we were lucky that guitar media and people out there picked up on that back then.”

Marty Friedman Praises Dave Mustaine’s Playing on Masters of Shred

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Dave Mustaine Puts Himself in the ‘Big 4’ of Rhythm Guitarists

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mustaine has been quick to celebrate his own guitar chops as well, putting himself in the “Big 4” of rhythm guitar players in a 2017 Rock Cellar Magazine interview.

“As far as rhythm guitar players are concerned, there’s James [Hetfield of Metallica], there’s me, there’s Malcolm Young [of AC/DC] and there’s Rudolf Schenker [of the Scorpions],” Mustaine said. “There’s no one else that touches the four of us. We’re the fantastic four.”

Mustaine also called rhythm guitar “one of the main ingredients” of Megadeth, adding that “the solos become so much more important because it’s not just self-indulgent pig guitar playing all through the whole song.”