Marty Friedman On Fearing Metallica Would Bring The World’s End

Almost two months after his appearance with Megadeth for four songs at the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, Marty Friedman joined an interview with Wall of Sound about the change in metal music over the years. He reflected on the genre’s condition in his early career by saying:

“When I first started playing, I wanted to do the most extreme music I possibly could, and I knew that there’s no way this music was ever gonna make it into the mainstream.”

The guitarist went on to share his thoughts about Metallica’s effect on this change:

“When Metallica came out with an album that made it into the mainstream, I thought it was the end of the world. I could not wrap my mind around the fact that mainstream people were gonna start getting into metal. The fact that it became more and more popular over the years and now it’s branched into so many other kinds of music like a disease, and even more so in Japan than anywhere else.”

Having lived in Japan for the past 20 years, Friedman also mentioned how the metal scene there differed from the US. He explained that the genre’s presence in Japanese music grew as time passed and showed itself in the charts. Then, he added:

“It’s very happy to watch unfold, and it’s happy for me to be a part of it and because that’s what I set out to do. I wanted to play this kind of rebellious music, but of course, we all want as many people to hear it as possible, so it’s a wonderful thing to watch.”

You can read more about Marty Friedman’s interview here.