I just came upon this page on the megadeth board, and let me warn everyone I love Megadeth, but this was just too good to let go, especially the Anthrax part:
JS: What's the difference between Megadeth and the bands you're always lumped in with, like Testament, Death Angel, or Anthrax?
DM: I think the difference between us and them is that we're a little bit more socially aware, and that we do progressions and riffs but we're not just doing buzzsaw kind of crap. Slayer, for example, is black metal. Their whole vibe is around satanic stuff. They can't do a song like "In My Darkest Hour." They can't do "No More Mr. Nice Guy." They can't do "Hangar 18." Testament is just like Metallica, and Metallica is my schizophrenic other side. Anthrax was nothing before I went out with Metallica and saw them. We moved to New York and lived above them at this rehearsal room. I went down there and said, "Your singer sucks, that guitar player stinks, and you should get rid of the drummer." We were drinking Mickey's Bigmouth's and eating bologna sandwiches for weeks with those guys, and the next thing you know, I see them in LA, and Neil Turbins, the singer, is history, they got rid of a guitar player, and they got a new drummer. They got Joey singing and Scott Ian and Dan Spitz playing guitar, and now everybody likes them, which is cool. But you know what? They were majorly influenced by Metallica also. And then you have Exodus, which is a great band, and there you have it. Those are the founding forefathers of metal: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Exodus.
JS: You've got a good ear for lead guitarists. What did Chris Poland, Jeff Young, and Marty Friedman bring to the band?
DM: Chris brought a jazz influence that I liked. He was definitely a good player. I actually asked him to be my teacher and he thought I was kidding around. I was serious. He knew that I was rated over him in Europe, as one of the best guitar players in Europe, and he thought that I was being facetious. I told him, "Screw your band, why don't you just play with us?" And he did, and came and went, and really affected my life, as far as personality and some of the things that we did outside of being musicians. As far as writing, it worked out really well. I learned a lot about playing guitar from him. He learned a lot from me about playing rhythm. I think the best solo he's ever done is in "Good Mourning/Black Friday."
JS: What did Jeff Young bring to the mix?
DM: It's kind of hard to say, because Jeff had so much potential, yet he wasn't very focused. I still think he's a great guitar player. He says his motives were to be in the band to further his career. I don't know if that's true. He told me at the time that he liked playing with us. What he brought to the band was interest in exercising, as far as practicing and doing scales and more of the methodical technique. Chris brought a lot of the soul and feeling. Jeff brought a lot of the scales and mechanical parts of playing. I'm pretty sure he had some training.
JS: Did you know what you were looking for when Marty came in?
DM: We had auditioned people for so long that it got to the point where I was ready to retire. I have a career as a producer. I know how to get something out of somebody. I've got a good ear for capturing my performances and knowing if someone can do something better, or knowing what works. I was ready to forget playing and just produce. We tried and tried to find people, and Marty's CD had been sitting there the whole time and I saw a picture of him. Honestly, I love the little guy, but he looked like a poser to me, because his hair was two different colors. I was impressed by Dragon's Kiss then I had to sit back and get on my role as being a starving band leader looking for the right guy and not just grasping at the first kid that came along that could shoot from the hip. So I let my management and the record company listen to it. They both said, "Yeah, he seems like he's got the vibe." And then we auditioned him. The audition for Megadeth was relatively simple, except the guitar approach was difficult, as far as a different technique per song. "Wake Up Dead" is one style of playing. There's a thing where you do a chord with the first and ring fingers on the A and D strings 7th fret, slide down on those fingers and then you hammer-on with the middle and pinky. That, for me, was like a spider technique that I'm not going to say I created, but I used it in Metallica, and Metallica used it, and I think now a lot of punks out there think that Metallica was the innovator of that chord, and it was me using it in the scene. I'm not trying to blow my own horn, but that was one of the things that I wanted to see if somebody could do. The way I approach playing rhythm is pretty in depth. I think the rhythm is much more important than the lead solo, because the melody of the song is played over the rhythm! The vocal is just a melody that embellishes the song. We do a lot of the bottom string heavier stuff. A lot of muting, a lot of choking, a lot of down-picking. The other song that we did in audition was "In My Darkest Hour," Which had an odd solo that Jeff had done. "Wake Up Dead" had some of Chris' good solos. "Hook in Mouth" was another one of Jeff's weird solos. That was the one that sounds like a Russian kind of scale, and that had some pretty odd pedaling in it too. I mean the chunky mega-fourth on the E string, the bottom end, and there was down-picking, too. I think that last song that we did for the audition might have been "Peace Sells." To make a long story short, Marty had all four songs down, plus a few more, and we just kind of looked at him like, "What's the big idea, guy? Are you trying to impress us?" Which he did. He was tattered, he had crap gear, his blue jeans were ripped up, and he had cheesy cheap hi-tops on, and he looked like he needed his hair cut. He looked like a typical starving Hollywood guitar student/guitar teacher. So we put him through the ringer, got rid of his crap, got him back in line with playing Jackson guitars. We made sure that he had money to move to a real apartment. Got him a car. Made him get his personal hygiene in touch with where he is now. He got his hair all one color. And after a week, we said, "Well, I've got some bad news for you, dude, you're in the band." He kind of went, like, "Really?" I know he was elated, but you know Marty. That's like spitting out words of joy.
JS: What's the difference between Megadeth and the bands you're always lumped in with, like Testament, Death Angel, or Anthrax?
DM: I think the difference between us and them is that we're a little bit more socially aware, and that we do progressions and riffs but we're not just doing buzzsaw kind of crap. Slayer, for example, is black metal. Their whole vibe is around satanic stuff. They can't do a song like "In My Darkest Hour." They can't do "No More Mr. Nice Guy." They can't do "Hangar 18." Testament is just like Metallica, and Metallica is my schizophrenic other side. Anthrax was nothing before I went out with Metallica and saw them. We moved to New York and lived above them at this rehearsal room. I went down there and said, "Your singer sucks, that guitar player stinks, and you should get rid of the drummer." We were drinking Mickey's Bigmouth's and eating bologna sandwiches for weeks with those guys, and the next thing you know, I see them in LA, and Neil Turbins, the singer, is history, they got rid of a guitar player, and they got a new drummer. They got Joey singing and Scott Ian and Dan Spitz playing guitar, and now everybody likes them, which is cool. But you know what? They were majorly influenced by Metallica also. And then you have Exodus, which is a great band, and there you have it. Those are the founding forefathers of metal: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Exodus.
JS: You've got a good ear for lead guitarists. What did Chris Poland, Jeff Young, and Marty Friedman bring to the band?
DM: Chris brought a jazz influence that I liked. He was definitely a good player. I actually asked him to be my teacher and he thought I was kidding around. I was serious. He knew that I was rated over him in Europe, as one of the best guitar players in Europe, and he thought that I was being facetious. I told him, "Screw your band, why don't you just play with us?" And he did, and came and went, and really affected my life, as far as personality and some of the things that we did outside of being musicians. As far as writing, it worked out really well. I learned a lot about playing guitar from him. He learned a lot from me about playing rhythm. I think the best solo he's ever done is in "Good Mourning/Black Friday."
JS: What did Jeff Young bring to the mix?
DM: It's kind of hard to say, because Jeff had so much potential, yet he wasn't very focused. I still think he's a great guitar player. He says his motives were to be in the band to further his career. I don't know if that's true. He told me at the time that he liked playing with us. What he brought to the band was interest in exercising, as far as practicing and doing scales and more of the methodical technique. Chris brought a lot of the soul and feeling. Jeff brought a lot of the scales and mechanical parts of playing. I'm pretty sure he had some training.
JS: Did you know what you were looking for when Marty came in?
DM: We had auditioned people for so long that it got to the point where I was ready to retire. I have a career as a producer. I know how to get something out of somebody. I've got a good ear for capturing my performances and knowing if someone can do something better, or knowing what works. I was ready to forget playing and just produce. We tried and tried to find people, and Marty's CD had been sitting there the whole time and I saw a picture of him. Honestly, I love the little guy, but he looked like a poser to me, because his hair was two different colors. I was impressed by Dragon's Kiss then I had to sit back and get on my role as being a starving band leader looking for the right guy and not just grasping at the first kid that came along that could shoot from the hip. So I let my management and the record company listen to it. They both said, "Yeah, he seems like he's got the vibe." And then we auditioned him. The audition for Megadeth was relatively simple, except the guitar approach was difficult, as far as a different technique per song. "Wake Up Dead" is one style of playing. There's a thing where you do a chord with the first and ring fingers on the A and D strings 7th fret, slide down on those fingers and then you hammer-on with the middle and pinky. That, for me, was like a spider technique that I'm not going to say I created, but I used it in Metallica, and Metallica used it, and I think now a lot of punks out there think that Metallica was the innovator of that chord, and it was me using it in the scene. I'm not trying to blow my own horn, but that was one of the things that I wanted to see if somebody could do. The way I approach playing rhythm is pretty in depth. I think the rhythm is much more important than the lead solo, because the melody of the song is played over the rhythm! The vocal is just a melody that embellishes the song. We do a lot of the bottom string heavier stuff. A lot of muting, a lot of choking, a lot of down-picking. The other song that we did in audition was "In My Darkest Hour," Which had an odd solo that Jeff had done. "Wake Up Dead" had some of Chris' good solos. "Hook in Mouth" was another one of Jeff's weird solos. That was the one that sounds like a Russian kind of scale, and that had some pretty odd pedaling in it too. I mean the chunky mega-fourth on the E string, the bottom end, and there was down-picking, too. I think that last song that we did for the audition might have been "Peace Sells." To make a long story short, Marty had all four songs down, plus a few more, and we just kind of looked at him like, "What's the big idea, guy? Are you trying to impress us?" Which he did. He was tattered, he had crap gear, his blue jeans were ripped up, and he had cheesy cheap hi-tops on, and he looked like he needed his hair cut. He looked like a typical starving Hollywood guitar student/guitar teacher. So we put him through the ringer, got rid of his crap, got him back in line with playing Jackson guitars. We made sure that he had money to move to a real apartment. Got him a car. Made him get his personal hygiene in touch with where he is now. He got his hair all one color. And after a week, we said, "Well, I've got some bad news for you, dude, you're in the band." He kind of went, like, "Really?" I know he was elated, but you know Marty. That's like spitting out words of joy.
