{"id":212,"date":"2021-02-25T07:08:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T07:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.seekjapan.jp\/?p=212"},"modified":"2021-02-25T07:09:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T07:09:38","slug":"hebi-meta-san-the-marty-friedman-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seekjapan.jp\/hebi-meta-san-the-marty-friedman-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Hebi Meta San: The Marty Friedman Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Hebi Meta San: The Marty Friedman Interview<\/h1>

By Jon Wilks<\/strong><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/div>

When it comes to guitar chops, there are few that have trumped the technical wizardry of former Megadeth supremo, Marty Friedman. Throughout the nineties, he topped poll after guitar-legend-poll, before giving it all up to move across the world and pursue a career in J-pop. On the eve of his 7th solo release, Friedman spoke to\u00a0Japanzine<\/em>\u00a0about the ins and outs of becoming a\u00a0gaijin tarento<\/em>.

Not that he\u2019d use that label himself. For a guy known in Japan as\u00a0Hebi-Meta San<\/em>\u00a0(Mr. Heavy Metal), Marty Friedman is surprisingly self-effacing. He\u2019s polite, apologetic, and extremely knowledgeable when it comes to Japanese music – undoubtedly his real passion. The heavy metal god we encounter here is more Alice Cooper’s pseudo professor in\u00a0Wayne\u2019s World<\/em>\u00a0than the bat-eating drug fiend that stereotype prescribes. Whether he\u2019s talking about Ayumi Hamasaki\u2019s latest creation or the history of Japanese folk music, his enthusiasm is infectious, and you find yourself in danger of coming away intrigued by\u00a0J-Pop<\/em>\u00a0rather than reviled by it.\u00a0

This interviewer first encountered Marty at a 1993 Megadeth gig in support of the mighty Metallica, already 3 years into his tenure with one of rock\u2019s most prominent outfits. As lead guitarist with Megadeth, Friedman would record 5 platinum albums and tour the world many times over. It was during one of his many promotional stops in Japan that his musical allegiances were first put to the test.

\u201cWhen I got here, I was like, \u2018what is this music that I\u2019m hearing everywhere?\u2019\u201d he explains. \u201cSo I\u2019d buy bucketloads of CDs and get it home and just really get into it. I started listening to it much more than anything else, and started thinking I\u2019d rather be doing this than what was going on in America.\u201d In 1999 he left Megadeth, provoking outspoken frontman Dave Mustaine to criticize him for, \u201cwearing a kimono and Japanese thongs, and playing in a pop band for some chick.\u201d

The chick in question was Nanase Aikawa, whose band Friedman was invited to join shortly after a permanent move to his newly adopted country. \u201cI was a big fan of Aikawa since the mid-90s,\u201d he tells us, adding with typical humility that he got the job out of good fortune rather than talent. \u201cI left Megadeth because I wanted to do something more musical. Megadeth was an amazing band, but we pretty much had only one sound \u2013 an\u00a0amazing<\/em>\u00a0sound, but I needed more. I felt like I was being wasted.”

If the shift seemed natural to Friedman, it jarred with much of his fan-base, many of whom felt J-Pop too synthetic to test the abilities of a true musician. “In Japanese music, pretty much anything goes,” he argues. “You can have the most extreme metal to the most tender ballads, and that can all come from the same artist. I love that about Japanese music.\u201d

His association with Aikawa inevitably led to more exposure in the Japanese media world, and it wasn\u2019t long before TV came calling.\u00a0Hebi Meta San<\/em>, a small show that flaunted Marty\u2019s credentials as a rock historian as much as anything else, inspired huge ratings and took the newly-minted TV presenter directly to the center of public consciousness. \u201cI had no experience of TV other than your normal music promotion, so when I was offered that show I was hesitant. But it\u2019s had such a positive effect on my career. It\u2019s opened up so many doors, it\u2019s really blown me away.\u201d

He\u2019s since gone on to feature in over 200 TV shows, has recently made his film debut (Gugudatte Neko De Aru<\/em>), and has still found time to develop a career as a journalist. He writes a monthly column for\u00a0Nikkei Entertainment<\/em>, as well as regular pieces for\u00a0Saizo<\/em>,\u00a0Shosetsu Subaru<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0ASCII<\/em>. With a schedule as busy as Takeshi Kitano’s, it\u2019s hard not to be impressed. That it\u2019s all completed in self-taught, flawless Japanese makes us lesser mortals start to feel a little inadequate.

I wonder aloud if he feels language has been the key to his new success. \u201cLanguage isn\u2019t a key,\u201d he retorts. \u201cIt should be taken for granted. I\u2019m constantly in learning mode now, and that never ends. I have no shame in asking to have something explained to me, and that\u2019s the way I\u2019ve learned.\u201d Friedman has become so effortlessly fluent that his speech is peppered with Japanese inflections, and on more than one occasion he apologizes for what he perceives to be clumsy English, claiming he\u2019d find it easier if we could switch to his second language.

\u201cI just picked things up as I went, and studied by doing, really,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIn the middle of my Megadeth years, I decided that I\u2019d do all my interviews in Japanese, even though I could barely speak it. No translators. That really put the pressure on me to absorb what I could. It probably pissed a lot of people off around me, but I learned as a result.\u201d

While he\u2019ll admit to having experienced a weird take on culture shock (\u201cI don\u2019t really feel that I\u2019m a foreigner over here, but when I see foreigners I think, \u2018hey, that guy\u2019s a foreigner!\u2019\u201d), he doesn\u2019t feel he\u2019s turned Japanese quite yet. \u201cI feel more of a global citizen, so to speak,\u201d he explains. \u201cWith something as odd as integrating into another society, you\u2019ve really got to\u00a0want<\/em>\u00a0to study, otherwise it\u2019ll be impossible. Language really, really helps to close that invisible wall.\u201d

I wonder how impressed the 15-year-old me would be to find that the man behind much of\u00a0Countdown to Extinction<\/em>\u00a0is now an advocate of applied linguistic study. It doesn\u2019t seem very rock\u2019n\u2019roll, somehow. But he\u2019s off again, enthusiasm cylinders on hyperdrive, this time bending my ear about something called\u00a0kay?kyoku<\/em>, \u201ca very Japanese sound that has been passed on through the generations. Every genre – dance, pop, rock, metal – has an element of kay?kyoku, and the interpretation keeps on getting cooler. That mixing up of music is a really bitchin\u2019 thing. And, man! I just can\u2019t get enough of it.\u201d

With a new album in the charts, and more media coverage than ever before, you get the feeling he\u2019ll be bending our ears for sometime yet.

Marty Friedman’s 7th solo album<\/em>, Exhibit A: Live in Europe\u00a0is out now on Avex. It is accompanied by\u00a0<\/em>Exhibit B: Live in Japan\u00a0on DVD.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hebi Meta San: The Marty Friedman Interview By Jon Wilks \u00a0 \u00a0 When it comes to guitar chops, there are few that have trumped the technical wizardry of former Megadeth supremo, Marty Friedman. Throughout the nineties, he topped poll after guitar-legend-poll, before giving it all up to move across the world and pursue a career […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHebi Meta San: The Marty Friedman Interview - Seek Japan | Your Guide To Living, Working And Traveling In Japan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.seekjapan.jp\/hebi-meta-san-the-marty-friedman-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hebi Meta San: The Marty Friedman Interview - Seek Japan | Your Guide To Living, Working And Traveling In Japan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hebi Meta San: The Marty Friedman Interview By Jon Wilks \u00a0 \u00a0 When it comes to guitar chops, there are few that have trumped the technical wizardry of former Megadeth supremo, Marty Friedman. 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