Marty Friedman has had an incredibly successful solo career over in Japan, and prior to that was the well-known lead guitarist in Megadeth between 1990 and 1999. Though according to Friedman in an interview with The Classic Metal Show, he was also preparing to audition for Madonna at the same time as Megadeth. This of course would've pretty drastically altered Megadeth's history, and who knows where Friedman would've been too.
Friedman notes that he didn't feel especially prepared for the Madonna gig given his not-so-massive arsenal of tones.
"I was struggling to learn all these Madonna songs – I knew I could learn them but most of the Madonna songs didn't really have much guitar upfront in the mix. And I knew that I was going to have to get some good texture sounds to be able to," he said.
"I was a metal guy so I didn't have 50 different clean tones and all these different acoustic guitars, and all these capos, and stuff that happens in a pop band. So I was like, 'Even if I get the audition, I'm probably not going to get the gig.'
"But I practiced really hard and I learned a bunch of the songs, even the songs with no guitar parts on them, I learned. I made up little guitar parts so I could get through an audition. And then I got the audition for Megadeth – I got the gig on the day of the audition, which was a Tuesday or something, and the Madonna thing was on a Friday, so I didn't go to that.
"I was pretty sure I was not going to get the gig but I was definitely gonna try my best and see if I could look my way into it. Luckily, I got into a gig that was more suited for what I was able to do. And that was the story, so I never even auditioned but I was ready to. And she wound up getting a metal guy, so who knows. Maybe we can do a dual-guitar thing in her band sometime."
Check out the full interview below.
