Marty Friedman Aims to Be the Worst Musician in His Band (and Misses American Breakfast Cereal)
Legendary guitarist Marty Friedman was our guest on a recent episode of The MetalSucks Podcast to discuss how 2020 went for him in spite of the pandemic, missing out on performing at the Olympics in Tokyo, his New Year’s Day livestream concert and more.
In one segment of the chat, Marty talked about how he strives to be the worst musician in his live band so he’s constantly surrounded by top talent and he isn’t the only focal point of his shows. He explained:
“I prefer it if the band outshines me and they always do. It’s like being on a basketball team, if you’re the worst player on the team, then you’re in good shape. *laughs* So I try to be the worst player on the team and just keep myself surrounded with people I want to watch and I definitely don’t want people to come to the show and just stare at me and just not care about the rest of the band. A lot of people don’t know my band and when they come they might come to see me and when they leave they’re talking about the band and that’s exactly the way I want it. This show will be no different for sure.”
Later, host Petar Spajic brought up a past interview in which Marty, who has lived in Japan for nearly two decades, said that one of the things he most misses about America is breakfast cereal, to which Marty replied:
“Yes, oh my god that’s so true. There’s no cereal here. Japan has the best, at least, my favorite variety of everything. You will not miss anything and there are things here that only exist in Japan by the hundreds and hundreds. There’s ton of fantastic stuff.
“But of course growing up in America, there are some things I gotta have that just don’t exist here and cereal is one of them. The best they got is, like, Cocoa Krispies, and that sucks. They don’t have any of the good stuff we love like Captain Crunch or anything with colors in it. And you’d think, because Japan has the wildest, most colorful image. Especially Japanese television and the neon of the metropolitan lifestyle and all that stuff, it’s so crazy colorful. It’s all the colors of the rainbow. But when it comes to breakfast food it couldn’t be more dull.
“It’s just perplexing to me. If someone were to just do something about it. I don’t think it would happen because the Japanese don’t go that way for breakfast. Breakfast is usually one of the healthier meals of the day with grilled fish, miso soup and some rice, which is also great. But in my heart I’m all American and I need some of that Red Dye #2 in my food.”
You can listen to our full chat with Marty below (or right here), along with a clip of the New Year’s Day livestream concert.
