The always inspiring and talented musician and cereal aficionado, Marty Friedman is releasing a double live album called One Bad M.F. Live via Prosthetics Records on October 19th. Marty and his band which consists of Kiyoshi on bass, Jordan Ziff on guitar and Chargeeee on drums, recorded the album during a show at Mexico City’s Centro Cultural. This performance was the final stop on Marty’s tour in support of his last album called Wall of Sound.
Marty kindly took a few minutes from his day to chat with us about the new album and upcoming tour of the United States. Marty had mentioned that he was drawn to creating his own live album because of the excitement he received when he listened to live albums from artists he admired. We asked Marty which ones had the most lasting impact on him. Marty explained “Live albums were just the shit man. I loved Kiss Alive, the Ramones Its Alive, Frampton Comes Alive, Blue Oyster Cult, UFO, Foghat.” He added “I guess because video got real popular after that, people wanted to watch the videos of the concerts. But before then you really to present it in just an audio format. And boy it got me man, made me want to go to concerts so bad.”
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Marty Friedman’s live band is extremely tight on the new One Bad M.F. Live. They all seem to instinctively play together and off each other especially on the songs “Elixir”, “Devil Take Tomorrow”, and “Whiteworm”. We wanted to know if the band has to really work at rehearsing before a tour or if the shared hours of stage time have given them the ability to create music with a single voice. Marty replied “I think the preparation for me is to make sure what they are doing is going to make it easy for me to do my job which is to basically be a singer on guitar.” Marty added “The bass and drums, the way that they lock. I think even more it’s because of the way they play naturally. They are both very super aggressive players, but firmed into playing…not overplaying, and always playing to each other.”
We talked with Marty a bit about the more improvisational moments of the live album. The song “Dragon Mistress” on the new live album brims with emotion and definitely allows for freedom of expression. We wanted to get Marty’s thoughts on the song and how it was to perform it on this show. Marty explained “That comes from my first solo album, which was like a billion years ago. At the time, believe it or not, that was like I was trying to make the poppiest song on the record.” Adding “Playing it now, it kinda makes me appreciative of the people who still care about that record now. It’s just kind of flattering that people care about it and they like that song from that album. It also gives us a chance to do something different every night. We ad-lib it.”
Marty has made his home in Japan for 15 years. We inquired if he thought about moving back to the U.S in the future. Marty said “Up until I recorded Inferno, I was really away from the U.S. a lot. I definitely missed it. Obviously, family and friends, but I really missed playing for America audiences. Then when I came to play for Inferno and did that tour, it was just so, I was just so thankful that people supported me despite being me being away so long and came out to the shows and had a great time. You know, started to get into what I’m doing now, rather than what they knew me from before. Which is all good, but there is a lot of new stuff going on now. This new album kind of makes a document of what the live show is like in America and outside of America.
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Get your order in for this guitargasm of music that is One Bad M.F. Live by Marty Friedman. Watch Marty’s website for announcements on U.S. tour dates in the beginning of 2019.