“THE WAY I BEND FROM ONE NOTE TO THE NEXT – THAT'S WHAT DRAGS PEOPLE IN”

MARTY FRIEDMAN’S LEAD WORK WITH MEGADETH SET THE BENCHMARK FOR TASTEFUL METAL SHREDDING. BUT ON HIS NEW SOLO ALBUM, TOKYO JUKEBOX 3, HE IS ONCE AGAIN REINTERPRETING JAPANESE POP IN HIS OWN INIMITABLE WAY

Tokyo Jukebox 3 is part of an ongoing series. How did you go about choosing the covers for this one?

It was a long process! I try to demo the songs I like before I even ask for permission to release them. That way I can see whether I can make it cool. Just because you like a song doesn’t mean you can definitely take it somewhere good. Some songs should be left the way they are. After making the demos, I would know if I could really make the melody sing.

The way you bend into the right notes has always been a big part of your identity, almost similar to Jeff Beck in ways...

I don’t what to say, to be compared with someone as fantastic as that is a wonderful honour. What I find with JeffBeck is that the content is brought out by the phrasing. It might be a very simple motif but what drags you into it is the phrasing and delivery. In my case, it’s a lot of bending – the way I bend from one note to the next or just hang on one for a while. That’s what drags people in, but the idea itself is often quite simple. You have to sing it. The greatest vocal songs usually have a singer who can suck people in – you won’t sit there thinking that’s a C, G, A and E. You hear the melody and the words. If you were to analyse it, you might think it’s no big deal, just a straightforward melody. But then you listen to it being performed and it’s the interpretation dragging you in, not the sheet music notation.