In a new interview with Michael Christopher of Vanyaland, Marty Friedman was asked about the so-called feud between Dave Mustaine and METALLICA which reached its peak during Marty’s time with MEGADETH. The guitarist said: “I don’t think we [in MEGADETH] cared as much about METALLICA as people put in the press. We were definitely our own band, our own entity, as far as I’m concerned. We admired METALLICA for the great work that they did, and they’re playing a similar genre of music to what we were doing. So, there is no question that we were watching their every move, what they were doing, what we could learn from it, what we could adapt to our situation from their success. I mean, we’re both heavy metal bands, and Mustaine pioneered this heavy metal rhythm guitar style. [James] Hetfield [METALLICA frontman] pioneered this heavy metal guitar style. They both were very, very important in the formation of thrash metal.”I think we could both learn from each other and we could certainly learn from METALLICA’s great success. And so there was no question that we watched that. However, it wasn’t like any kind of, ‘Look, we hate METALLICA’ and ‘We want to beat them.’ There was absolutely no — not that I saw — any kind of feud type of thinking, but I have no idea what Dave’s personal relationships are with those guys. I just remember the journalists, it’s a juicy headline, and so they go with it, and that stuff goes on to this day. But that part was probably fabricated a lot in the media from our side. We were just way, way too busy with our own music, our own careers, to really follow them that much. However, we did respect them a lot. I respected them a lot. I continue to respect them, and I think they’re an awesome band and [there’s still] lots to learn from them.”Friedman previously spoke about his appreciation for METALLICA during a January 2021 appearance on “Speak N’ Destroy”, a podcast about all things METALLICA, hosted by longtime journalist and METALLICA fan Ryan J. Downey.”When I heard the METALLICA demo, [I thought], ‘This is it. These are the guys. It sounds like punk rock, but it sounds like metal, and it just kills. This is it,'” Friedman recalled. “I remember I just loved that demo a lot. I don’t remember if I heard the demo before I got involved with [the] ‘Metal Massacre [II]’ [compilation with my band ALOHA in 1982] or not, but it was probably right around that time. And I just thought they were the shit.””Nothing was more underground than METALLICA at that time, and they were just doing underground better than anybody else at the time, or at least more in my particular taste,” he continued. “So I was just blown away [when METALLICA got a record deal and released ‘Kill ‘Em All’]. I was shocked, I was happy, I was a bit jealous. Because up until that point, we were kind of in the same circles. We’d be in the same little Xeroxed fanzines and stuff, and there’d be a review of a METALLICA demo and then there’d be a review of a VIXEN demo [Marty’s pre-ALOHA band] and kind of in the same thing. I did know that I thought they were just so much cooler than the bands I was making, but I didn’t see it coming that they were gonna get a record [deal] and have the record sound that good and look that good and just be that cool right at that point. So I was blown away and just stoked that the world was ready to start accepting some heavy metal music, for better or for worse.”Speaking about the differences between “No Life ‘Til Leather” and “Kill ‘Em All”, Marty said: “I just remember sonically, the record sounded a little better, but I thought that I liked the demo a little bit better, for whatever reason. These are intangible things. You live with something, and then you hear a different version. And I was, like, ‘Well, I’ll go back to the original.’ ‘Cause I just loved the demo. I thought the album did it justice, and if I had not heard the demo before I heard the album, I would have loved the album just as much. But I wasn’t disappointed. I thought it was a great version of it.”Friedman also talked about METALLICA’s musical evolution between “Kill ‘Em All” and “Ride The Lightning”, saying: “[I was] really, really extremely impressed that the album, first of all, a second album came out, third of all, it was on a major label, and fourth of all, it was fucking heavier than ‘Kill ‘Em All’ — let’s just fucking call a spade a spade. I mean, the album opens with ‘Fight Fire With Fire’. There was nothing heavier than that at the time, so you’ve gotta allow them a ballad somewhere in there. It was by far the heaviest thing Elektra had ever considered releasing. It was a major, major cool thing. A couple of people were saying, yeah, they sold out, but whatever. The album was fantastic. It was just, like, wow, metal is gonna be in the mainstream, and it’s not gonna be shitty metal; it’s gonna be great metal. So it was very, very inspiring.”Friedman kicked off his “Live Drama 2025” U.S. tour on January 25 at Count’s Vamp’d in Las Vegas, Nevada.Marty’s latest solo album, “Drama”, came out last May via Frontiers Music Srl.Friedman’s autobiography, “Dreaming Japanese”, arrived on December 3, 2024 via Permuted Press.