Marty Friedman Says Jeff Beck Had A Special Guitar Technique
Former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman appeared on Guitar World. In the interview, Friedman paid tribute to the legendary guitarist late Jeff Beck and revealed how it felt to perform a Jeff Beck cover in front of another great master, Eddie Van Halen.
At the beginning of the interview, Friedman candidly admits that he became aware of Jeff Beck a little late. However, he quickly becomes a big fan of Jeff Beck, whom he knows thanks to one of his close friends, Jason Becker, and becomes aware of his unique technique.
In the continuation, Friedman digs deep into Jeff Beck‘s technique. Friedman believes whenever Jeff Beck writes something simple, it would be more difficult to play for someone else. The guitarist sees the main reason for this as the feeling that Beck adds to the melody.
“The thing is, the more simple a melody is when it’s in the hands of Jeff Beck, the more exponentially difficult it becomes for others to interpret on the same instrument, because the feelings, inflections and emotions in the original version are Jeff’s and Jeff’s alone,” he said.
Furthermore, Friedman admits how stressful it was to do a Jeff Beck cover in front of the late guitar legend Eddie Van Halen, who is considered one of the best guitarists by the metal community.
“The bill was full of super guitar players, including Eddie Van Halen, who was to follow my set,” Friedman went on. “Imagine the tremendous stupidity I must have had to play a Jeff Beck song in front of Eddie Van Halen… and just before his set, no less.
It can be appetizing to cover the songs of legends such as Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen, and Tony Iommi, who have taken the guitar-playing technique to another dimension. However, although you are enjoying this with great pleasure, you should be careful because a big shoe needs to be filled. On the other hand, Friedman describes his own experiment in a way that he could not be most at peace with himself.
“So, I played the song and survived it; maybe it was passable at best. Most likely, it just plain sucked. I am pretty sure it was the latter.”
“I’m not the only one Jeff inspired in this way,” Friedman wrapped up. “There might be something in the fact that when many of us tried to play some of Jeff’s material, we just gave up and sat there in wonder, thinking, ‘Who am I kidding? I’ll never be able to play like that.’”
