We Can All Blame “Breadline” for Marty Friedman Leaving Megadeth
If “Breadline” isn’t the worst Megadeth song ever, it’s gotta be in the top five. The track, from 1999’s abysmal Risk, is a perfectly awful combination of horrible music and laughable lyrics. It makes “Crush ‘Em” sound like “Tornado of Souls.”
This stupid piece of shit song has always been a blemish on Megadeth’s permanent record… but now we have even more reason to loathe it: according to Dave Mustaine, the track is “one of the main reasons Marty Friedman left Megadeth.”
Which actually isn’t all that surprising — if I was in a band and someone tried to get me to play this, I’d probably quit. But what is surprising is that, at least to hear Mustaine tell it, Friedman was upset about being left off the track. The Megamastermind tells AXS:
“One of the main reasons Marty Friedman left Megadeth was because of the solo in ‘Breadline’. That was a song where Marty wanted to do the solo so badly. And he did, but when we got the song back, our management said, ‘We don’t like the solo.’ Marty was already gone, so I agreed to redo it. But I told them they’d have to tell Marty they didn’t like his solo and wanted it redone, because I knew it was gonna cause problems. So then we’re sitting in the control room and the song comes on. Everyone’s there, we’re all excited. I’m fat, dumb, and happy because I think they told Marty it would be my solo, not his. So the song comes up and there’s my solo. Dave Ellefson and I look over at Marty, and he’s got tears coming down his face. I was like, ‘Oh my God! You didn’t tell him!’ I felt terrible. Those are the little things that just fuck everything up. People don’t see that part of it. They think it’s my fault. I mean sure, I had a part in it, yeah. But who forgot to tell him?”
Surely, it must have occurred to someone that Friedman may have been crying not because his solo was cut, but because he was hearing so unconscionably atrocious a song. But even if Friedman really was upset that his solo was removed from the song, well… of course Mustaine blames this faux pas on someone else. After all, it’s a well-documented fact that nothing has ever been his fault, ever, right? I mean, the guy apparently doesn’t even have a say in which solos do or do not end up on his albums. Those kinds of tough decisions are left entirely in the hands of the band’s management. Yup. Sounds plausible.
In any case, this story should further cement the legacy of “Breadline” as one of the lowlights of Megadeth’s career. Shit is so bad it may actually make you wanna give up bread. And lines.
