Megadeth Guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari Cites Marty Friedman As One of His Favorite All-Time Guitarists
Does everyone love Marty? Usually when you ask someone who the best guitarist is in the ever-revolving door of musicians that make up Dave Mustaine’s de facto solo project Megadeth, they’re going to say Marty Friedman. Friedman, after all, was in the band during some of their most memorable years and his era is probably the one looked back on most fondly. And, it would seem, even the current guitarist agrees that Marty was the best.
In a recent interview with Spanish outlet GoetiaMedia (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), Teemu Mäntysaari, who took over as the new guitarist for Megadeth last November, was asked if Friedman was his favorite former Megadeth guitarist, and Mäntysaari said that he would consider Friedman one of his overall favorite guitarists from any band:
“Yeah. I would say Marty Friedman as well. I mean, I’ve studied a lot of guitarists over the years, not only the MEGADETH guitarists. But Marty has been always one of the guitarists up there for me. And, of course, the kind of usual suspects like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani and John Petrucci and those guys I kind of grew up with us as well. A lot of the Finnish power metal scene, and then a lot of the kind of more fusiony stuff as well, like Greg Howe and Guthrie Govan has been one of my favorites for a long time. So kind of a diverse range of different players. And then, the more you learn, you kind of tend to start to find these similarities and start to see, like, ‘Okay, this guy actually got this thing from this guy,’ and kind of seeing the kind of history of the styles developing. So that’s really interesting for me.”
Mäntysaari hasn’t even been in Megadeth for a year yet, and hasn’t appeared on any recordings yet, so it’ll be some time before he gets to make his own stamp on Megadeth recording history. But considering the quality of his guitar influences, it seems likely that he’ll add something really special to future Megadeth recordings.
