MEGADETH continues to tease what fans are suspect might be the return of Marty Friedman.
Earlier this week, MEGADETH shared a post on social media that features a photo of Dave Mustaine and Friedman playing together, coupled with the lyrics from their 1992 song, “Countdown To Extinction.” The chosen lyrics, “All are gone, all but one. No contest, nowhere to run. No more left, only one. This is it, this is the countdown to extinction,” tease the potential return of Friedman for the upcoming concert(s).
And now, band asked fans to subscribe to their mailing list saying “we have a lot in the works and we can’t wait to share the news.”
Friedman joined MEGADETH twice on stage this year, first during band’s show at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan arena in February, and later on at Wacken Open Air in August.
Teemu Mäntysaari from WINTERSUN and SMACKBOUND is MEGADETH‘s current touring guitarist, replacing band’s regular guitarist Kiko Loureiro, who has chosen to skip current leg of MEGADETH‘s “Crush The World” tour to spend time with his children in Finland.
During a recent interview with Greg Prato of Ultimate Guitar, Mustaine was asked if there are any plans for some sort of reunion with Friedman, to which he responded: “I don’t know. It’s a very interesting idea. Marty is a really talented person. I don’t know for sure, but I think this is an area where I need to just talk with my partner and see how he feels about having another guitar player come up there and jam.
“Because sometimes guys get their feelings hurt, and I don’t know that that’s possible between Kiko [Loureiro] and Marty – because I think they both have a really high admiration of each other. But more importantly than what I would do with Marty right now is what I’m going to do with Kiko – because I love the guy and I want him to get whatever he’s going through worked out.”
When Friedman was presented with the idea of MEGADETH‘s Rust In Peace lineup reunion in 2014, money became a persuading factor for him to take part. He and drummer Nick Menza met with Mustaine and ex-bassist David Ellefson at the 2015 NAMM show in Anaheim to talk about rejoining forces once again.
In Mustaine‘s latest book, Rust In Peace: The Inside Story Of The Megadeth Masterpiece, Friedman candidly reveals why he declined the offer of a MEGADETH reunion for their iconic album, Rust In Peace.
“My main thing was I’d be happy to do it, but I’m not going to take less money than I’m already making to do it,” Marty said in part.
“I’d been in Japan for more than ten years cultivating a career with solid rewards. I was making money not only for myself but also for my management and staff. My manager has been with me fifteen years.
“Everything was sound and solid professionally, and when the offer came up to all of a sudden join MEGADETH again, as long as I would not be making less money, I was ready to go,” he said.
“”But I was certainly not going to take a loss to join a band that, frankly, at that point, didn’t seem like they had too much to offer musically. A couple of members of the band had recently quit, and musically I hadn’t heard anything that they’ve done in a long time.
“I didn’t know about how relevant they continued to be in the music business. It wasn’t like MEGADETH was on the tip of people’s tongues, at least not in Japan. I had reached the point where people stopped immediately connecting me to MEGADETH and were talking about the things that I had done in Japan.”
