Guitarist Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth) recently guested on the Guitar Speak Podcast. During the interview he discussed his solo career (with 15 albums and countless tours under his own name), lessons learned after 10 years with Megadeth, how moving to Japan in the early 2000s made an incredible impact on his career, composition craft and continually growing as a musician, his partnership with guitarist Jason Becker, including playing on Jason's latest album Triumphant Hearts.

On the Cacophany days

Marty: "Jason really grew big time after all that, musically. He grew so fast. I'd like to think that I grew a little bit in time taking baby steps and evolving, but he grew by leaps and bounds in a scary fast way, and he started to really become just a brilliant composer."

On playing on Becker's new Triumphant Hearts album 

Marty: "Whenever he calls, I'll just do whatever he wants me to do. He had me play a couple of songs on this album, and on the title track of that, 'Triumphant Hearts', he gave me a great melody to play, so I was so excited. I got to play the main theme towards the end of the song when it comes to, it's the most exciting theme modulation and climax, so he gave me a good, solid bite, allowing me to play that part of the song."

Check out the interview here.

Triumphant Hearts was released back in December 2018. Order here.

Tracklisting:

"Triumphant Heart" (feat. Marty Friedman, Glauco Bertagnin, Hiyori Okuda)
"Hold On To Love" (feat. Codany Holiday)
"Fantasy Weaver" (feat. Jake Shimabukuro)
"Once Upon A Melody"
"We Are One" (feat. Steve Knight)
"Magic Woman" (feat. Uli Jon Roth & Chris Broderick)
"Blowin' In The Wind" (feat. Gary Rosenberg)
"River Of Longing" (feat. Joe Satriani, Aleks Sever, Guthrie Govan, Steve Morse)
"Valley Of Fire" (feat. Michael Lee Firkins, Steve Vai, Joe Bonamassa, Paul Gilbert, Neal Schon, Mattias IA Eklundh, Marty Friedman, Greg Howe, Jeff Loomis, Richie Kotzen, Gus G., Steve Hunter, Ben Woods)
"River Of Longing" (feat. Trevor Rabin)
"Taking Me Back"
"Tell Me No Lies"
"Hold On To Love" (feat. Codany Holiday) [Chuck Zwicky Remix]
"You Do It"

"Hold On To Love" video:

"Valley Of Fire" video: