Former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman took part in a Q&A session during the recent Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp's "Metalmania III" in Los Angeles, CA. During the session he looked back on getting the call to audition for Ozzy Osbourne's band:

"I'm, like, 'Oh my god. This is great.' I was practically homeless at the time, living with my then-girlfriend and dealing with the rent and all that stuff, as California rock musicians do, and I was so happy to get the call. So I learned the music, went down to L.A.... they flew me down to L.A. to play with the band. And it was, I guess, the guys who were in the band at the time. I thought I played everything absolutely just fine, and I thought it sounded great. Everybody was friendly enough, but our images were very different. It was just like a rehearsal, and they were totally decked out in 1980s Sunset Strip skull t-shirts with handcuffs and long necklaces. They were just ready to go out on the Strip, and I was just in jeans and a t-shirt, totally normal. I just thought that… it was just a different air."

"If you have the same kind of vibe with the people, you can just kind of smell it: 'This is the guy I wanna hang out with.' And it was different on that level. They smelled like L.A., and I smelled like San Francisco, which was a different smell. I would have loved to have got the gig, but they were probably just getting ready to go back out drinking, and I'm not a very big drinker, so it wouldn't have gelled so well. But at the time I was, like, 'Oh, I played it perfectly. Why didn't they call me back?' But I get it."

Video by The Silverdude

Friedman's groundbreaking 3-volume masterclass series, The Art of Soloing, immerses guitarists in a revolutionary learning experience focused intensely on cultivating their unique originality and own artistic identity. It is a lexicon of information not available anywhere else.

Marty's pedigree among the highest tier of guitar soloists in the world is indisputable, but it is the singularity and immediate identifiability of his musical voice that truly distinguishes his artistry, making him ideal to mentor your own creative development with The Art of Soloing.

Friedman: "This is by far the deepest analysis of the things that are unique only to my playing. This is a lexicon of my thought processes, and you will discover many, many concepts you have never been exposed to before."

The Art of Soloing series will be exclusively available on December 5th for those who choose to pre-order here. The content will be released to the public and available to All Access Students who do not pre-order on January 4th. Pre-order now and get access to this content a full month before anyone else!

EMGtv presents “Five Minutes With”, in which some of your favorite EMG artists chat about riffs, tours, albums, gear and more.

A message states: "This Month’s EMG artist Guitar Wizard Marty Friedman. Marty came to hang out at EMG HQ and share some cool riffs and fun stories about recording, performing and stomp cops."