Ex-Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman is featured in a new interview with Grammy.com. He discusses working with artists such as Jason Becker and Rodrigo Y Gabriela, and his new album Inferno. An excerpt is available below:

Q: How did you choose the artists who guested on Inferno?

Friedman: "All the people that I chose are people who have claimed to be influenced by me at some point in their career, and I wanted them to do a real collaboration, actually write a song together with me. I would produce it and arrange it and play it, but I wanted more of a commitment and more of a collaboration. For example, on 'Sociopaths', that's what it would sound like if Dave Davidson from Revocation and I were in the same band. So you get that for each guest appearance. It was quite challenging to do it that way, but just to have guests playing on stuff is borderline meaningless. I mean it's fun, but I wanted to go one level deeper with that. Dave wrote the lyrics for 'Sociopaths' and wrote the majority of the actual song. I arranged it, produced it and played the lead guitars on it, just like a band member would do. He's a great metal lyricist and great musician as well, so it was a wonderful collaboration. I had a blast. I was floored to know that a lot of these people were influenced by my music at all because I rarely follow what people are saying in the media."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Prior to the May 21st release of Inferno, Friedman posted a sneak preview of "Wicked Panacea", a new song featuring the acoustic flamenco/metal guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela.

In the clip below, Friedman discusses the recording of "Horrors" featuring his first song collaboration with Jason Becker since their time in the famed shred group Cacophony.

Friedman's new album Inferno, is out today, May 23rd in Germany/Austria/Switzerland, May 26th in the UK/Europe, May 27th in North America via Prosthetic Records (except in Japan, where the album was released by Universal Music on May 21st). The album was recorded primarily in Los Angeles with engineer Chris Rakestraw (Danzig, Children Of Bodom) and mixed by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Amon Amarth). Inferno also includes notable guest appearances by several artists influenced by Friedman, including flamenco/metal acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, Children Of Bodom front man Alexi Laiho, Skyhardbor mastermind Keshav Dhar and Revocation guitar whiz David Davidson.

In addition, Inferno breaks all genre rules and creates new ones with an exhilarating and musically daring mash-up with Jørgen Munkeby of Shining, as well as two tracks featuring vocals by rock guru Danko Jones. Overall, Inferno is by far Friedman's most thrilling and adventurous effort to date.

Tracklisting:

"Inferno"
"Resin"
"Wicked Panacea" (feat. Rodrigo y Gabriela)

"Steroidhead" (feat. Keshav Dhar)

"I Can"t Relax" (feat. Danko Jones)

"Meat Hook" (feat. Jørgen Munkeby)

"Hyper Doom"
"Sociopaths" (feat. David Davidson)

"Lycanthrope" (feat. Alexi Laiho & Danko Jones)

"Undertow"

"Horrors" (co-written by Jason Becker)

"Inferno" -reprise-

"Sociopaths" lyric video:

"Meat Hook":

"Inferno" video:

"Steroidhead'":