When Megadeth was looking to fill its vacant guitar and drum slots after guitarist Chris Broderick and drummer Shawn Drover quit in late 2014, rumors immediately started circulating that the group would return to its classic lineup of having Nick Menza back on drums and Marty Friedman on guitar. Menza recently confirmed he was asked to rejoin and ultimately declined the job as Megadeth's drummer, but what about Friedman? Well, in a recent interview he confirms that he too was asked to rejoin and also declined the offer. So sayeth an interview with Vorterix Radio transcribed by Blabbermouth:
"I don't know anything about Nick's story, I don't know what he said, I don't know anything about that, but I will tell you that, of course, I was offered to join Megadeth — not only now, but in other times [in the past]," Marty said. "[But] there's just no reason for me to join Megadeth right now.
"Just because there's a vacancy in the band doesn't mean that, 'Oh, now is my chance to join Megadeth.' There's absolutely no reason for me to do that. However, I'm very, very close friends with Mustaine and [David] Ellefson, and the band in general, and I love them like brothers. So if they talk to me, I listen. We're very close. So I support them, and I wish them nothing but success and power and everything great. But just because there's a vacancy in the band is not enough of a reason for me to, all of a sudden, put aside all the things I'm doing and then just join their band. It's just not."
It gets better too! In the interview, Friedman was asked if rejoining Megadeth would be a huge step backward for him in his career… and man, does Friedman say yes.
"A huge step backwards. Huge.
"I'm really not into nostalgia at all. Like, we were just talking [earlier in the interview] about these great times [Megadeth] had in Argentina [while I was in the band]. That's a wonderful piece of history; that's what it is. So it's time to move on and do new things and not chase the past. So I think that they're better off doing new things, and I'm certainly better off doing new things and being able to be the artist that I am, and that I wanna become. And there's no reason to go chasing the past."
We were so damn close! Not that having Lamb of God's Chris Adler on drums and Angra's Kiko Loureiro on guitar is a bad thing either, but still!
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