A 14-year-old Marty Friedman taught himself to play guitar after attending a KISS concert. In 1990, he joined thrash metal legends Megadeth. The band sold more than 10 million records during Friedman’s decade-long tenure with them. However, the Megadeth that fans know and love might have never existed if Friedman were just a few inches taller.
KISS Turned Former Megadeth Guitarist Away For… Being Too Short?
While music is first and foremost, musicians also have an image to consider. For hair metal icons KISS especially, aesthetics played a crucial role in the band’s commercial appeal. And unfortunately for Marty Friedman, he lacked a certain something the band was looking for—and it wasn’t his shredding skills.
During an interview with Sam Ash Music, Friedman revealed that KISS actually reached out to him about coming aboard during one of the band’s many switch-up.
“They say like ‘Do you think you’d be interested in auditioning for KISS?’ I’m like, ‘Tell me when and where,’” said the guitarist, now 61. “They came back and were like, ‘We’ve got a couple of questions for you. You don’t have any facial hair, do you?’ No. ‘You got long hair right?’ Right. ‘You’re skinny right?’ Right.’
Then they reached the final question: “And you’re over 6 feet tall?”
Friedman is only about 5’7, but he was willing to go to extreme lengths to join the group that inspired his career. “‘I’ll have an operation, I’ll do something,’” he recalled saying. “And they were like, ‘I’m sorry, it’s not going to work out.’ I was so bummed.”
Turns out, KISS’ loss was Megadeth’s gain.
[RELATED: The Guitar Solo that Took Marty Friedman Nearly 200 Takes to Nail Down]
Marty Friedman On Settling “Unfinished Business” With Former Bandmate
After five studio albums—one of them double platinum—Marty Friedman announced his departure from Megadeth in 1999. Last year, he reunited with his former bandmates for two shows at Japan’s legendary Budokan venue.
That reunion brought a lifelong dream to fruition for both Friedman and Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine. “All the bands we’re fans of were playing at the Budokan — Cheap Trick, KISS… Dave and I really had that seed in our hearts ever since we were kids,” Friedman said.
Sharing a stage at the iconic Tokyo landmark “was just a wonderful bit of closure for me and Dave,” the thrash guitarist said.
“[There’s] absolutely no bad blood between us,” Friedman added. “But the one bit of unfinished business we had was, when I was in the band, we had an opportunity to play Budokan, and it never happened.”
Featured image by Larry Marano/Shutterstock
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