Marty Friedman on Playing Tanahashi To The Ring For NJPW for Wrestle Kingdom 8, His New Album Drama

Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard a lot of people on this show.

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You've heard wrestlers, you've heard musicians, you've heard guitarists, but I'm here

today with none other than the Note Goat himself.

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Mr.

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Marty Friedman, how you doing today?

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Nice to meet you John, I'm doing just great.

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You too.

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I, like I told you before we went on air and I think I speak for a lot of us, especially

the guitar players here.

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You are a huge inspiration to me and so many others with all of your work over the years.

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Your solo records have just been crushing it over the years.

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And you know, all the work that you've done, it's just, I can't thank you enough for

making the time for us.

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And it's interesting to have this conversation with you because...

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You are obviously known for all of your amazing composition, all of your amazing guitar

playing, all of the great things that you bring to the table.

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But we're going to start off our conversation today as we are ropes and riffs talking

about wrestling, music, all that jazz with your performance playing Tanahashi to the ring.

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And for those who are within the wrestling bubble, Tanahashi is the wrestler, obviously in

New Japan, now also the president of New Japan.

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And he's starting to wind his career down a little bit.

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So how I propose that.

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We are having Marty talk about the time that he played, he played Tanahashi to the ring.

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So I'd love to hear a little bit more as to how that came to be.

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And we'll dive a little bit deeper into that, but yeah, tell us how you ended up being on

stage with the ace himself, Tanahashi.

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you know, I don't even remember how it came about.

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you know, obviously came through my manager, you're going to do this next week.

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Okay, let's do it.

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That was basically probably how it happened.

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I don't remember that part of it, but I remembered that, before we did, we went out

together and had a casual lunch somewhere and we got to know each other and

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It was like, it was Ta-Nehisi, the champion, but he was just like a dude, a regular dude,

like I would be hanging out with any of my friends, you know?

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And then when I noticed the difference between us casually having lunch and him getting

pumped to do an actual wrestling match, it was like planets apart.

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I mean, it was just like, this is one focused, motivated,

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just a killing machine.

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The guy blew my mind with how on point he was with his body, his concentration, his

dedication, and his just drive to actually go out there and kick major, major ass.

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He was just like completely focused, you know, stun gun type of thing.

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I was just totally blown away by that gap because normally he was so casual.

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totally casual, but when it comes to work mode, it was totally different.

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So I really was inspired by that myself because I kind of understand that, you know, when

you're doing your day-to-day things, you're normal, but when it comes time to come on

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stage, you become a completely different person and you just go out there and nothing else

matters other than your target.

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So watching him do that at the highest level just blew my mind.

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And I'm...

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What else do I remember?

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Go ahead.

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no, I was just gonna say, yeah, it's totally true.

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you also, you know, this is younger Tanahashi too.

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And you know, now he's in the twilight of his career.

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He's doing a lot of great things now, but this was like white hot Tanahashi too, going

into Wrestle Kingdom and like you said, being the best version of himself.

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Yeah, definitely.

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Do you remember what year that was in?

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I think it was Wrestle Kingdom 8.

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Let me take a look.

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I feel like it was probably somewhere...

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2000 and...

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Maybe 10 or 11 or something like that.

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I'm pretty sure you're right.

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It was 2014.

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So in 2014, yeah, that was the year that you had played him to the ring for Wrestle King

to meet.

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Yeah.

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Right, that was the first time I met him.

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Actually, we did something together maybe a year and a half ago, two years ago, and this

would interest you, and maybe you know about it, but there was this huge event where all

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the wrestlers of Japan, from previous, the old classic guys to the new guys now, it was a

collaboration between them and their theme songs.

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So...

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They had all these different Japanese musicians, myself included, I'm not Japanese, but I

I get included in that a lot.

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The musicians all played different entrance themes.

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So like I came and I played Tanahashi's entrance theme.

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I played two of his themes and I actually got into the ring with him while I was playing

and he was like on the ropes and...

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jumping up and down and we were both jamming together.

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was so incredibly surreal for two songs and then we'd get off and then another famous

wrestler would come in some different configuration with a different musician, different

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band playing.

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And the whole thing was like four hours of theme songs with their corresponding wrestlers.

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Some of these wrestlers hadn't come out in decades.

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but had come back to play with their theme song and some of the guys were brand new, the

hottest guys now.

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And Tanahashi was there.

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When we played his song, the place just absolutely erupted.

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I forgot if it was the Tokyo Dome or the Yoyogi Taikukan.

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Maybe you know, but it was just a typical major arena type of place.

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But man, it was more rock than rock, man.

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It was just like.

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The place just blew up and this was not an actual match.

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This was just each wrestler and his particular opening theme.

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And I was so honored to be asked to do that again with Tanahashi.

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just a wonderful experience.

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I have to look up what the event was too, because in the world of like entrance themes for

wrestlers within the last, let's say 15 years or so, 20 years, they've gotten a lot more

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of a fanfare, right?

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And back with WWE with Jim Johnston, who wrote like all the eighties and nineties stuff

for WWE all the way up to like your Mikey Ruckus is now all the people with like AEW, new

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Japan has their composed, like all these different people wrestling themes now have their

own place within the music ecosystem.

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And to know.

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First off, I've spoken to other people on this show where other entrance theme song

composers have been like, man, it'd be really cool if we did like a combined show and we

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had all these different themes and we're going through it and it sounds like you're

already part of one of those.

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That's so cool.

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That's exactly what it was and it was such a thrill.

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Such a thrill to do.

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was all literally the royalty of musicians in Japan doing it.

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So was honored to be asked in the first place, but it just showed what kind of connection

the theme song and the actual wrestler have and how much of a part of the enjoyment

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experience for the audience that is.

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It's like the second you hear...

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the first note of the theme song, you know who it is.

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So there's that, it's like a double edged kind of anticipation.

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They both play off each other and it shows the importance of theme songs in general and

music in general when you collide it with sports and those are my two favorite things.

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And so to put those together, you know, of course, when I was a kid, I wanted to be in

sports, not music, but I was certainly not suited to any sports.

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So this is the closest I can get.

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So it was just really wonderful.

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And I think the music that you've written over the years too is very much in line with a

lot of things that entrance themes tend to do, right?

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Like even a song like Dragon Mistress, right?

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As soon as you hear those first two seconds of Dragon Mistress, you're like, oh, that's

where we're at.

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This is the vibe.

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This is the piece.

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Here's where we're going with it.

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And it's not just that.

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It's all these different pieces that you've written over the years.

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You know, it's important to be able to have a song, have an identity.

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But when you're writing for a wrestler or you're working with a wrestler, you got to be

able to identify that.

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right away and just like you're saying, like nowadays you have the fans who it's like,

wow, I love my favorite wrestler, but now I'm able to hear the song and we're off to the

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races before anything else happens.

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Do you know if this was with new Japan only or was it with like a lot of wrestling

companies like Noah and things like that?

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It was all only Japanese wrestlers.

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know that.

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I don't know the league names and all the minutiae, but there was maybe 25 different top

wrestlers, just one after the other.

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It was a big, big event.

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I wish I knew what it was called, but I got to meet a lot of these wrestlers.

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And the funniest thing is, like, I'm sure you know this, but...

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You see the wrestlers, the only time you usually see them is during the matches on TV or

whatever.

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And you're just in awe of these guys, but when you meet them, they're the absolute

calmest, nicest, nice guy, almost like nerds in a way.

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It's the complete polar opposite, not just Tanahashi, but the other guys.

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They were just like so incredibly polite and friendly, and that whole persona was

completely in their professional world, but.

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when they get off stage, was just like, man, that was a really nice song you played.

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It's like so soft spoken.

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yeah, that gap kind of always freaks me out.

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But I guess that's the professional world.

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People don't see the other 23 and a half hours of a day.

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They see the most concentrated killer instinct moments only.

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So that's their image, as it should be.

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and they see that personality turned up to 11 or the personality that they want to portray

to the audience, right?

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They come off stage or even when you're talking to them, like you said, in not a wrestling

context.

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And I can speak to that for sure.

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Any of the wrestlers I've ever met or ever worked with, and I've said this a lot of times

on this show, wrestlers are just like the nicest people in the world.

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And it's like, you know, asking anybody, what do you want for your theme?

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Or, you know, even just saying, Hey, I love the work that you do, or just meeting somebody

outside for the first time.

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wrestlers are like the most humble people in the world.

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And then you see them ready to break people's necks in the ring.

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So it's like a complete night and day difference.

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Absolutely.

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Yeah.

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Now, when you go and do this for New Japan and you're playing Tanahashi to the ring, a lot

of people, same thing as you said, they just see you go out to the stage, right?

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They just see the performance.

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But when you're getting everything revved up to play, you're playing on your own and then

Tanahashi comes out.

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What is some of the prep look like for being able to play for Tanahashi?

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Because Tanahashi's themes have been composed by the new Japan composers and everything

like that.

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What is the prep for you to be able to go out there and start rocking on Tanahashi's

theme?

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Well, it's pretty much the same prep for any kind of big event where I'm collaborating

with anybody else.

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The first thing that happens is I will receive the music and nine times out of ten they

say just play it your way, however you want to play it.

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And then you put together like whether if I'm playing with a band you rehearse with the

band, if you're playing with like tracks you edit the tracks or whatever.

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So before you do the event, you have like a sound check.

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Sometimes at these big events like Tokyo Dome or something, the sound check may be on a

different day from the actual event.

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I don't remember what happened in this case, but I remember Tokyo Dome is very big and

it's not when you do something like what I did with Tanahashi, it's not like you stand on

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a stage and play.

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You walk through the entire floor.

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of the event, were like walkways.

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There wasn't really like a stage like when a band is playing, as you know, in the

wrestling, there's a wrestling ring in the middle of everything.

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So what they had for the Tokyo Dome was like all of these ramps and roads going to and

from the wrestling ring.

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And so when we did the soundcheck rehearsal, we had to figure out, where are we gonna walk

together?

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Where am I gonna play against him?

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Where are we gonna pose together?

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Where's the television camera's gonna be?

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Where's we gonna pose when this explosion goes off?

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And every little detail of, the song is not very long, maybe three minutes at the most.

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Every little thing, and usually, it kind of is weird for me, but they always say, dude, go

out there and play guitar solo first by yourself.

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They always say that.

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at just about anything.

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could be I could be playing for like a Japanese idol, five girls in an idol group or

something.

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OK, when we start the stage, you go out there and play guitar solo.

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Like, really, really?

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I mean, I'm very flattered.

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But I mean, we've got this killer song.

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Why don't we just come out and bam?

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It's like, no, play guitar solos, whatever.

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So I forgot if I did this at Ta-Nehisi's thing or not.

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But what I do remember is we are

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you know, wanna walk at the same pace.

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You know, he's got his thing where he plays air guitar.

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And so I was trying to mimic his motions and then he was mimicking my motions.

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And then we'd play off each other almost like band members and we kinda got our little

moves together on the sound check.

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then between sound check and the real thing is when I saw Tanahashi's really concentration

mode.

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I mean, because for him it wasn't just the interesting theme.

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He was getting ready to do a major match, the championship.

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So, you know, this entrance theme was very small details for him.

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That was just the fun.

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He had real things on his mind.

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The entrance thing is just fun, a bit of fun.

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But he was in such a concentrated mode.

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He was by himself, by the stage.

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He was like doing kind of stretches and just was so deeply in touch with what he was

doing.

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He wasn't talking to...

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He was there.

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I was there because we were both gonna go out together to start this thing, but I was just

playing a song.

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He was going out there to play, to do an actual match, which he won, by the way.

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But I just loved watching that concentration mode, man.

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I just, I thought, is top league pro.

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And then I'm trying to think in English.

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He's just the top league pro, man.

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Champion.

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just love also though how you're, you know, you're saying all these things about

Tanahashi, but it's probably very reflective of the things that you do, like you said,

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before you've gone out at the stage over the years too.

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You know, if anyone, for everybody that is familiar with your playing, the songwriting,

the technique, everything with you, it's not just waking up one day and being like, all

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right, cool, I can do this.

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Like there's so much prep that I'm sure goes into it.

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You've got your warmups, you've got everything that you're doing.

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And the one thing I love too about

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when you did play Tanahashi to the ring too, there are a lot of people who play the

entrances for wrestlers and they're just off on the side, right?

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They have all the sound set up, it's a band, fine.

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But with you, like you said, you and him were in step.

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Like you came out first, then he comes out, and then you're walking down to the ring with

him too in front of the Tokyo Dome, or at the Tokyo Dome in front of all the fans.

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And so it was a little bit different than what you've seen, you know, in other

performances.

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Like you're not just standing off to the side, you're part of the show now.

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You're part of Tana Hashi's canon.

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You're part of Wrestle Kingdom 8 because you're walking in frame with him.

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And you're not just walking behind him.

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You know, you're walking side by side with him.

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He's referencing you.

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You're referencing him.

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And this is years before, you know, Nita Strauss playing Nakamura to the ring.

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This is years before Montese with Sammy Guevara over in AEW.

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So I think 2014, you're coming out there when there's a lot of kind of static stuff

happening on the stage with the musician and you're like, nah man, you and I, let's do

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this.

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Let's make it an event.

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I'm Marty Friedman, you're Ta-Nehashi.

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We gotta make it an event, don't we?

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Yeah, well, I'm not gonna go in there and lose.

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I'm not gonna go in there and lose, but it's not a competition.

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And really, I was just honored because I'm sure it was Tanahashi himself who asked me to

do it because he told me he was a big fan of mine and people see me playing guitar in

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Japan quite a lot.

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And he's known for being a big fan of guitar.

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So...

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you know, when he asked me, I was just honored to do it.

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And, you know, like you said, I'm not gonna be just standing there on the side in the

back, although I would be just as honored to do that.

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You know, I love to play music in any situation.

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But, you know, it was a show, was a part of the show.

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was very much the staging was very, worked out between him and myself and the staff and...

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broadcasting and they really, really did it like a major event that it was.

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But yeah, I'm going to give it the same thing that I give it any of my shows really.

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It's like as soon as I start playing in front of anybody, you know, it's game on for me,

so to speak.

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you know, I think the one, I guess it's something in common with myself and I don't want

to put myself in a league with Ta-Nehisi champion like that, but I guess the same thing is

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as soon as

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the lights go down and there's an audience there, something comes over, comes over me and

I just play, you know, I'm on a thousand, I'm on a thousand percent, you know, it's

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adrenaline, it's experience, it's just what I do, it's all those things put together that,

you know, if I'm sitting here at home, you know, I rarely play at home because, you know,

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I just don't play that much and if I did, it would be so casual, but as soon as

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You know, you're in the fucking Tokyo Dome, man.

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There's billions of people there.

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They're all completely ape shit.

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There's nothing else you can do than just completely go crazy yourself.

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So, and that's just a normal way of moving, you know, as a player, as an artist, musician,

guitar player, whatever.

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I think that's kind of the same thread between anyone who plays on stage for people.

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and has done it for a long time and loves doing it.

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And I think that's a common thread.

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And also you're just such a perfect fit for a lot of those themes over in New Japan too,

because a lot of those themes are guitar-driven too, you have lot of obviously electronic

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stuff going on, but a lot of these themes, if you go back and listen to it, kind of

comparative to maybe themes from other promotions, a lot of it is very guitar-driven.

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So to have you playing Tanahashi to the Ring, it's not just him playing the guitar

obviously, and him being a fan of yours.

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But it doesn't come out of left field, you know?

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A lot of the themes that you hear, even like Nakamura's Subconscious and all those, you

hear a lot of that guitar influence in all of those themes.

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Yeah, wrestling, course, guitar is the perfect instrument for something so adrenaline

driven and so powerful and aggressive.

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Guitar is kind of a no brainer, but in Japan, guitar fits in a lot of places, And we could

go on for hours why that is.

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think one of the main reasons that I came up with is

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The stringed instruments, plucked string instruments have been in Japanese traditional

history for centuries.

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You know, look at the shamisen, it's a three string guitar where they're playing solos.

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And a lot of times many of them play solos in unison.

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So it's just like, they were doing freebird in like the 1600s.

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So it's gone through the generations of, know, solos on a stringed instrument.

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So it's...

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kind of in the blood over here.

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It's not gonna, you know, loosen up anytime soon.

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So it's kind of goes with any Japanese sport, you know.

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I've also been very fortunate that Ichiro used one of my songs as his entrance theme for

baseball.

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used one of my, I have an album called Tokyo Jukebox and he used the song Amagigoe as his

entrance theme and it's just a...

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ton of guitar on there.

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And yes, I think that there's a big connection between Japan and guitar.

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And I played a lot of Japanese music on guitar and do a lot of my interpretations of

Japanese songs.

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And even my own original music is definitely influenced by Japanese music to a big extent.

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So it all goes together.

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It all fits together.

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I remember being an admirer of yours as I still am.

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And I remember years ago you had a video out where you were talking about some of the

differences between Eastern pop and Western pop.

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And one of the things that you had brought up, which I was doing a lot of these kind of

chords on my own, like these extended chords, major sevens, those kinds of things, kind of

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a bit of a jazz background.

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And I remember that I was so huge into, you know, Japanese music and things like that.

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Like even things like Lisa, I'm still huge into now.

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and you listen to this music and you're like, the chord progressions are very jazz

centric.

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And you would also mention, you know, the generations and traditions of the music, but you

also nailed it such on the head.

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were like, they're not afraid over in Japan to deal with a lot of these more interesting

chord progressions, you know, these more extended chords and, you know, transpo, not

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transposing, but, moving from key to key and modulating and doing all those things.

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was like such a refreshing thing to be like, wow.

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It's so true.

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And even the tone you had on that was very much like the almost kind of like broken up

sound of the guitar, like kind of dirty, kind of clean.

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And it was just such a perfect representation of how guitar is so influential in the

Japanese pop music.

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Definitely.

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Well, different countries, different influences.

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America is a very guitar culture as well because we started with the blues and rock and

roll and all that stuff.

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It's a very guitar, very guitar oriented country.

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Japan is a very guitar oriented country.

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But Japan did not grow up with the blues like America did.

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So you'll have kids in their first bands who can barely play.

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They're playing the songs in the top 10 and all of those songs

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have like you said, these minor seventh chords and flat five major seven, all of the very

day one jazz chords, but not the day one stuff for American kids like us, because we

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learned like rock and roll and blues and heavy blues and all that stuff.

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But the kids here in Japan start with a different palette and it's just different country,

different sounds.

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And that's why each country has its own identity.

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which is just absolutely wonderful and I'm fortunate that I'm kind of living with both.

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I grew up with one and then I'm living in another and it really shows up in whatever I do

because I can kind of pick and choose.

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And even between things that you've done with like Tokyo Jukebox 3, which the two albums

for me, which have been such staples, drama is up there for me now, And Tokyo Jukebox 3,

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those two for me are just like, man, these are so many different sounds that it's the

merge of all the things that you've done over the years.

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And...

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For me, hearing Tokyo Jukebox 3, you really hear that.

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You hear what you can do and kind of like the Western influence, but you obviously hear

all the different sounds that are more of the different influences that you're talking

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about here.

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For me, I ended up hearing Lisa's Rising Hope for the first time years ago, and I was

like, that's it.

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This is where we are now.

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And, you know, for me, I love the Japanese style of music too, but let's talk a little bit

about Drama too, because Drama is the most recent record and

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We'll talk about Illumination, when I first opened up Drama, that was the song that popped

up, and you're able to go into all these different styles, right?

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You're able to go heavy, you're able to go a little bit softer, and I want you to walk us

a little bit through what the process was for you coming up with the album Drama, because

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even just off of Illumination, you can tell that this is a very compositionally sound

record.

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All of them are.

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But I feel like drama has even more of a focus on composition even more than just the

guitar as well.

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Great observation.

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I'll try to keep it quick, but drama is just the culmination of everything that I've

always wanted to do and trying to get better at, trying to get better at compositionally

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and parallel, in a parallel, obviously playing.

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I think if you follow my work, hopefully you've noticed that my playing has always kind of

increased in its depth.

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and intensity and just gotten better for lack of a better word because I've always kept my

playing, you know, it's been a conscious and subconscious effort to not repeat myself.

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So that being said, the composition, I've figured out maybe about 10, 15 years ago, the

best way for me to do compositions and to make the music.

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exactly the way I want it to be and with all the depth that I'm trying to shoot for.

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I found the process, you know, maybe around the Inferno album or an album or two before

that.

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And then that time it was still in its infancy, but now I've really honed in on the

process.

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It's a very long and tedious process of, in short, it's making many, many demos.

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many demos, different keys, different tempos, different modulations, and living with demos

for a long time.

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So it's not like, I got it, this is the song.

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You gotta live with these things and make different demos and use different musicians and

concentrate on everything but guitar.

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Guitar is the easiest thing for me to do.

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It's, if you listen to drama, all the other instruments are backing me up in such a way.

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that it makes anything that I do in guitar sound really nice.

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And that's because I spent like about 80 % of the time on everybody else.

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And the other 20 % of the time, you know, I trust my playing, I know what I'm gonna do,

but it takes a lot more work to get everybody else to do exactly the things that are gonna

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make my guitar playing and the entire piece, the composition, most importantly, shine at

the end.

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So I'm...

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That's a process that's taken time.

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Drama took like two years to get done.

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We're gonna be playing a lot of that stuff live on this tour that starts in January.

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It's just, I think it's, I don't know how I'm gonna top this because, know, whether I like

an album or not, the only thing that really matters is people who listening to it.

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So if they say, I prefer this other era of his career better, that's.

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fine and wonderful because music, when you're a fan of music, it has nothing to do with

the artist.

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It has to do with you, the listener, your experiences when you discovered the music, your

experiences when you were listening to the music, you know, what the music helped you

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with, what the music made you feel bad about, good about.

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It's all the listener.

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So I can't control that.

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But for myself, I can tell you right now that drama is by far the best representation of

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what I want my music to be, what I want my music to eventually be, and what you're going

to hear live.

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So if other people join me in that, that's wonderful.

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But if they don't, then I'm still 1,000 % appreciative anyway, because like I said, it's

not me, it's you.

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Last question I have for you before we leave, my friend, is, and I ask everybody who comes

on the show, if you could go ahead and give me three songs that you would put on a Spotify

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playlist to say, is what represents Marty Friedman.

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What would those three songs be?

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They would probably be three songs off drama, because like when you said, what represents

a person, I think when you're an artist, your main quest is to create music that

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represents you.

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Your main quest is something that you want to put your name on it.

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And when people see that name, that's the sound.

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It's almost like a wrestling theme.

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When you hear that sound, it's this person.

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So as an artist, you want that sound to be something that you're proud of, right?

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You don't want people to hear some like awful thing and they say, that's so and so.

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You want to represent yourself in the way that actually defines you as a person.

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And I will say that I believe my music represents me better than my talking or if you knew

me in person, because I'm pretty much a goofball in person, but in my music.

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you hear exactly what I am and what exactly I'm trying to do.

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It's like in art, you can be anything, you can create anything, but in real life, I don't

know how to screw in a light bulb, I'm pretty much useless.

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But in art, you can carve out your identity.

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So to answer your question, what would be three songs that would

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say Marty Friedman, would just pick the first three off drama, which would be

Illumination, Eternal Child, and Triumph.

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And yeah, that's, I don't know if that's kind of a cheating way to answer your question,

but I think it's the perfect way to answer it.

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at all.

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think it's great.

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And you're so focused on composition where it makes sense.

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you know, drama, we talked about, is such an amazing record.

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Well, Marty, thank you so much for making the time to chat with us today.

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We have had such an awesome time.

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It's such a different conversation, talking entrance themes, talking music, and just being

able to spend time with one of my heroes.

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00:30:12,074 --> 00:30:14,026

Thank you so much for your time, my friend.

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00:30:14,361 --> 00:30:15,016

Thank you, John.

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I'll see you in Jersey or New York.

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Yes, sir.