New Autobiography by Laurel’s Marty Friedman Pulls No Punches
Laurel High School graduate Marty Friedman (Class of 1980) attained world-wide rock star status during the 1990s with heavy metal group Megadeth. But as he describes in his new autobiography, Dreaming Japanese, his formative years in Laurel did not reflect the usual hard-luck rock star story. His publisher, Permuted Press, provided me with an advance copy of the book for this article.
Overall, the book is very entertaining. Friedman comes across as intelligent, funny, and honest, and takes responsibility for mistakes he made along the way. His honesty extends to the explicit language and stories of the sex and drugs in which he partook.
While he provides countless recollections of typical band tensions, along with informative explanations of what goes on behind the scenes, Friedman’s story, in some ways, is not typical. He is reluctant to blame others, which is a refreshing difference from most entertainers’ autobiographies. Another difference from other similar tales is that he makes no bones that he loves his family and gives them credit for much of his success. However, he sometimes does veer into pampered rock star mode, which is to be expected.
Even though Friedman has enjoyed world-wide success as a musician, this article focuses mainly on his time in Laurel.
“Misfit”
Friedman’s musical odyssey began in Laurel while living on Granite Lane in Montpelier with his father, mother, and sister. His father worked at NSA and his mother, whom Friedman credits as his creative muse, was a homemaker. He mentions more than a few times how close and devoted he still is to his younger sister.
As a teenager, Friedman described himself as a “misfit.” He recalled his years at Eisenhower Junior High and Laurel High and his attraction to heavy metal music:
“When I grew up, music, particularly hard rock, was a vicarious escape for kids ignored or victimized by the popular crowd—an aggressive outlet for those of us who didn’t have dates, weren’t insanely athletic or handsome, didn’t dress well, and weren’t going to parties with cheerleaders. Heavy music was, and still is, a refuge for the outcast. It makes the weak feel strong and empowers the powerless. Heavy metal provides an energized environment to dream about and escape to, and a platform to share discoveries with other like-minded losers. Most popular artists were once the downtrodden misfits and geeks of their generation.”
While attending Eisenhower Junior High, his mother bought his first guitar from “a small music shop in Laurel called Rosso Brothers.” But, as he recalled, “I picked it up and tried to play the damn thing. It was impossible and I wanted to return it right away. My little adolescent fingers curled into what resembled fetal positions on the neck.”
His stories about the early bands he joined in Laurel—and the “cringe-worthy” band names they came up with—are funny. His endearing, self-deprecating recollections include his very first band, named Skyward Movements. Friedman writes “Bowel Movements would probably have been more suited to our sound.” For their first gig in front of neighbors they played a mixture of Chicago, the Bee Gees, and Barbara Streisand.
His next band, named Pinchaloaf Blues Band, graduated to playing “grown-up rock songs by The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead,” and others.
A few years ago, when Friedman was on a solo tour of the U.S., The Laurel History Boys visited him in his trailer. With our camera rolling, he loved telling stories of his days in Laurel. He talked about the “Munchkin Trail,” a path behind Laurel High School that led to the Laurel Hills neighborhood, and all the teenage shenanigans that took place there. He laughed telling a story about forgetting his wallet on a date once and, after eating at Delaney’s Pizza Parlor, left his girlfriend there as “collateral” while he went home to retrieve his wallet.
Deuce
Everything changed for Friedman at the age of 14, when he answered a classified ad for “Rock Guitarist” placed by a 15-year-old in West Laurel named Tom Gattis. Gattis had a band in need of a lead guitar. More importantly, Gattis’ mother, Mary, had built a barn on her property on Supplee Lane that served as a rehearsal venue for her son’s band. Friedman joined the band, and they chose the name Deuce, “after the KISS song (c’mon, we were fifteen),” writes Friedman.
Independent filmmaker Rudy Childs produced a documentary about the band’s beginnings, titled Tension: 25 Years Underground. (Years later, after Friedman left Deuce, the band renamed themselves as Tension.)
Gattis, Friedman, and others associated with Deuce, including Gattis’ mother, were interviewed on-camera for the film. Friedman talked about how he and Gattis got along from the start. “We were both just really weird people,” he said.
But Friedman’s two years with Deuce saw immense growth in his musical ability. “I have that barn to really thank for a lot of my musical sense that I still have now,” he said in the film.
In his book, Friedman recalled those first days in the barn: “Mary had converted the whole place into a huge rehearsal space with a wide, two-level stage and a sturdy drum riser. ... All four of us were basically beginners, but being up on that stage, with Chris [Tinto] bashing away on his kit above us and the rest of us down below striking rock poses, made us look and feel like real musicians. When some of the local kids heard the racket we were making, they came out to find out what was going on; they were our first fans.”
The barn quickly became an every-night party. As Friedman recalled, “It wasn’t long before people in their twenties came with alcohol and drugs and partied alongside the rest of us.”
The fans helped the band hone their sound: “The regulars at the barn were a reliable gauge of what worked and what didn’t. As a rock and roll internship, the experience was invaluable and left me with some of the warmest memories of my life. There were girls, dope, booze, and loud rock music! What’s not to like? We gave all these people from rural Laurel and beyond something to do at night, and fed off the excitement, fanaticism, and perks of the profession.”
In addition to Gattis and Tinto, Friedman is generous in his praise of many local musicians he played with in his formative years in Laurel, such as Billy Giddings, Eddie Day, Mike Davis, and Steve Leter. Despite his later worldwide success with Megadeth, Friedman chastises himself for deciding to leave the band after two years: “Good chemistry in a band is rare, and great chemistry is even harder to come by. In Deuce, we had once-in-a-lifetime chemistry. And I threw it away. Moron.”
After Laurel
When NSA sent his father to Hawaii, Friedman moved with his family but he eventually relocated to California for his career. For the next few years, he was in a few bands and tried his hand at a solo career, without much success. But his big break came in 1990 when he auditioned for Megadeth, which already had released three albums and enjoyed a nation-wide, if not world-wide, following.
Friedman spent the next nine years as Megadeth’s lead guitarist. The first album he recorded with them was Rust in Peace, which was nominated for the Best Metal Performance Grammy. With Friedman as lead guitarist, Megadeth sold over ten million albums.
As he writes in his book, “Megadeth also played the Capitol [sic] Centre in Maryland. For me, this was an even bigger deal than playing MSG [Madison Square Garden], because I saw my favorite bands there when I was a kid. ... John Lackey came to the show, which made me really happy. He and I had gone to see tons of rock shows there when we were in high school. Now, on the stage looking at the audience, and seeing people watch me with the same kind of wonder and excitement that I had in my teens, was remarkable. I felt like I was finally where I was always meant to be.”
After recording five albums with Megadeth, Friedman decided he needed to go his own way. He describes his feelings about informing the band: “I wasn’t nervous because I already knew I was done, and it would feel great to get it out there and start moving on.”
Since leaving Megadeth, Friedman relocated to Japan, where he is a huge star, and continues to tour worldwide as a solo artist. In his book, he describes his conversion into a Japanese TV star, among many other pursuits there. He has become fluent in Japanese and written three books in the language, along with writing articles and columns in Japanese magazines and newspapers. Dreaming Japanese is his first book written in English. Due to his success as a foreigner, he was appointed Ambassador to Japanese Heritage by the Japanese government.
But it all started in Laurel.
Dreaming Japanese is available on Amazon.
Tension: 25 Years Underground DVDs are available at rudychilds.com/store/ or can be downloaded from Thunderflix at thunderflix.com/.
Kevin Leonard is a founding member of the Laurel History Boys and a two-time winner of the Maryland Delaware District of Columbia Press Association Journalism Award.
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