Former Megadeth lead guitarist Marty Friedman says he suffered an intense panic attack on Christmas Day 1999, during his last days in the band.
The guitar player looks back in an excerpt from upcoming memoir Dreaming Japanese, which Rolling Stone has published.
He says Megadeth’s diminishing success following their maligned 1999 album Risk gave him feelings of stress and guilt as they toured. Friedman had already given his notice at the time, but was supposed to remain with the band until March 2000.
Friedman mentions a Megadeth gig at a “fucking sports bar” in Corpus Christi, Texas, on December 22, 1999. “The marquee read, ‘TONIGHT: MEGADETH and $3.50 Burritos,’” he writes. “In retrospect, it’s funny, but, at the time, it sucked. I hated to see my bandmates glance up at the sign and feel their legacy fade. We rocked the place like it was an arena, and the small crowd left happy, but I was bummed.”
After the show, Friedman returned home for Christmas, his next gig with Megadeth scheduled for December 27. However, on Christmas morning, he suffered a panic attack so strong that his then-wife Chihiro called an ambulance which took him to hospital.
“I was in too much pain to think,” he says. “I fell off the couch and couldn’t move. My heart was racing like a coke fiend about to go into cardiac arrest, and the palpitations were so strong they hurt the muscles in my chest. Fucking hell, could this be a heart attack?”
Once Friedman got to hospital, “Someone rolled me to the ER. I was so freaked out, I thrashed and shook like I was having a grand mal seizure.”
A doctor told Friedman he had suffered an “unusually strong” panic attack, and the guitarist soon called Megadeth tour manager Steve Wood. “You’re not telling me you are going to miss the tour, are you?” Wood asked, according to Friedman.
Friedman replied with an incensed tirade. “‘Dude, I can’t walk!’ I reiterated. ‘I can’t even move. I’m flat on my back in the ER shivering like a moron in the middle of the Arizona desert, and I still don’t have a clue what’s happening. So, fuck them all and fuck the whole fucking tour! It ain’t gonna happen.’”
Despite his initial and passionate refusal from his hospital bed, Friedman played the contracted gigs from December 27 onwards, joined behind-the-scenes by Chihiro.
“I hadn’t touched a guitar since the last song we played in Corpus Christi, and considering I was currently in the middle of the most traumatic experience of my life, I was expecting my performance to be subpar at best,” he writes.
“As soon as I started playing, however, I was back in full control, like nothing had ever happened. I performed with abundant aggression and pulled off my normal stage moves without pause.”
Afterwards, Friedman’s Megadeth exit was pushed forward from March to January. He was replaced by Al Pitrelli, and he later relocated to Japan for a successful multimedia career.
Friedman returned to the stage with Megadeth last year, joining the thrashers during their show at the legendary Budokan in Tokyo. Wintersun’s Teemu Mäntysaari is now their full-time lead guitar player.
Dreaming Japanese comes out on December 3 via Permuted Press.
