Before Marty Friedman became a household name in the world of guitar virtuosos, he was just a kid in Maryland struggling to play his first chord. In his biography – “Dreaming Japanese”, Marty gives an unfiltered, humorous, and raw account of how his journey began—complete with cringe-worthy band names, chaotic rehearsals, and story of Marty Friedman’s First guitar – $99 guitar that almost broke him.
“I Didn’t Even Care About Playing Guitar – History of Marty Friedman’s First guitar”
For Marty, the guitar wasn’t a passion at first—it was a way to fit in. “I didn’t care about playing guitar. I just thought that having one would give me something in common with another human being my age,” he writes. That human being was John Lackey, one of the few kids who spoke to Marty in junior high. John owned an electric guitar, and Marty begged his mom for one.
She eventually took him to a small music shop, where he convinced her to buy a $99 Rythmine guitar, a cheap amp, and a fuzz pedal. “It was a lot of money for her to spend on me all at once, so I felt obligated to do something with it,” he recalls. But when Marty tried to play it for the first time, he was horrified. “It was impossible, and I wanted to return it right away. My little adolescent fingers curled into what resembled fetal positions on the neck.”
Turning Pain Into Progress
Despite the initial frustration, Marty refused to quit. “Out of sheer boredom, I kept trying to play the guitar,” he admits. Slowly, he began to improve. The breakthrough moment came when he managed to play an “A form bar chord,” a staple in every Ramones song. “It hurt like hell, but when the notes finally rang out clearly for the first time, a light bulb went off in my head,” he says. “I latched on to the guitar as something I could get better at, as long as I didn’t give up.”
Within months, Marty was hooked. “I became obsessed,” he writes. He practiced relentlessly and even started teaching neighborhood kids guitar for three bucks a lesson. “If I had been playing for six months and they’d only played for three, as far as they knew, I was the all-knowing God of Guitar,” he jokes.
The Birth of Skyward Movements
Marty’s first band, Skyward Movements, was born from his newfound passion for music. It started when he jammed with Maurice Miller, a drummer who lived nearby. “It was the first time I heard my guitar playing with drums, and I was blown away by the sheer force a simple beat gave my basic riffs,” Marty recalls.
The band’s first gig was a backyard party, but their setlist was less than rock ‘n’ roll. Neighbors requested songs like “Colour My World” by Chicago and “The Way We Were” by Barbra Streisand. “They were galaxies away from the stoner rock songs that got me off,” Marty says. Still, they earned $20 each for the gig—a formative experience that taught Marty the basics of being in a band: “Assemble the players, decide on material, work on it, perform it, get paid. That’s basically it.”
Deuce: Teenage Chaos Meets Rock and Roll
Marty’s first “real” band, Deuce, formed when he was just 15. Inspired by KISS and the Ramones, the band wrote raw, unapologetic songs like “I Killed You” and “I’m Addicted to Rock and Roll.” Marty describes their sound as derivative but full of conviction. “We instinctively knew that if we believed in it, other people would too. And they did.”
Deuce quickly became Marty’s life. Rehearsals were wild, chaotic, and filled with antics. “We bickered, shouted, got high, made out with girls, and screwed around as much as we wrote or rehearsed,” Marty writes. The band practiced in a barn, often surrounded by a mix of friends and strangers. “Some people passed out onstage while we played, and rather than try to revive them, we just walked over them and kept going,” he recalls with a laugh.
The band’s lineup included drummer Billy Giddings, a 16-year-old prodigy, and bassist Mike Davis, whose antics were as memorable as his playing. Marty affectionately describes Mike as “part brilliant self-promoter, part street-corner schizophrenic.”
Lessons from the Stage
Performing regularly forced Deuce to step up their game. Marty learned to adapt on the fly, rewriting intros and adding solos during live performances. “We dug deep inside ourselves and rewrote midsections on the spot, adding whatever we could to make our songs feel like stadium rock anthems,” he explains.
The experience transformed Marty into a confident performer. “We violently attacked our guitars as if we knew what we were doing,” he says. The crowd loved it, and Marty realized that energy and conviction often mattered more than technical skill.
Humble Beginnings, Big Dreams
Reflecting on those early days, Marty writes, “To the fans, we were little rock stars, their own personal Beatles, KISS, or Led Zeppelin.” But for Marty, those chaotic beginnings were about more than fame—they were about finding his identity. “I gave up everything else and devoted my life to playing guitar,” he says.
It’s hard to imagine the polished virtuoso we know today fumbling through his first chords or playing gigs in barns. But as Marty’s story shows, every legend starts somewhere—and often, it’s with a cheap guitar, some bad songs, and a whole lot of determination.
You can buy “Dreaming Japanese” in Amazon
