On The Tour Bus With Former MEGADETH Guitarist MARTY FRIEDMAN (Video) And Live Video’s From Knotfest

Former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman is featured in the latest episode of Digital Tour Bus‘s “Bus Invaders”, which takes you inside the touring vehicle of one of today’s top touring acts. The footage was shot on September 18 in Chicago, Illinois.

With his first live appearances in North America in more than a decade, Friedman recently mesmerized fans across the continent in support of his Billboard-charting, critically acclaimed 2014 solo album “Inferno”. Now Friedman has announced that he’ll return Stateside once again in early 2016. Following a solo guitar clinic in Mexico City, the second American leg of the “Inferno” world tour will kick off in Phoenix on February 8, with support on most dates provided by HOLY GRAIL.

Immediately following the tour, Friedman will appear on the inaugural 2016 Axes & Anchors cruise, where he will perform two sets and host a guitar clinic. Reservations can be made now at www.axesandanchors.com.

“Inferno” sold around 2,100 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 186 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD was released on May 26, 2014 via Prosthetic Records (except in Japan, where the album was made available through Universal Music). The CD was the 52-year-old musician’s first collection of material recorded for the U.S. market since 2003’s “Music For Speeding”. Among the guest collaborators that appear on the effort are CHILDREN OF BODOM‘s Alexi Laiho, REVOCATION‘s Dave Davidson, acoustic flamenco-metal hybridists RODRIGO Y GABRIELA and Friedman‘s pre-MEGADETH bandmate in CACOPHONY, Jason Becker.

Speaking to Guitar World magazine, Friedman said: Each of the guests on this record took a song from scratch — they would write it and then I would arrange it and add my parts to it. That way we were both invested in it and it’s a little bit of a deeper experience.”

Friedman described the new album as the most “Marty” record has has done in years. “I figured if I was going to come back to America, I was going to come back big and give people something they want out of me,” he told the magazine. “And I know that what they want is not some avant-garde thing. What they want is just the most intense writing and playing I can do.”

Fan-filmed video footage of MEGADETH‘s December 5 performance at Knotfest in Toluca, Mexico can be seen below.

The band’s setlist was as follows:

01. Hangar 18
02. She-Wolf
03. Wake Up Dead
04. In My Darkest Hour
05. Sweating Bullets
06. Dawn Patrol
07. Poison Was The Cure
08. Tornado Of Souls
09. Trust (Spanish version)
10. Fatal Illusion
11. Skin O’ My Teeth
12. Symphony Of Destruction
13. Peace Sells
14. Holy Wars… The Punishment Due

MEGADETH will team up with SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, CHILDREN OF BODOM and HAVOK for a North American tour in early 2016. The four-band package — which will launch on February 20 in Dallas, Texas and wrap on March 24 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada — will mark MEGADETH‘s first U.S. run of dates in support of its new album, “Dystopia”, slated for release in January.

For more information, visit www.megadeth.com/dystopiatour.

LAMB OF GOD drummer Chris Adler played on “Dystopia” and sat behind the kit for MEGADETH for their appearance at Knotfest in Mexico.

Due to his LAMB OF GOD schedule, Adler was unable to play with MEGADETH in China and Japan in October and was temporarily replaced by Tony Laureano (ex-DIMMU BORGIR, NILE, ANGELCORPSE), a veteran extreme-metal skinsman who has worked as MEGADETH‘s drum tech since 2011.

Adler made his live debut with MEGADETH in July at the Festival D’été De Québec (also known as by its acronym FEQ, or Quebec City Summer Festival in English), in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

The follow-up to 2013’s “Super Collider”, “Dystopia” was recorded earlier in the year in Nashville, Tennessee and was mixed by Josh Wilbur, who has previously worked with LAMB OF GOD, ALL THAT REMAINS and GOJIRA.

In addition to Adler, MEGADETH’s current touring lineup includes the band’s founding members, guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine and bassist David Ellefson, along with Brazilian guitarist Kiko Loureiro, best known for his work with ANGRA.