“I thought I was going to wind up being a mental patient. I was like, ‘If I ever survive this, I swear to God I'm not going to do anything but work on music’”: Marty Friedman’s hellish teen acid trip was the making of his career as a guitarist

From serving as Megadeth's lead guitarist to playing alongside Jason Becker in Cacophony and releasing a string of solo albums, Marty Friedman has done it all. However, if he could go back and give his younger self a nugget of advice when he was in his first band, Deuce, what would it be?

“I don't think I would say too much, but I would probably say, ‘Cool down on all the illegal substances,’” he says in a new interview with The Neurotic Guitarist.

“But then again, I don't think I'd even say that, because I got it all out of my system by the time I was 17. I was doing everything I loved, all the drugs, but acid was one that I never took.”

Friedman mentions that acid was more associated with the hippie community – whereas he was more of the “punk rocker, hard rock, heavy metal” kind. But a couple of friends did manage convince him to give it a chance.

“They would just say, ‘Dude, this is awesome.’ You know, ‘I'll try it. What do you got to lose?’” he recalls as he reflects on his decision.

From Bad Acid Trips to Breakfast Cereals, Marty Friedman Explains it All - YouTube

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“People have good trips and people have bad trips. And I think what I had was a very, very, very bad trip. I thought I was going to wind up being a mental patient if I ever came down from it because it was not going away.”

The silver lining? That experience became a complete turning point for Friedman, who views that bad acid trip as the catalyst that pushed him to fully commit to taking the guitar more seriously and, ultimately, pursue a professional music career.

“While I was up there, I was like, ‘If I ever survive this, I swear to God, I'm not going to do anything but work on music and play music and become the best musician I can be. I'm not going to even take a sip of beer.

“‘I'm not going to smoke a joint. I'm not going to do any more Quaaludes, no more coke, no nothing, all gone, everything going directly into music.’ And that's basically what I did.”

Late last year, Friedman celebrated his decades-spanning career by releasing his new autobiography (co-written by frequent GW contributor Jon Wiederhorn) Dreaming Japanese, in which he spills the tea on his Megadeth, Madonna, and Ozzy auditions.