Chris Broderick, a former guitar player for Megadeth, recently sat down with Ola Englund to discuss his work. Broderick, who was the band’s member between 2008 and 2014, looked back on playing classic Megadeth songs. In particular, Ola Englund asked him whether he intentionally replicated the solos played by the band’s former guitar players, like Chris Poland and Marty Friedman. He replied (transcript via Blabbermouth):
“Yes. And I’ll tell you why. Because not only, at the time, was I thinking about probably what Dave [Mustaine] would want but also mainly, even more importantly, what the fans would want.”
“Because ultimately, they are now the owners and the keepers of that music, and they are the people that you’re playing to and that are listening to you.”
“So as cool as I think I can come up with some riff — like, ‘Oh, they’ll love this riff’ — it doesn’t belong in that song at that point.”
“So, for me, it’s all about recreating and trying to do [ex-Megadeth guitarist] Marty Friedman justice — in the case of Marty Friedman or Chris Poland [ex-Megadeth guitarist] or any of the others. So I definitely wanted to try and make it as authentic as possible.”
On the other hand, Broderick also admits that some things can be giveaways and that you may not be fully able to replicate the original lead sections. As he explains, it comes down to your style of playing. He continued:
“The one thing that you can’t deny, though, is your own sense of phrasing, and for me, that comes down to timing and articulation and stuff like that.”
“So, as far as the notes go, I really tried to recreate it as closely as possible, but then with my sense of timing and phrasing — maybe put it my own sense of phrasing.”
As of this moment, Chris Broderick is a member of In Flames. Joining them in 2019, he replaced the former guitar player Niclas Engelin. Broderick’s first album, titled Foregone,” with the band will be out in February 2023. And out of its 12 songs, they’ve released four singles so far.
In an interview published last year, Broderick looked back on his time in Megadeth and what he learned. Asked about what he took away from this experience, the guitarist replied:
“I took a lot away from it because it really showed me that there is a lot more to music than the music, which I both appreciated and hated at the same time. Prior to that was just like ‘I’m a musician! I’m a guitarist and I play the guitar.'”
“And when I joined Megadeth and got into that camp, it really showed me how interested people are in your personality and who you are as an individual and that was shocking to me. How you present yourself and stuff like that, so that’s like one of the biggest things I learned from my time in Megadeth.”
Regarding the pandemic and whether he was worried that he’ll never play live again, Broderick said:
“No, I never questioned or looked that far into it. I was definitely bummed that I wasn’t able to tour. We had literally just left like… my birthday is on March 6 and I had a party on that night, then March 7 got on a flight to go to Russia to play Moscow and St Petersburg and when I landed in Moscow they were like ‘Did you get tested?’ and I was like ‘Tested for what?’ and they said ‘They’re testing for the Covid virus.'”
“So we went and played in Moscow and then we went to St Petersburg and then we flew to Auckland, New Zealand and we were just ready to make the shows happen and we started to hear things and whispers and there were a couple of days off before our shows and I remember working out in the hotel gym and they had the tv on with news and the parliament was talking about closing down any shows over 500 people and I’m like Wait, that would be us!'”
Photos: TannerWolff (ChrisBroderickbyTannerWolff), Will Russell (Dave Mustaine 2011)
