Looking back on recording the scintillating Go Off! with Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, who was 18 when the album was released, says, “It was all special to us, especially now that we both know how precious and fleeting those times were.”
Given Becker’s ALS, one can understand the sentiment. But still, “precious” is an interesting way to define one of the more in-your-face guitar extravaganzas of the ’80s.
“That album resulted from me being so inspired by working with Marty,” Becker says. “For Go Off!, I had gotten better at writing and playing, and I was a lot more confident. We just were comfortable with each other. We were getting good at mixing our different flavors. I was able to give more to Go Off!”
By the time Go Off! dropped on Shrapnel Records in ’88, it was the heart of the so-called “shred era,” and Friedman and Becker had already recorded their first record as Cacophony, Speed Metal Symphony (1987), and two frenzied solo records in Friedman’s Dragon’s Kiss (1988) and Becker’s Perpetual Burn (1988).
They’d learned a lot, and it showed on Go Off!, a record bred through dedication and sheer talent. “When we did shows or toured, it was definitely wilder,” Becker says. “We never trashed hotel rooms or anything, though. It was weird for me; I never did drugs or drank. There was something in me that thought I didn’t want to hurt my body. Like my lungs and brain couldn’t take it. I always wanted to be in control of myself. Ironic, as now I have no control.”
Regardless of its over-the-top nature, what Go Off! really represents is the supernatural bond between Becker and Friedman, leading to moments no one saw coming but definitely heard.
“At the end of Black Cat, there is this pretty acoustic fingerpicking chord sequence by Jason,” Friedman says. “The song was just supposed to fade out with him playing that by himself. The song was complete, and we were listening before mixing and I was holding a guitar randomly plugged into a DI; I didn’t know that guitar was live or recording. When Jason’s ending part came up, I started playing a melody on top, not expecting to hear what I was playing through the monitors, but there it was.”
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The “it” in question was something Becker and Friedman will never forget. “I kept playing, and it was just a moment,” Friedman said. “I never played over his part before, but here I was. It was the wee hours, way after midnight after one of many long sessions, and Jason’s piece was like the tender arpeggios of a music box lullaby. The soft melody I was playing over it seemed so cozy and poignant, although neither of us planned for any melody there.”
Is it really a cult classic? Cool. I didn’t know that. It was just so much fun being able to make music with my best friend
Jason Becker
Becker adds: “When I recorded the outro for Black Cat on an acoustic guitar, I got it in one take. Then, without any preparation, just to test the tone, Marty recorded a solo over it. (Producer) Steve Fontano and I said it was perfect. Marty wanted a little more time, but we talked him into his first take. It was just a beautiful, off-the-cuff moment.”
“We looked at each other in disbelief and high-fived each other,” Friedman says. “Not because ‘This sounds like a hit!’ or ‘What an insane lick!’ or ‘People are gonna dig this!’ but because we just experienced one of those rare magical moments while making music.
“I could have learned what I did and played it better. I could have tweaked the melody here and there, used a nicer-sounding guitar and amp setup – but documenting the actual magic that happened was more important to us than polishing it.”
You recorded Speed Metal Symphony before Go Off! What did you learn about working together?
Marty Friedman: “Speed Metal Symphony was my baby, but I saw potential in Jason, so I had him play a lot of the harmonies and shoehorned him into a few places where he could shine. That album was Jason’s first professional recording experience.
“After doing Speed Metal Symphony, I improved quite a bit, but it must be noted that Jason grew by leaps and bounds, literally at a savant level. Right after Speed Metal Symphony, he wrote and recorded Perpetual Burn at 18. In that short year and a half, he had evolved into an altogether different person/player. He was demonic.”
Jason Becker: “I had gotten a lot better. Speed Metal Symphony was like school for me. I learned so much from Marty. That album was Marty’s baby, but he was so kind as to include some of my ideas and make it a team effort. I didn’t quite have my own distinct style. I was only 17, but I was very positive and probably pushed Marty to improve. We were best friends.”
What were Shrapnel Records’ expectations for Go Off!?
Friedman: “The only pressure was that the label wanted good vocal songs. We did, too, but Jason and I were definitely not Elton John and Bernie Taupin. My lyrics were vomit-inducing, and Jason’s lyrics… ahem… were why Images became an instrumental song. “Peter Marrino did a really good job with what we provided him. I don’t envy a singer trying to do his job between 64-measure guitar solos. I don’t remember the budget, but we did move up to Fantasy Studios in Berkeley for Go Off!, which was a more prestigious facility than we had used before.”
Becker: “I don’t think Mike Varney pressured us to do anything specific. Marty could correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember any budget increase or pressure. My recollection is that Mike Varney thought we were like the new innovative players, and he gave us control. Mike always had suggestions, but I remember feeling free to do what we wanted.”
You recorded with Steve Fontano. How much freedom did you have?
Friedman: “Jason and I were in complete control of the guitar work, and Steve took care of the overall sound, vocal arrangements and loads of embellishment ideas. I loved Steve. He is uber-talented, and I still use many of his catchphrases.
“We did provide some sick guitar work, but Steve reined us in like a band so that ‘even girls could listen to us…’ kind of. If anything on Go Off! resonates as being a good song and not just a guitar extravaganza, Steve is highly responsible.”
Becker: “Steve was Mike Varney’s main guy, and we loved working with him. He is very talented, musical, funny and fun. He got all the nice sounds, helped a little with arranging, mixed it, and we cracked each other up. Marty and I brought in our songs, and he made them sound good. With Shrapnel, we were free to do any crazy guitar stuff we wanted to do.”
Did you intend to make Go Off! more accessible than Speed Metal Symphony?
Becker: “Marty and I wanted to be as well known as Whitesnake or Poison. We wanted it to be more accessible to normal people and guitar players. We wanted to be rock stars with pretty girls and rock fans coming to our shows.”
Friedman: “I got the intense and often dissonant Speed Metal Symphony off my chest, so with that piece of music firmly documented, I wanted to feature Jason and myself more equally and take on more of a band dynamic that wasn’t there before.”
Since you’re both virtuoso guitarists and songwriters, was it challenging to find space?
Friedman: “You are far too kind. Songwriting was our Achilles’ heel. Our problem was we were shining too much almost all the time. There is only so much shining a listener can take. Any one song on Go Off! might have about one full album’s worth of guitar work on it. It was like a ‘money shot compilation’ of guitar solos.”
“We knew listeners usually wanted a memorable song rather than an insane guitar solo or riff, but we wanted to be extreme, whether people liked it or not. At the time, that extremeness was a big minus, but that may be why the album is more appreciated now than it was then.”
Becker: “That album was pretty satisfying, but I admit that after the tours of Japan and the U.S., I wanted to do more of my own music with more of my own guitar. After our tour, I remember Cacophony talking about doing another album, and it seemed less guitar-focused. I could be remembering wrong, but that is when I left Cacophony.
“We did another show after that at some Bay Area music magazine awards show. It was fun, and I questioned my decision to leave, but as life turned out, it was a good thing that I did.
“During that tour, I was having the first symptoms of ALS. I went to Japan on my own and then joined David Lee Roth, all with a limp and weakness in my body. I remember calling Marty from the hotel in L.A. after getting the gig with Roth. Marty called me after joining Megadeth. It was quite cool. We were so happy for each other.”
What songs presented the most significant challenges?
Becker: “My two songs, Stranger and Images, took the most work because I hadn’t written lyrics before. In the studio, Steve helped me polish my lyrics for Stranger. I had lyrics for Images, but when we were rehearsing the songs with our drummer, Deen Castronovo, and our singer, Peter Marrino, I got teased so badly! It was funny hearing Peter singing my silly words. Deen defended me and made me feel a lot better.”
It would’ve been nice if Pro Tools existed back then. Edits were done with a razorblade and tape
Marty Friedman
Friedman: “The title track was tricky. Jason and I played the weird intro together live, but in the studio, the high and low harmonies had to be ‘tight as a gnat’s ass in a power dive,’ to use Steve Fontano’s words. So Jason played them both. He nailed them, but it was a bitch to keep the tiny spaces clean between the phrases.
“It would’ve been nice if Pro Tools existed back then. Edits were done with a razorblade and tape; you had to punch out of the record and in, and there was no quantizing, copy-and-pasting or auto-tuning. After recording in Pro Tools for so long after this, it blows me away how we did this ambitious stuff without it.”
Becker: “I remember recording the intro to Go Off! I laid down my drum machine part to play over it in time. We couldn’t get a guitar tone I was happy with because if I had any distortion on it, it would feedback in all the little spaces. I had to use an almost clean tone, which wasn’t cool, especially to Marty.
Marty had total confidence in his whole unique musical vision, and that rubbed off on me. I started thinking I was the man, too
Jason Becker
“He didn’t want anything sounding like jazz. We worked it to sound okay. In that intro, I played both harmonies, but he came up with the harmony part on the spot and told me what to play. He is quite a musical genius.”
You both were very young. Did either of you have red-light fever?
Becker: “That is funny. No – we didn’t have any of that. We didn’t think about what others would think; we just wanted to please ourselves. Marty had total confidence in his whole unique musical vision, and that rubbed off on me. I started thinking I was the man, too. When we first started, I wondered if it was as good as our previous albums. He said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s great.’ I relaxed and enjoyed it.”
Friedman: “There was no time for nerves or crises, as we were on a tight budget with lots to get done. If you have a great engineer like Fontano on board, it allows you to have intense focus on the music. He was a godsend.”
When not working to record the record, how did you two blow off steam?
Friedman: “We would argue about football, Jason would cream me at chess, and we’d spend lots of time listening to, analyzing, and marveling at music we liked. Philip Glass comes to mind. Nightlife and wild antics didn’t come until we went on tour in Japan and North America.”
Becker: “We were pretty chill. Getting to play our own music was the greatest release. We watched football sometimes. We had fun going to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley with Marty’s girlfriend Laurie and my brother Ehren. We would find new music at Rasputin, Leopold’s, and Tower Records, like Philip Glass, Kitaro and all kinds of weird classical composers.
“I remember one time we all went into some kind of rock clothing store. A guy who worked there started telling us about a great band called Cacophony. He saw a show, and the two guitar players were great. We were trying not to crack up. I asked which guitar player was his favorite of the two; he said he couldn’t pick. We never did tell him who we were.”
While recording, did you share gear?
Friedman: “We shared gear and borrowed gear from our guitar students, who usually had better gear than we did. We started to have a few endorsements, so there was a lot of new gear coming into the studio, too. I used my first Jackson Kelly and a few Carvin guitars. Few, if any pedals. No idea about amps.”
Becker: “If I remember right, we used the same kind of Carvin amps. Marty could correct me if I’m wrong. Maybe we used Marty’s student’s Marshall amp like we had on our solo albums. I think we used the Carvin guitars from the cover of the album. We didn’t have to consciously work on sounding different. We could use the same gear and sound like ourselves.”
Go Off! was kind of over the top, even for the time, but it’s also a snapshot of the era. It didn’t get its due then, but it’s a cult classic now.
Friedman: “Kind of? It was beyond over the top! I do agree that it’s a snapshot of the era, though. We looked like every other hair band at the time and thank God we did. Girls expecting glam rock came to our shows. We fooled everyone when we toured the U.S. and Japan. We looked like Poison, but we shook our asses in 5/4 time.”
Becker: “Is it really a cult classic? Cool. I didn’t know that. It was just so much fun being able to make music with my best friend. I’m so grateful for those times. I was healthy, happy, young, and full of creative energy. Thank you to Mike Varney for that opportunity.”
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