Hi Marty,
I'm currently studying at Southdown's college in the U.K for a HND in music performance, and at the moment i'm doing a project under the title of "Art and grace, elegance and warfare - the essence of Japanese music". As a huge fan of both your work with Megadeth and more-so your solo projects, I wanted to base part of the project upon you (first of all, with your permission). The only thing I couldnt actually find out, is how you actually came to applying the japanese scales to your playing, and I was wondering if you could let me in on your influences in this area. Im sorry this question was so long, but I would be eternally grateful if you could reply so that I may continue with my assignment.

Yours most sinceirly,
Mark Dewey

P.S: i look foward to recieving my "99 secret guitar techniques" DVD :)

I`m flattered to be the subject of your project. To your Q, I didn`t `add scales` to my playing so to speak, rather I absorbed a lot of Japanese (as well as Chinese and Indian) folk, pop, rock and traditional music and applied some of their melodic ideas and flavors into my lead playing and melody construction. Best of luck.