Chris Broderick was always immersed in guitar, but his talent for shredding it up live really came to the forefront in 2008, when the axeman stepped into the role of leads for thrash behemoths Megadeth.

While that kind of a jump in profile, no doubt, is met with some nervousness, Broderick says he didn’t have the time to get too anxious about the new gig. “When I first joined, I didn’t even have time to think about the people who I was trying to replace,” he told Classic Rock Revisited. “I just knew I had a lot of work to do, in terms of getting the music down, and trying to learn it accurately. It wasn’t until maybe a year ago that I could even think about where I was positioned as a guitarist.”

Broderick is humble about his influence on the band since joining and says he tried to bring a different tonality to the group’s latest full-length, ‘TH1RT3EN’: “I don’t feel like I have been a game changer or anything like that, but I do bring my knowledge of harmonization and functional tonality to the band. I also bring my influences, as well. I would think that anyone in my position would bring something to the band. There should be some inflection of personality to the band and I think that’s what I bring.”

As for guitar technique, Broderick opts to really plan out solos, as opposed to improvising on top. “… At the end of the day, I prefer to compose the solos,” he said. “When you have time to think about what is going into a part of the song, then you can think more complexly than if you just solo over the top of something. When you just solo over the top of something then you’re at the whim of your technique and you’re at the whim of what you’re thinking about at the moment.”

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