(Gibson) Like many great guitarists, Megadeth's Chris Broderick clearly remembers the first time he picked up his choice instrument. At the time, Broderick was just a little tyke and shelved out a whopping (not really) $40 for his first guitar."[My friends] all played in a band together, and I was like, 'Oh, that is interesting [laughs],'" Broderick told Glide Magazine. "I'd always go over to my friend's house and constantly nag him to play his guitar all the time. And he'd be like, 'No, no, let's go ride motocross' or something else.
"But I'd be constantly nagging him, so finally I bought a guitar from one of his friends, spray-painted it red, threw some black electrical tape on it and tried to become Eddie Van Halen [laughs]."
Van Halen, Broderick says, is the first band that really turned him on to heavy music. "It was not only [Eddie Van Halen's] tapping, but also he knew a little finger style as well on the guitar with like 'Spanish Fly' and stuff like that. I thought that was really cool. I mean, it was everything about his playing; it was very unique and had a lot of fire behind it." more on this story