On the surface, you might not connect Megadeth with Fleetwood Mac, but onetime Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman reveals in a new Guitar World interview that Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham is "one of my favorite guitarists in history." He even admits to nicking a bit from Buckingham for his own playing.

The subject came up while discussing Friedman's participation in the Two Minutes to Late Night socially-distanced cover of Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun" earlier this year. The participants definitely gave it a heavier spin that you can see here.

Sharing his love for Buckingham, Friedman states, “Lindsey Buckingham is one of my favorite guitarists in history. I've ripped off so many motifs from that guy. He plays very basic melody lines, but the way he hangs on single notes, no one else does it. And it's just so gut-wrenching."

He continues, “That was a huge influence on me when I first started playing lead guitars – how do you get that emotion? He's playing the same scales as everybody else is, and he's not doing these, like, 20-finger tapping things, but the second you hear the guy you know it's him. And what he does always elevates the song."

Though Fleetwood Mac ruled the pop-rock world of the '70s and '80s, Friedman credits Buckingham for making his guitar presence felt in a genre where it doesn't always get a spotlight. “You know, most pop songs don't have lead guitars in them, and they don't need lead guitars in them. But Fleetwood Mac have the ultimate pop songs, and they all have great lead solos in them," says Friedman. "So what does that tell you? That tells you that the guitar player is just amazing.”

“A lot of people notice how fantastic he is with his fingerpicking and his acoustic playing, and that's something that people can work really, really hard at and kind of master. But there's only one Lindsey who can emote the way he does on leads. And I don't think anybody can really copy that," says the guitarist.

Friedman is currently supporting his 2020 release Tokyo Jukebox 3. Buckingham's last studio effort was a self-titled collaborative album with Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie in 2017. After a 2018 disagreement with the rest of the group over Fleetwood Mac tour plans, Buckingham and the band parted ways. He turned up earlier this year as a guest on The Killers' single "Caution" from their Imploding the Mirage album.

30 Most Underrated Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists

More From 95 Rock