Yngwie Malmsteen Interview

by Hugh Ochoa

Born Lars Johann Yngwie Lannerback, in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1963, Yngwie Malmsteen came from a family of talented musicians with an interest in classical music. In 1970 he developed an interest in the guitar after watching a news item the day that Jimi Hendrix died - September 18, 1970. The footage showed the psychedelic icon burning a guitar on stage and Yngwie was hooked. Even at seven-years-old, he knew he wanted to be a rock star.

He spent the rest of his youth wood-shedding and immersing himself in the music of such bands as Deep Purple. It was through Richie Blackmore's classical influence and the guidance of Yngwie's older sister that Malmsteen began to explore classical composers like Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach and Beethoven and began to shape his unique style for which he would later become famous.

With the encouragement of his mother and sister, he began to focus his energy on art and music in school as well as excelling in English. But there was something missing from the equation, something that would help him make the connection between the conservative styles of Bach and the like, and the flamboyant theatrics and showmanship of Jimi Hendrix. That link would come in the form of 19th century violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. It was then that Yngwie finally understood how to make the harmonious marriage between his love for classical music and the the onstage charisma that he witnessed that day in September of 1970. With the pieces of the puzzle in place, he was set to conquer the world.

I was warned that Yngwie Malmsteen was not always the most pleasant person, that he has, in the past, been hard to talk to and that he might have an ego the size of Texas. As I was led from the elevator into the back conference room, I braced myself in case I asked the wrong question or stepped out of line with him, perhaps having him tell me the now famous, "If you're not careful, I'll unleash the fury!" as I was ejected from the room. Much to my relief, I found him to be very pleasant and polite, and more than happy to talk to me about his life and music.

As I am setting up my gear and beginning to settle into my chair, he initiates some small talk about normal everyday topics. One of which is my small digital voice recorder. "Wow that's a nice recorder. It's amazing what they can do now with electronics. You know, my uncle was chief of R&D at Phillips. When I grew up, his part of the team, they invented CD technology. So 1975, 30 years ago, he showed me a CD. He told me, 'See this son, this is the future'. I said 'Yeah, yeah, yeah'."

With his gold chain bracelets bearing amulets and crucifixes tinkling on the table, he opens a small black case and proudly presents his new 7.1 megapixel digital camera and proceeds to show me pictures of his home in Sweden and a couple of his favorite cars - a black Rolls Royce and a Ferrari. Then a picture of him in his Swedish home standing next to a suit of armor. "I collect these you know. My house is full of them."

Shortly after, he asks one of his people for a large pepperoni pizza. "You know, real New York-style pizza, Ok?" Then again, to my surprise, our host extends his hospitality by asking if we had eaten and if we would like a slice.

Listen to three songs from Yngwie Malmsteen's latest album, Unleash the Fury

____

Jimi Hendrix was your inspiration to play the guitar?

Yngwie Malmsteen: Ok, to make this so it's proper, what happened was, I was the youngest kid in my family. My older brother and sister were really good musicians. And they started playing at a very early age. So, my brother played piano, drums, guitar, bass, accordion, everything. My sister played very good piano, sang. She still sings really good. She plays classical flute, in an orchestra, and all that stuff.

So, my mom really wanted me to be a musician. She gave me a guitar on my fifth birthday but I didn't start playing till I was seven. And the reason I wanted to start playing was because they showed on the news, "Today, Jimi Hendrix died." It was September 18, 1970. Then they showed him setting his guitar on fire at Monterey. I didn't hear any music, I just saw this guy burning his fucking guitar, man. And I said, "That is soooo cool, man." So I took the guitar off the wall and started to play 'cause I wanted to learn. Then eventually I got into Deep Purple and that was the biggest influence.

Is that and the Deep Purple influence where the fascination with the Fender Stratocaster came from?

YM: Well the first time I saw Jimi Hendrix, you know, you've seen that Monterey guitar-burning clip, right?

Yeah.

YM: You can't even see what the fuck it is. And one year later, my eighth birthday, my oldest sister gave me the Deep Purple album Fireball. And musically, that was an incredible impact! I don't know if you've heard that record.

Sure.

YM: Starts out, "Dubba-dubba-dubba-boom-chuck." [He mimics a song off the album] Actually, I was a DJ on Sirius today, Sirius Radio, and I played that. That's one of the songs. But, um, [getting back to the Hendrix topic] I didn't really see what it was he was holding there. My older brother had an electric guitar that looked like that, you know with the two horns. And then eventually I found out it was a Fender Stratocaster. Obviously, I wanted one, but they were fucking really expensive, man.

I've read everything from America was expensive overseas.

YM: Dude, I'm talking like, you could buy a house! So I didn't get the real thing till a couple years later. I got the copy ones. When I was like my son's age. [Laughs] So, yeah, the Strat thing started out with that, obviously. It's culminated with one guitar. Here, actually I'll show you, the "Yngwie Malmsteen Model Stratocaster". Can you believe that shit?

Where did the idea to combine classical music and rock guitar come from?

YM: That's also a good question. What happened was after I got the Fireball album...here, let me show you. [He gets up to get his guitar and calls for someone to bring his amp in.] Give me one second. I think I can answer your question very well by demonstrating. Free of charge. [We all laugh].

This is the first "Yngwie Malmsteen Model". [He proudly holds up a well-played yellow Stratocaster with an over-sized headstock.] And not only that, I am the first artist to ever get a free Stratocaster, the first Fender signature guitar. Of all the time they made the Stratocaster, the first cat to ever have his own model - before Clapton, before Beck, before everyone. Can you believe that? This little punk from fucking Sweden!

[In comes a little Marshall Combos and Yngwie fiddles with the knobs trying to reduce some of the noise from the conference room interference.]

They'll probably complain that it's too loud. [Laughs]. So anyway, to make a long story longer, my favorite song on Fireball is that song "Demon's Eye".

It goes like this: [Main riff, "Demon's Eye"]

And the solo... [Goes into the solo to "Demon's Eye"]:

And as you can hear, very bluesy, it's like the blues:

That's the blues, If you play a regular style of blues like Jimi Hendrix, it's called Pentatonic:

I kinda got that down quite quickly 'cause it wasn't that hard for me to figure out. Then I started listening to Bach and Vivaldi and stuff and I started hearing things like pedal notes:

Which is totally not rock 'n' roll guitar at all, right? [Plays: ]

It's real diminished type of stuff. Then ultimately Paganini:

with arpegios:

That type of thing, or chromatic:

Now so, what I heard with that was, "Whoa, how cool would that be to do on the guitar?" Like similar things, not exactly the same.

You know you can do things like this:

As opposed to:

While Blues, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that it gets to be a little bit the same thing over and over again.

You can do this: . That's in D.

Wanna do it in A: .

That's the same box you're in right?

While if you start utilizing the harmonic minor scale, it's like: .

You know what I'm talking about. It's more work but more selection.

And I did that for years and years and years and years and years and nobody gave a shit in Sweden. Nobody cared. [They said,] "Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever".

When I came to the States, it was an instantaneous thing. I remember the first gig we ever did. It was opening up for Glen Hughes and Pat Thrall. And I remember, there were thirty people there! Thirty people in Los Angeles. I had only been in the States for a week. I was like, "It's cool man". I didn't think much about it. Next gig we do, it's like a thousand.

Wow.

YM: Yeah, because people used to come in and say "This kid, you should see this fucking kid! What's going on there?" Because in America, especially in America, classical music is not as main.....as common I guess. As it is in Sweden or Europe you know. And I think that was the main reason for my...for me fusing them together. You know, it was back in 1977. You know, I was like 13.

With your Concerto Suite Electric Guitar CD, [on which he plays electric lead guitar with an orchestra], you exposed a lot of listeners to music that they were not accustomed to, were you afraid of losing some fans?

YM: No, I wasn't. I really wasn't. I thought that anyone who was familiar with what I've done would dig what I was doing. Plus, they should rest assured that that's not something...I'm going to start doing and no more rocking. That ain't gonna happen! Well, maybe in the future sometime, you know. But now you know what time it is? It's time to rock! [Makes the obligatory devil horns, then cackles an evil laugh.] I'm just a fucking nut case.

You got the idea for a scalloped fretboard from a 17th century lute?

YM: Yes, I was taking an apprentice gig, because I wasn't very big on going to school you know. I tried to get a gig as a luthier. And I'm working on guitars free, cause I love working on guitars anyway, though I did think he'd give me some money but, anyway, this cat came in with an old 16th century, 17th century lute that was either so worn out or made like that. I don't know. I'd never seen one. There was no frets. Just tapered wood for frets.

You mean no metal frets? The fretboard came to points and served as frets?

YM: It was carved out like this. I just thought it looked cool. So I started filing out my guitars - some of the not-so-good ones. But I was already good with wood so I wasn't worried about fucking it up cause I'm telling you, if you haven't worked with wood and fine sculpting and stuff, don't do it cause you'll ruin it. You'll fuck the frets up, and you'll go a little too deep. You'll think you have to go a little deeper, then all of the sudden you have no fucking neck left. You gotta do it right. Plus, you know, the scallop has a nice feeling for bending. And the funny thing is, here's the ironic thing, I was a huge fan of [Deep Purple guitar player Ritchie] Blackmore when I was a kid and I had no fucking idea that he was scalloping his necks.

I was going to ask, as far as you knew, were you the first and/or only person to do this?

YM: I didn't know, you know why? There was no Internet. There were no guitar magazines. There was no information anywhere! You were lucky if you saw a picture of maybe the band in some sort of teeny bop magazine. That was it, you know. There was no video, you couldn't buy videos. I mean, we're talking thirty years ago.

How did you know how it would translate to guitar?

YM: Well, lute is a guitar.

I mean, did you have any idea that the scalloped neck would work so well on an electric guitar.

YM: I didn't know.

You just experimented?

YM: Yeah. I used to do shit like that all the time. I would refret guitars. I drew them up with different tremolos, all sorts of shit.

Did you have to alter the way you played? I mean to not fret out of tune?

YM: No. Well, what happened was I started kinda shallow and it got deeper and deeper and deeper as the years went by. In fact, this one here is a Fender factory scalloped neck. [Shows the scalloped maple neck of his signature Yngwie Malmsteen model.] And it's not as deep as on some of my other guitars. Some of my other guitars the necks are way deeper and the frets are big too.

How did you make the connection with Shrapnel Records to get your demo to them?

YM: [He strikes two big power chords.] That's also another good question. What happened was that the only good magazine I really could buy, actually, was Guitar Player. And I would buy that as much as I could. But that was more not in the beginning, that's more later. I'd buy it and like, it's whoever's on the cover, I'd buy it anyway. Sometimes I didn't even know how it was, But it was a "guitar magazine". Although I must say, those magazines back then, they didn't show...they didn't have diagrams of what the guitar player played through and shit like that.

Right.

YM: But. anyway, I picked one up one day, saw they had a "Spotlight" column. So I said, "Fuck it!" I've tried everything here. I'll try sending a tape off to...them! I didn't expect anything. But, two weeks, three weeks later, my phone is ringing off the fucking hook, man. I got phone calls like it's ridiculous and all times of the day. Cause they didn't know Sweden was 9 hours different. [laughs]. I was like, "What the fuck?"

So I got calls from everybody. Kiss called, I got calls from all kinds. Another guy that called was Mike Varney. He did the Spotlight column in Guitar Player and he was starting a little label by himself called Shrapnel Records. Very small-time at the time. And um, he basically called me up and said, "Dude, pack your shit and come on over, man!" And it was weird. I had a life, I had a band, I had a girlfriend, I had a cat, I had an apartment. You know, I had family, a studio. And I said, "Ok. Fuck it. I'm in." Like a viking you know...I'll end up in Valhalla, you know? [Raises his fist in the air and screams a Viking battle cry.]

You've obviously heard the term "Neo Classical" being applied to your music.

YM: I didn't hear it till they started talking about my music.

Does it mean anything to you?

YM: No. It means "new" in a classical form.

You were involved in a car accident in '87 in which you injured you hand. That is every guitar player's nightmare.

YM: The injury was very very small. It was a very momentary thing. You know, it was scary and fucked up and all that shit. So I bought even more, faster cars after that.

Getting back to that Deep Purple song, "Demon's Eye", you claim that it deformed your body?

YM: [Puzzled expression.]

You've said that you developed misshaped ribs because you used to fall asleep playing your guitar, playing that song.

YM: Oh yeah, yeah yeah!! I guess so. [Laughs.]

You really fell asleep playing the guitar and it caved in your rib cage?

YM: Oh yeah, yeah, but I am deformed everywhere so what does that matter? [Laughs.]

You have around 15 studio albums and many best-of compilations, and numerous live albums, not to mention many special guest credits with other artists. How do you keep from burning out after all these years?

YM: [Distracted for a few seconds playing the solo from "Demon's Eye" again. Then stops to ponder.] You know, that's a really good question, and I am not really sure where to take that. I think...I think..I think...I'm not the kind of guy that likes to rest on my laurels. In other words, whatever I've done in the past...that was then. This is now, you know. That, I don't do. So that means that every day is a new day and time to fucking rock, you know. That's just my personality. That's who I am. And the other thing is that um...it never gets boring to me, you know. I mean it's not like, "Aw ffff..."

It's not a job.

YM: No, It's always something new for me. It always feels fresh. And uh, sometimes I would pick up the bass and I would write songs on the bass. I play all the bass on all my albums. You didn't know that. I think it's a combination of me being very fucking stubborn and it never becoming stale because it's new, it's improvised, everything I do. And because of the fact that I'm sitting here talking to you. Because obviously somebody really still gives a shit about what I'm doing so I'd better keep on doing it, you know. [Laughs.]

You note Paganini as your idol, and call him a "rock 'n' roller - very wild and very extreme". What did you mean by that since he came from a time when rock 'n' roll didn't exist?

YM: Well, I didn't mean musically you know. [Continues to pick at the snack food and diet Pepsi as he waits for the pepperoni pizza.] I meant partying hard with the ladies. Lifestyle kinda thing.

The rock 'n' roll lifestyle you mean.

YM: Yeah. He did do that. He was a very controversial person. He was in a pact with the devil, they thought. He was in prison for murder. He had sex with Napoleon's sister. He was a completely fucking crazy guy - he was a showman. He would do things with the violin that no one else did before.

He would tune it up like this, [mimics holding a violin] and cut it. The strings would go "ptt". [Sound of a string breaking.] It would cut his face. Then he'd break two more strings. With only one left, he'd go, "Whoo," and play with it that way. He would play up that stuff. And he would play up his demonic appearance because he looked like a fucking freak. Talk about deformed, you know. I have a library on this guy, so I know everything about him. So, ah, yeah. He wasn't like J. S. Bach who was a very quiet guy and never caused trouble.

Here's something I found interesting and I think you might too. While doing a little research, I stumbled across an American encyclopedia that included you as an entry. [Shows Yngwie a page from the Wiki Encyclopedia with Yngwie Malmsteen as the subject (link).]

YM: You mean I've become an adjective? [Laughs.]

It means you've become part of the American lexicon. Do you feel vindicated somehow for staying the course while many of your peers folded up shop?

YM: I don't understand what this is [looking at the Wiki page]...you just punch in my name and this comes up?

Yes.

YM: Wow. Well first of all, they're wrong here on some things. I'm gonna keep this if you don't mind. Well, I'm yeah.. I've never...[Still reading.] Yeah, the biggest test was when I grew up in Sweden. You know because there was no light at the end of the fucking tunnel there. None. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. And by that, I mean fucking nothing.

Unless you followed in Abba's footsteps?

YM: No, nothing! They would just not even give me the time of day there. And this being..I actually got as far as recording for CBS records. They brought me into the biggest studio. They had a producer and everything. And I recorded three songs, you know, for them. And I was so fucking over the moon.

This is before I left for the States. And I thought, you know, "Well maybe...maybe...finally something". Because then you have to remember something, then, if you got a record deal, dude, that was it! Nowadays, you get a record deal, it's like fucking "Big deal", you know? Back then it was serious stuff. Finally I said "Oh, man." So what happened was that they came back and said, "Thanks, but no thanks."

So I was like, "What? What do you mean?"

And they said, "Well, we don't think we can sell this." So I freaked out. And then when I came to America and started making it, guess who called up my fucking management asking if they could release it? CBS from Sweden wanted to release those recordings. And you know where I told them to shove it?

Up their ass?

YM: Exactly. So those are the tests. Because once I got to America, it was smooth sailing, man. I mean people just fucking loved me. Right away. I was like, "Wow". I couldn't believe it! I mean, they didn't love me, but I was accepted straight away as like the innovator. It's like in Sweden they'd say, "Yngwie, no, you're doing it wrong!"

You know...what the fuck!?!?! [Laughs.] So yeah, being in Sweden, that was the dark years. And yes, I'm very pleased that I didn't change.

Why did you never use a "Super Strat" like your contemporaries were using in the '80s? You know, the Jacksons, Charvels, the Kramers.

YM: Yeah, well, I'm a very purist person. I'm into original things. And this is the original of this. [Points to his Fender Stratocaster.]. I'm the same way with...I have to wear a Rolex watch, for instance. I have to drive a Ferrari, you know, not something else. It has to be that way, you know. Anything but a Marshall, please, don't even fucking bother me. Don't bother me! Ain't gonna happen.

Every guitar company, every amp company in the world has approached me and they still are approaching me asking me to... you know...and long before Fender gave me this, [points to his Fender Stratocaster again] I said, "Thanks, but no thanks."

I have made changes to it, but not fundamentally, you know. The whole idea of having this one-piece maple neck bolted onto the body that has cut-aways like this [points to his Stratocaster] was fucking space age in 1953, dude! There was nothing like this! And it wasn't just the fucking crazy shape they threw together, no, it was logical! [Points to the Strat's upper and lower horns.] Why is this one longer than this one? For the balance! Why are these tuning keys like that? So they will not come off the nut sideways, but just straight. And why are they not down here? [Points to the bottom of the headstock.] Because it's much easier to tune from here. No one ever did that before. This whole thing here, the tremolo unit with the counter point here, did not exist. The whole concept was because...it's better. Why is this input jack here? Because if it's there, it won't break off.

Sure.

YM: Now, it's like, it's a piece of art. To me it's a piece of fucking art, man. You can't....please, no! The only two things that I felt were something I had to do something with were the pickups, not the tone. Not to put the double coils like that [speaking about a humbucker pickup, he demonstrates with his hands, a side-by-side full-sized humbucker pickup], but to have the double coils like that. [With his hands again, he demonstrates a stacked humbucker.] It's a huge difference. The magnetic window changes when you do that. [Referring to the coils being side-by-side.] It's not a Stratocaster anymore. And to me, the tonalities of a Stratocaster have way more...meaning, it has more to take from and gives you more back than any other guitar. And the scalloped thing was just something I started doing and kept on doing.

That was part of Leo Fender's ingenious design, that you could change it, you could easily modify it.

YM: You could stick any pickup in it with out breaking the fucking guitar. I change necks on mine all the time.

You can customize it and personalize it to your tastes.

YM: Exactly! No, I don't think even he realized his genius when he did this. In fact Fender, listen to this, Fender came to my house about a month-and-a-half-ago... no, more like three months ago, and Mike Eldred and John Cruz they are Master Builders with the Fender Custom Shop. My guitar is called "The Duck". It looks like someone dragged it behind a truck for two miles. The thing is beat. It originally looked like this. [Again points to his, by comparison, newer signature Strat.] Well they measured, video taped, and will DVD the whole thing - they are going to make 100 guitars exactly like it. Same scratches, same rust. same fucking cigarette burns. The same exact guitar, they're going to make 100. And that's totally a fucking honor, man. The only two other guys they've done that for are dead now.

Stevie Ray and who else?

YM: Rory Gallagher. I mean, what can I say? God bless them. They've been so good to me. I'm so honored. I'm really honored. I mean it's become such an incredible honor, first of all, but at the same time, such a surreal scenario. Because, the fucking post order catalog that I bought my first solid body guitar from was for $15. That catalog in Sweden still exists. That post order catalog that I bought my first solid body guitar from, piece of fucking shit, right? One pickup piece of crap. Anyway, that company now sells the cheap Fender, or Squiers. One of those. And you know how they write the description for those guitars? "Fender Stratocaster, as used by Yngwie Malmsteen, Jimi Hendrix and Ritchie Blackmore." In that order! For fuck's sake, man! Talk about full circle! You know... [Laughs.]

It's crazy! Sometimes I have to say, "What the fuck, man!!" I mean I came here because I wanted to have a hamburger and not work, and you know, play guitar. That's all I wanted to do. I gave up my whole life in Sweden, sacrificed everything cause everyone was on my case, saying, "You have to join the army," "You have to get a job," "You ain't making any money." And I'd say, "But I'm a musician.". I mean, my goals, my visions were nothing like this, let me tell you. I mean showing you my pictures of my fucking Rolls Royce and Ferrari, you know what I mean? That has nothing to do with it really cause money is secondary, by a long shot.

But what I'm saying is that I'm sitting here 25 years later talking to you guys. I hear some other rock guys sitting around complaining and moaning. And I say, "Oh well," you know? I ain't moaning. I'm the happiest fucking guy in the world, man. This is good stuff. [Laughs.]

While most Strat players prefer the '50s Strats you prefer the late '60s and early 70s Strats. Why?

YM: I have 'em. I have all of them. I have one of the first ten Strats ever made. "3/54" it says in pencil underneath there. [Points to the heel of his Strat's neck.] March 54, first month, first year.

Do you prefer the '70s?

YM: Well I'll tell you what, I'll tell you why I prefer these. For many years, I used to play these. Then for years I switched to the early '60s, late '50s. I have them. But then I start looking at them and seeing pictures. I started looking at weird things like that, and I realized that the big headstock looks a lot better. It looks better, but I know most of the time, people say, "Oh....big headstock!" Bullshit! Listen to me, 1968 to 1972, to me, those years are the best guitars. But you have to find the right one. And you cannot find them anymore. And then I realized that the resonance from the big headstock is better too. Because the resonance is from here. [Points to the headstock.] That's why I've always said, "Floyd Rose? What the fuck are you doing, man? I mean, what are you doing?" You're cutting off this resonance and you're cutting off this resonance. [Points to the nut and the bridge.] And then what do you have left? Nothing!

What do you have to do, you say?

Well, maybe you have to get hotter pickups.

But what happens when you get hotter pickups? You give a dirty signal.

What does that mean? It means you're trying to shine a turd! When you start with a rotten signal to begin with, you distort the wrong end. You're supposed to distort the other end. [Points to the amplifier.] Not this end. This end is supposed to be clean. And the louder it is acoustically, the better it is. And believe it or not, the body has nothing to do with the resonance, it's this. [Points to the headstock. He then proceeds to do a side-by-side comparison by strumming a chord and placing the headstock and then the body on a metal heater cover against the wall to demonstrate the difference in resonance. In truth, the headstock did sound louder.]

The more wood on the headstock, the more it resonates. There are a lot of reasons I like this one.

And for amps you use a Marshall Mark II?

YM: I use them, oh yeah. Thanks (as his pizza arrives). And I use Marshall Plexi 100s. But they're all older ones.

You have your own DOD signature preamp the YJM308.

YM: I still have them, yeah I use them. They're very, very good. They're modeled after an old DOD pedal from from '76 or something like that. And they were never one and the same. I have a bunch of them so I picked the best one and they made it almost exactly the same but better because it's a little more quiet. They made a run of black ones which were cool, I still have a couple of them. But now they're making a new one which is a little better. It has an LED light. I spoke with them at the NAMM show last year, this year actually.

And, you have your own Dimarzio pickups?

YM: Right here! [Points to the pickups on his Signature Strat.] The YJM, but the pickup covers are from a '68.

Do you use them exclusively?

YM: I use the HS-3 as well - an HS-3 in the neck and YJMs in the middle and bridge. The difference is the staggering of the pole pieces. Everything else is the same. OK, what had happened was that I had suggested it to Steve Lukather and Larry Dimarzio. I said, "Why don't you take the two coils and put them on top of each other?"

They were like "Well, it's not that easy."

I told them "Well, give it a try. See what happens." So they did. And they sent it to me. So I tried it out. It was good, but I thought it was a little brittle. And that's called "HS-1". Then they sent me another one. I said, "Mmmm, not exactly right." So then "HS-3" is the final version of "Humbucking Strat". Three, because that's when I stopped bugging them. The third time. God Bless those guys too. They make the best fucking cables and the best straps.

If I may quote you, you state: "I don't think anyone can actually teach someone how to play guitar. The desire should come from inside."
And: "Once you get past the basics needed to play guitar, the rest is up to you." Can you tell me what you mean by that?

YM: Well that's cutting it a little clean. See, I never had lessons, Ok? And the way I look at it, the electric guitar, per se, is still such a new instrument. It's still not thirty - forty years old - the way we're playing it, not the instrument itself. Whereas, you have classical violin that is very fucking set...that is....um...you hold the violin like this and you move the bow like this and that's it. That's the end of that. You don't experiment with that. It's the same with piano and some other instruments like that.

This is still a developing instrument. There is no wrong or right way of doing it. Whatever's the best way for you. However, what I think is the most important thing to learn about any instrument, is the basics of music. Learn your ABCs before you write a Hemingway novel, you know? Don't skip any of that stuff. You learn your modes, your scales, your fucking relative keys, and you know all that shit. That stuff is key. You have to know that. And it's not boring, it's cool. And the more you learn it the more you go, "Ohhhh, that makes sense!" So that I think is a very good thing to be taught. I wasn't taught that either.

You're completely self-taught?

YM: Yeah, I figured that out myself. From listening. I would have learned a lot quicker if I had someone to show me that shit. But I don't think you can be taught to be creative. It's like a computer. The computer will give you what you put in it, you know, or make an equation or something. I shouldn't talk about computers, I don't know anything about them. But you don't get out of it more than you put in. Basically that's what I'm trying to say. I think you can get pointers, but I don't think you can learn to be a complete musician. That has to come from within. And it entails a lot of sacrifice.

You also once said that you get bored at home or at rehearsal. You come alive more in front of an audience.

YM: Yeah, I do. To me, the audience can be one person. I'm so critical of myself that it's really hard for me to like get high on my own shit. I sometimes manage to do it, but most of the time not. So if I have somebody in the room that I'm sure they'll dig this. I like that. But it could be one person or it could be a hundred thousand.

On that note, I'd like to end with a quote from your website. "When I play a song at rehearsals I often get bored with it, but as soon as I get in front of an audience I'll get excited and everything comes alive. I'm not just playing for myself. I live for my audience - they're everything. It's the best feeling imaginable to go on stage and have the crowd love you. As long as there's an audience, I'll never lose the desire to play."

YM: I couldn't have said it better myself! [Laughs.]

[Yngwie concludes by playing a few more things for us.]

Sample 15:

Sample 16:
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Yngwie Malmsteen is currently touring North America to support his new album, Unleash the Fury. Visit his website (link below) for more information.

Related links

Yngwie Malmsteen's official website
Photographer Anthony Scano