Yngwie Malmsteen Interview (2008)

by Matthew Mills.

During the 1980s, guitarists were stunned by the innovative riffs of a new herd of guitarists, including those with their pedal to the metal playing that entailed ripping fretboards to shreds. But, no single guitarist of the time had more shock impact on the guitar world than the Swedish sweep accelerator, Yngwie Malmsteen.

In late 1982, Mike Varney, owner of Shrapnel Records, brought the demon shredder over to the U.S., touting Yngwie's amazing grip on sweep picking arpeggios and high velocity harmonic minor scale runs. Having listened to a tape Yngwie had given him, Varney pushed to have Malmsteen play solos with the group Steeler. The guitarist eventually left Steeler and moved in with the group Alcatrazz. It didn't take him long to roll out on his own to record 12 studio albums and two live albums that serve as inspiration to guitarists who aspire to not only shred, but to play the guitar with turbocharged melodic intent and precise style.

Yngwie's first solo album, Rising Force (1985) was nominated for a Grammy. Today, the record is considered to be one of the most groundbreaking guitar albums of all time. Featuring tracks like "Black Star," and "Far Beyond the Sun," the album simply blew other guitarists away. The songs are still highlights at Yngwie's live performances.

It didn't take Fender long to recognize Malmsteen's reputation and awe inspiring guitar talent. In 1988, the guitar company issued the Yngwie Malmsteen Signature guitar, complete with scalloped neck and DiMarzio HS-3 pups.

In more recent years,Yngwie has composed and recorded music for full orchestra and wrote all the instruments' parts for the formidable, Concerto Suite in Eb Minor, a CD that reflected the precisional beauty of the masterful guitarist coupled with one of the finest professional orchestras in the world.

Yngwie has remained true to his neoclassical style. Many groups modified their music and sound to fit emerging markets, turning their backs on fans. Malmsteen continues to be true to his nature and his love of the genre.

Malmsteen's latest release, Perpetual Flame, lines up some of his favorite players including: Tim "The Ripper" Owens (vocals), Derek Sherinian (keyboard - studio), Michael Troy (keyboard - live performances) and Patrick Johanson (percussion). Neoclassical guitar fans have been waiting for this record and it proves that Yngwie is back and gunnin' it with a vengeance.

With a new surge of interest of intense guitar music in recent years, Perpetual Flame, arrives at a perfect time and will certainly corral a new generation of metal shredders.

Modern Guitars caught up with Yngwie as he kicked off his 2008 U.S. tour and we talked about his developmental years as a musician, his love of the guitar, the neoclassical style inspired by Nicollo' Paganini (1782- 1840), hot red Ferraris, and a whole list of interests that keep his own flame perpetually stoked.

Matt Mills: You're ready to release a new album. Excited about it?

Yngwie Malmsteen: Of course.

Matt: I've heard stories that you don't like to get up too early in the day. Has that changed now?

Yngwie: Actually, that's not correct at all. I like to get up very early in the morning and enjoy the day.

Matt: Yeah, I must have been reading some old magazines.

Yngwie: Yeah, it must have been real old. [Laughs]

Matt: Could you tell us a little bit about the music scene in Sweden? Do you ever like keep up with that or...you know, what was it like growing up there as far as the music scene?

Yngwie: Well, when I grew up there in the '70s and early '80s, basically, the music scene didn't exist. There wasn't anything. As far as rock 'n' roll, it was nothing. It was completely barren. Nobody was encouraged to do anything. You were pretty much told to shut up and stay in your place and don't do anything. That sort of society. I don't really dig that. So, that was completely useless.

I was very active from since I was like 10 years old. I was in band. So, there weren't any real venues. There were definitely no labels. I won some awards and stuff, some contests and stuff like this, which was pretty cool because I got free studio time and all that. It was pretty much that I had my eyes on London. Because it was not far away. What happened was I sent a tape to Guitar Player magazine and they basically brought me. They told me to come over to the States and that's it. And since I left Sweden, I have not followed the scene there. So, I have absolutely no idea what's going on over there.

Matt: Well, what about when you go back? Is there a lot of interest?

Yngwie: Oh, indeed, yeah. I just played in Stockholm not long ago. It was mind-blowing. It was very, very, very, very, very, very, very good. Because it gives you a lot of on-and-off throughout the year. It was a pretty hands-on relationship. They looked at me like as some sort of celebrity that had forgotten about the music for awhile, the Swedish press, you know. So that was very rewarding to go back down there. I hadn't been for three years, so this summer I was there, and we played this place, like an old 18th century theater. Unbelievable, and it was completely packed. Going back was really, really nice.

Matt: A lot of shredders get caught up in high-velocity playing and tend to forget about the importance of melody. How do you work out an instrumental? Do you work out the melody first and then fast passages will come later? Because a lot of guys tend to be so caught up in speed that the melody just gets totally lost.

Yngwie: The way I've always looked at it is that no matter what you play, it has to be melodic. If you play in 1/64 notes or if you're playing very slow, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how fast or slow you're playing. It has to be melodic. If you play a run, it's like a scale or something like this, it has to be valid. If you play it fast and very clean then it sounds very exciting.

That was the whole idea behind Nicola Paganini and Franz Liszt and those guys back in the early 19th century. They were the first breed of the virtuosos, so to speak. In a true sense, you know? There are people like Mozart and Vivaldi, they were considered virtuosos, as well. But, they didn't play on that. They weren't just virtuosos. Liszt and Paganini, they were very into that. Sometimes, there's a certain value in virtuosity. I think it's important to not to put all your eggs in one basket. I spend many hours on songwriting and if you listen to the songwriting and production on the new album, that's all my work. That's what I spend my time on, the lyrics and the production and the arrangements. Solos take me five minutes. I just roll and go, that's it.

Matt: All improvised?

Yngwie: Yes. Basically, the way I see them is either they're happening and they're good or either they're not. And I don't do them over. I just do it and if it's good, then that's good. If it's not, then I say okay, I'll do it. If you squeeze blood out of a stone, it's not a good thing. It has to flow. It has to be natural and inspired automatically. It's a very bizarre thing because how do you push the button to do that? You don't. It just has to happen at the right moment.

Matt: Do you leave the machine on and just keep recording?

Yngwie: Well, no. I don't have a system. When it's happening, it's happening. And I can do that on two or three songs. But, if it's not, I know there's plenty more stuff I need to do: concentrate on lyrics, concentrate on other things.

Matt: Exactly.

Yngwie: I put a lot of importance into the bass; the bass and the drum rate.I make sure we're really tight on the bass and the drums. I spend so much time on other things, so to speak, definitely.

Matt: You have Hendrix as an early influence. At what point did you find out about Paganini?

Yngwie: It's funny, I have to to try to explain that. I got my first guitar for my fifth birthday. I was just a little tyke, you know? I didn't play much on it. But, when I was seven, they showed Jimi Hendrix on the Swedish news. It was not a musical impact. They showed him smashing and burning a guitar in Monterey. That's what I saw. That's what, it wasn't Hendrix's music that made me want to play, nothing. I didn't even know what he did. I just saw that vision and one year later I got Deep Purple's Fireball and that was the musical inspiration to start with.

Once I started getting all this Blackmore pentatonic blues stuff, you know, pretty much down, I was playing every note, note for note major pentatonical. I was like 10 years old and played every solo exact. It's pretty sick. The thing is, then I found myself real frustrated because I thought it was too simple, too easy. I don't mean to sound arrogant about it, but to me, it was too easy. There has to be something more to this, I thought. I listened to old Genesis and Bach music, and that was more difficult to pick out.

When I was about 12 or 13, I saw a guy play Paganini on TV. There were only two TV channels in Sweden when I was a kid. So, it was pretty barren, you know? A wasteland. I saw that and I thought, "Wow!" It dawned on me that if I could try to do something in that clean vibrato, this whole violin sort of sound on the electric guitar, that would be amazing. I started trying doing that, you know, it didn't happen overnight, put it that way. It's not exactly something you say, 'Yeah, I'll do that,' you know? It's hard; it's very hard. [Laughing] You know, so I'm still trying to do it. But that's always my goal, to get the violin sound, basically, on the guitar.

Matt: Yeah, I've heard you quote from Paganini on Prophet of Doom off of War to End All Wars and I was excited to hear just a little bit of that, of the "24th Caprice", that was pretty amazing. Do you think you'd ever quote from him a little more, or is that just more of a spontaneous kind of thing that kind of happened?

Yngwie: A spontaneous thing, I think. I was never into playing note for note. It was more trying to get the flow and the vibe of it, you know?

Matt: Right, right. Your playing is really grounded in harmonic minor and diminished scales, major/minor arpeggios. Are these straight from Paganini or did you stumble upon them while studying other composers like Mozart or Bach, or is it just kind of a combination of all of them?

Yngwie: A little bit of both. The thing is, I found out when I was a kid, when you play a pentatonic blues scale, you have seven notes, it's five. It's five actually.

Matt: It's five, yeah.

Yngwie: I felt it was so weird, because I started hearing every guitar player I heard doing the same thing. In a little bit of the way like Angus Young or Michael Schencker or Ritchie Blackmore or anyone. It was always that pentatonic boxing of the fifth fret in A. I said, "Wow, this...no, no, no. There has to be something else to this." So, when I heard about violin work with Vivaldi and Paganini, it was more linear. In other words, you come out with downward riff scale or like the scale that's just a flurry down. Down, and they involved more notes. It just sounded better to me. It just was more exciting. That's why I did it. It felt to me like a case of incest, you know? A guitar player listens to other guitar players, the guitar player they listen to listens to a guitar player in their turn and so on. Jimi Hendrix listened to B.B. King. B.B. King listened to Robert Johnson, the blues guy. And there's nothing wrong with that, because that's how that thing evolved down the line. I just want to go somewhere else with it. Where I found that was in classical violin.

A lot of people ask me, "Do you like John Williams?" the great classical guitar player, and that's not what I'm going for. I'm not going for the classical guitar. I'm going for classical violin. It's bizarre, because a lot of people go, "That's strange." Yeah, well, it is strange, but it is what it is.

Matt: It's like mixing the two together, the rock and the classical violin sound. No one did that before you. That's a pretty amazing combination. That had to dawn on you at some point,"Like, wow, this is something completely different?."

Yngwie: It did. But, the thing that happened to me very early on. I was just a little kid, I was like my son's age, 11, 12 or something like that. I could play "Child in Time," and "Highway Star," backwards and forwards and upside down. It was really great stuff to learn, because that brought me into playing, very into what I was doing and stuff. Of course, it was a very good learning curve. I realized very early on, "Okay, that's great. I can play this, but he's already doing this. I need to do something else. I need to do something that is going to be exciting for me." I think this might be the toughest thing for a musician, to find your own way.

Matt: Right. That is a tough thing. As a guitar player, I find it rough not to copy, even copying from you [Yngwie Laughs]. You have such a wealth of information there that I can't help but use a minor or diminished arpeggio once in awhile.

Yngwie: It's a good thing. It's a good thing.

Matt: When you were recording Rising Force back in '85, I think it was...

Yngwie: '84 actually.

Matt: '84, right. It was released in '85, right? Am I getting the years right here?

Yngwie: Yeah.

Matt: Were you conscious of how far ahead of every other guitar player you were out there? Because no one ever heard songs like "Far Beyond the Sun" or "Black Star". When I first heard the album, I couldn't believe it. I was like, 'Is this possible?'

Yngwie: [Laughs] To be honest with you, no, I did not think of that. In fact, I just kind of did it. It's very bizarre, the story behind it, because with Alcatrazz, and I was in Japan and the label, they said, "We want you to do a solo record." I said, "Fine. Okay. Why not?" And they said, "But we don't want any singing on it." I went, "What?" "We don't want a singer." That wasn't my choice! It was the label that told me they didn't want a singer. So, that's why I put "Black Star" and those songs on it. I wrote them when I was 17, in Sweden.

Matt: Wow.

Yngwie: Yeah. I kind of like made that album to get it out of the way. Like a washing out thing, and get my band and all that. That's what my plan was. I had no idea that this thing was gonna get so rewarding. You know? I had no idea. It's very, very pleasing, of course. But, that wasn't the plan at all. I thought it would be just forgotten, you know? But, no.

Matt: That's amazing. Fans sometimes offer up surprises during performances, some very memorable. What are your favorite performance memories?

Yngwie: Oh, man...

Matt: I know, it's kind of a big question.

Yngwie: There are just so many. I just came off a tour in Europe. I have to say it was really, really good with my new band and just my own self. Everything, it was just really up to snuff. I've gone through a lot of different phases, so to speak, in my life, more or less. I have to say I'm at the place now in my life where I'm the most focused I've been, since I think, ever. It may have to do with certain intake of certain things and all that. I really, really enjoy every night I play. This last tour, I can guarantee you after this American leg I'm doing now, I'm gonna say, "This was my favorite tour!"

Matt: Wow.

Yngwie: Yeah, it's becoming that way. Yeah, it's very exciting, especially when you can get to a place where you just really go cut loose. The band knows that we have a particular sound on stage. But, I never play the same songs. I just start another song and they just follow. It's a great thing, that way.

Matt: So, you guys are really locked in.

Yngwie: It's never the same. It's good.

Matt: Could you tell us a little bit about working with the Czech Philharmonic and some of those major orchestras there?

Yngwie: Yeah. My dream was always that I'd write something for an orchestra, specifically for an orchestra and me. Not a band simply, where the orchestra does their stuff. That's great, you know, Blackmore and Purple, and all those guys. But, that's not what I want to do. I don't want to put an orchestra to my songs, no. I want to compose something specifically for the orchestra with guitar solos. It was a big, big thing, you know, and it took me about a year or so.

I recorded originally with Czech Philharmonic in Prague, which was great. But, I think the most exciting time was when I was playing with the New Japan Philharmonic because I was doing it live. In the studio, I just moved my guitar on after. And this was great, too. But, it wasn't the same thing as playing with the orchestra. It was almost a surreal experience, because it's so different from rock 'n' roll. Nothing's the same. I give all the credit to the conductor, really, because he was just mind-blowingly good. Had 96 people in one hand, following me. He looked at them and he made them follow me. Fantastic, unbelievable!

Matt: I have the Japanese Philharmonic DVD. I thought it was unbelievable. It was nice to actually see "Trilogy" played with the orchestra on that DVD. That was pretty amazing. Are you going to perform with the orchestras again?

Yngwie: Of course, yes. Right now, I'm very much in a place where I want to rock, man. I just want to stack up as many Marshalls as you can [Laughs]. I mean, a ridiculous amount of Marshalls. At last count I had 20 heads. I love that, a lot of smoke machines and let's throw some guitars in there. That's really what I feel like doing now most. There will be plenty of time. I'm gonna compose some more for symphonies, also. Right now, I feel very much into the rock 'n' roll thing. That's where I want to be right now.

Matt: What were the challenges you faced working your guitar style with all those different instruments? I know it kind of relates to the previous question, but like writing parts for those...

Yngwie: I just wrote the parts I heard in my head. And I had had a few at the time. Okay, here's an oboe part and I would put an oboe part. Here's the flute part, here's the violin 1, violin 2, viola, contrabasses, cellos, woodwinds. I would put them all separate on the board. He would do it with the sample sounds, but I would show the parts. We build it one by one. And we'd go, "Oh, I want this here and this here, some timpani here. I would orchestrated the whole thing out and I'd have it transcribed out. Just a totally natural way of hearing the arrangement, because I've been totally saturated in classical music since I was a little kid. So, that comes very natural to me for the whole thing.

Matt: I guess I was imagining if you're writing a part and you say a minute for a cello and maybe it was beyond the range of the cello, those kinds of things.

Yngwie: But, I did do that! I did do some of that. Many composers do that. There's a flurry in one of the movements, in "Fugue," where it starts with the violins, takes over with the viola and then ends with cello because the range is so long.

Matt: Right, I know the piece exactly.

Yngwie: I played all the guitars starting in high G [Yngwie makes a guitar riff sound], like this. And that's what they play on three different instruments.

Matt: Oh, yeah. I can see exactly what you mean.

Yngwie: It sounds amazing.

Matt: Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about cars. Are you still a Ferrari guy?

Yngwie: Oh, am I ever. [Laughs]

Matt: That's great.

Yngwie: There's a song about one of my Ferraris on the new album called "The Red Devil".

Matt: You still like to drive them pretty fast?

Yngwie: Oh, I love it. I love it.

Matt: That's cool. Fast guitar, fast cars; is there a bit of a relationship there to the high velocity?

Yngwie: Not really, because as fast as a Ferrari is, what I really love about it is the way they look, the design, and the whole aura about them and the whole background about them. Because, Ferrari started in 1902 or something like that, racing for Alfa Romeo and how this whole thing just came from this guy's vision. That to me is like the thing, because, there's other fast cars. But, but with that background, that story, that beautiful design, the Pininfarina, the whole thing about it. It's similar to a Stratocaster. That's the one, you know?

There's other guitars, but that's the one. Ferrari, same thing or Rolex watch, same thing. That's like the purest form of it. I am like that. I am a purist. That's why I stay with the Marshalls and the Ferraris and the Fenders and the Rolexes [Laughs]. I like it like that, because even though there might be things that are better. But there not as pure.

Matt: You still use the Marshall Mark II then, I assume?

Yngwie: Yeah. That and Plexi 100s. I had a really old 200 watts once. I'm really into them. Marshall's been great to me. My last European tour, they supplied me with so many Marshalls. It was wonderful.

Matt: You gonna make it to NAMM this year, play in the Marshall booth or the Fender booth?

Yngwie: We're talking about it now, yeah.

Matt: What reception did the classical players in the orchestra give you when you would walk in there and play. You know, here you are, the guy playing with the Marshalls and the Stratocaster and you're standing next to these people who are holding violins and cellos.

Yngwie: The first impression was that they weren't too impressed. [Laughs] By the end of the day, the decision was to play Prague and Taipei. I played more than once with these people, and they all were very, very, very pleased in the end. I was kind of surprised. They all came up to me and said, "Wow, I didn't expect this."

Matt: I'm sure they were probably impressed with your level of playing.

Yngwie: The composition also.

Matt: Right. Exactly, because they probably didn't expect that, not to use this term, but the 'standard rock guitar player'...

Yngwie: What they see is a long-haired guy with leather pants and what not. I was extremely well-received, actually.

Matt: I've gotta ask you this question: two of my favorite classic albums, and we'll talk a little bit about the past here, Trilogy and Alchemy have always been my favorites of your classic ones. How do you feel about them now? What are your thoughts on those albums?

Yngwie: I like them. I think that those two are among my favorites. I like the first one and Marching Out also. I like two of the records a lot. Of course, I could say, "Oh man, I can do that better, I can do it differently." Sure, and that is true. But, at the time, that was my best. That's how I look at it.

Matt: I heard you on the G3 tour, you played "Blitzkrieg". It's great to hear something off of Alchemy because I really love that album, especially "Asylum" at the end of that album, I thought was just phenomenal. It was pretty insane musically. It was just all this mixing of minor diminished arpeggios, wide interval stuff. Pretty mind-blowing stuff. Any chance of ever hearing that live?

Yngwie: The thing is, I'm accumulating more and more and more and more songs. It's getting more and more difficult to choose which ones to play live, you know?

Matt: You have a huge catalog.

Yngwie: I could come in and do a six hour show or something. [Laughs]

Matt: Exactly. I always hear Trilogy played live and I always love hearing that one. Of course, all the improvising before and after that whole little section is just unbelievable. The next question I have is about the new Malmsteen Stratocaster from the custom shop, one that you had done. Can you tell us about your involvement in that?

Yngwie: Which one, the "Duck" guitar?

Matt: Yes.

Yngwie: A new, fresher model.

Matt: Right.

Yngwie: That was the one I got when I was a kid in Sweden and I brought with me to America with one extra pair of pants and just a guitar. That's the one on the cover of Rising Force. That's the one they made a tribute guitar, only 100 pieces. They're exact. It's ridiculous. John Cruz, one of the master builders there, great guy, the way he did it is just unbelievable. But then, instead of the one bit that's molded has been updated to, I would say, exactly what I do. And, in fact, now I do play those guitars. It's actually one of my main guitars now. It's just so good. high gloss, the neck shape is different. Also, the scalloping is a little deeper and bigger frets. It's got machine screws for the neck. The neck won't move at all. It's fantastic. Just a sick guitar, man.

Matt: That's awesome. I like the deeper scallop myself. That's pretty cool. The earlier models had somewhat of a scallop, but not as deep as the new one.

Yngwie: Also smaller frets.

Matt: Right ,yeah, I owned a 1989 model, I think it was. It had a good neck, but the frets were much smaller than the newer ones.

Yngwie: The first thing you said, that's kind of the way I played guitars back then. So, they were accurate for the time.

Matt: Oh, that's cool to know. I didn't know that.

Yngwie: Don't blame Fender for that. It's just I can't change my thing around and I started using more deeper scallops. I just don't dig deep. Also the ones I used that were my favorites had a different neck shape, as well. They weren't as fat, you know.

Matt: Right.

Yngwie: I asked Fender about a year and a half ago to re-update all that and they did. They're just mind-bogglingly good.

Matt: Yeah, I always see the yellow color. But, I remember a concert that you did in Japan on a video and it seems like almost every song you pulled out a different guitar, like a different Fender. Do you still use any of those ever, or those are just kind of locked away? I mean, I know it was many years ago, but...

Yngwie: No, they're actually all lying in a big pile. There's a room I've got. It's basically just guitars. Some of them I hang on the wall in my pool room. I always wear black on stage because I like the shape of the guitar to show up. That's why I use that light color.

Matt: Oh, that makes sense.

Yngwie: That's the main reason. The design is so beautiful, I think it's a waste if it doesn't show up.

Matt: The yellow one, the one that the custom shop guys, the one's that had a limited production, is that the one that a fan threw a bottle on stage and popped a fret out that you retired? Is that what it's modeled after?

Yngwie: That neck was on a different body at that time.

Matt: Oh, okay.

Yngwie: And the fret actually came out of the neck, yeah.

Matt: You had to be pretty upset about that.

Yngwie: I was pretty pissed. It was in Alaska, actually, Anchorage, Alaska. That show was stopped right there. That's it, I'm outta here. You know, nobody would be playing right there, right then, that would have been it.

Matt: Did you pick the fret up off the floor, or...?

Yngwie: No, the fret came out of the wood like a V sticking out. Where the impact of the bottle split the wood, that was a heavy-duty impact.

Matt: I understand why you stopped that show.

Yngwie: Oh, yeah.

Matt: Speaking of the scallop-necked instruments, have you ever played like the South Indian Vena? I know you play the sitar.

Yngwie: No. [Laughs]

Matt: The sitar, though, do you tune it to your own tuning when you play that?

Yngwie: That's the way anybody would play that guitar, tune it to your tuning. Whatever you want to tune it to, from what I understand, anyway. Nobody ever showed me how to play it, the thing is that I rented a studio in Sweden a long time ago. There was a sitar lady in there and I said, 'Wow, this is cool.' I saw her playing it and they kind of gave it to me and said, "You can have it because nobody uses it." That's how I got into the sound of that. It's kind of limiting the way you can play those things. You can only do a few cool little scales.

Matt: I remember hearing it on The Seventh Sign album. I think that was the first time I heard it, on Pyramid of Cheops I think it was?

Yngwie: Yeah.

Matt: It was cool to hear. Any chance of hearing that any more on any other albums?

Yngwie: I used it on the new one, actually.

Matt: Okay. I know you play bass. What other instruments do you play?

Yngwie: I play drums. I have bass drums from hell. I play keyboards. I play the cello. That's all I can think of right now.

Matt: As far as keyboard abilities, can you do a lot of soloing on the keyboard, or is it...?

Yngwie: No. [Laughs]

Matt: Just chords?

Yngwie: No, I can play. What I found myself doing on keyboards, which was kind of cool, "You Don't Ever Have to Get It" is one I wrote on keyboards. [Yngwie voices some musical sounds] I wrote that song on the keyboard. When I play on keyboard, I come up with things that I wouldn't do on the guitar. I'm obviously more limited on it, so it's more simple stuff. It's kind of a good thing sometimes to sit down behind it and come up with some cool shit.

Matt: Yeah, definitely. What ideas or emotions best describe your new CD Perpetual Flame?

Yngwie: I don't know. That's too simplistic.

Matt: How do you feel about it?

Yngwie: I love the way it was made, because it was made very different from what I've done records before. In that, we started and there was maybe bass here and there, whatever. And then we went on tour. Then after we went on tour, I came back and we'd do some more guitars, and I'd put some keyboards on it and then went on tour again. Then I come back and do a few things here and there. In other words, maybe like the old days like Purple or something. We would tour, then record a song then go back on tour and stuff like this. That's how we did the really early records. And it's a very cool thing. Every time you come back, you hear it differently. And you keep yourself really fresh, really on the ball, because you're on stage, as well. So, there's two good things that happen when you do that.

Matt: Of course, I know it was probably recorded at your home studio, right? The whole album?

Yngwie: Well, I have two studios. One is like a big sound stage where we do live drums and then everything else in the home studio, which is full-on. It's state-of-the-art, man. You've got every tube compressor you can imagine. I'm really happy I have that studio because it's nothing like what most people have nowadays, which is a virtual studio. It's nothing like that. There's a real mixer board, real faders, real tube compressors and tube EQs. This is the real deal. And trust me, it makes a difference.

Matt: Yeah, I see a lot of guys using ProTools, going all digital.

Yngwie: I have ProTools, of course, I have Pro Tools. But, I don't use that as...you see, ProTools has every plug-in you can have. You can have the SSL compressor, right?

Matt: Right.

Yngwie: But, I have the real SSL compressor.

Matt: Right, gotcha.

Yngwie: You know, it's not one that just pops up on the screen.

Matt: I think your albums have kind of an organic feel, because of the fact that you use real equipment.

Yngwie: Again, all real drums, real Marshall stacks, you know. There's not like a modeling amp. There are no secret replaced drums. It's all the live, organic thing.

Matt: Oh, so no triggers?

Yngwie: No.

Matt: Wow.

Yngwie: It's all just microphone in front of a drum.

Matt: That's great.It's good to hear. A lot of guys, even well-respected players are starting to use amp modeling plug-ins and triggers on the drums.

Yngwie: I know. We have nothing of that. I mean, I still even have the 2-inch recorders, two Studer recorders. But, I don't use them, because that's really not smart. I still have them, though. They're there. I use digital recording, but the signal goes through real tube mics, real EQs and all the stuff that folks don't necessarily need, all the stuff and then goes down to the hard drive. It's the chain that matters. Marshalls are mic'ed up, I mean, in a room I call "The Room of Doom," the old maid's quarters, where the servants used to live in the house way back. I had it converted to where the Marshalls are and got it mic'ed up there. The whole room breathes. It's totally painful in there.

Matt: I can't imagine how loud that really is.

Yngwie: That's what's so cool, because that's how the microphone will pick up the air moving, you know? You can't copy that. That's real cones moving the air into the mic. Those are things where I will always stay on the purist side. You can exchange everything with it now. But, I just won't do it.

Matt: That's great. It adds even more respect, I think, to the overall music that you make. So many guys are into this digital world now. It's great to hear. How did you start working with Derek Sherinian on this album, and also working with Roy Z.?

Yngwie: Derek I've known. He had to audition for me back in '98. He came here, he auditioned for me; he didn't work out that time, but then we started touring in 2001 and he was on the album Attack. He's been on and off on tour with me since all those years. We were in Russia, actually, just last summer, or it was this summer. I can't remember now. I said to him, "Okay, you said you're going home. Come with me and put the keyboards on." So he puts some keyboards on the record. I did some of the keyboards, too. I've known him forever. He's a cool guy. And then Roy Z. was recommended by K.K. Downings, a friend of mine, and he turned out to be really cool, too. And it turned out he went to school with Jeff Scott Soto, small world.

Matt: That's wild. How about working with Tim "The Ripper" Owens? How did that relationship start?

Yngwie: That was when I first started writing songs. I realized more and more and more, me and Patrick were setting down the drums and I heard a song sort of taking shape. I started writing lyrics and everything and the lyrics were so powerful. And the melodies I heard, I was afraid no singer was going to be able to cut it. So, that was out of the question.

I started thinking and we talked a little bit, we did a couple of things before and we had talked a few times. I basically thought, on paper, it would we'd be a perfect combination. But, I invited him down here and we went in and did three songs. I do songs rarely with the same singer. He turned out really, really good. In fact, one of them is actually one that is on the record now, "Live to Fight".

Matt: He's a powerful singer.

Yngwie: Yeah, yeah. He is. Really, really good live also.

Matt: Off the disc, are there any songs you like playing more than others, I mean off the new disc, or is it all just pretty equal?

Yngwie: They will have certain value to me, of course.

Matt: There isn't like one in particular that you like?

Yngwie: They're all my children, you know?

Matt: Yeah, of course. But there isn't one like, 'Oh, I can't wait to play this one!' kind of feeling?

Yngwie: Yeah, but that's usually the next song that comes on. Like, "Oh, I like this!"and a few seconds later, the next song comes on. To me, I don't feel there's a weak one in there. Even the one that I'm singing on, I think that has a really cool vibe, as well. They all have their own little thing they bring to make a whole.

Matt: You've worked with a lot of great vocalists over the years, like, you know, Mark Boals and Jeff Scott Soto. Curiosity of mine: do you think that you'll ever work with those guys again?

Yngwie: I don't know. Never say never, you know? If it's time, you know it's time. Trust me, I'm very happy with what's going on.

Matt: Tim's great, not that the other guys are not great either, but they're all great in their own way.

Yngwie: I think it's very exciting to have Tim on this recording.

Matt: You've influenced so many guitar players, including myself. Could you give us a bit of advice for starting out on guitar, like your thoughts on what young players should do?

Yngwie: Well, it all depends on where you want to end up. If you want to end up being a power chord guy, you want to end up being a virtuoso, what do you want? Because they're not all the same.

You can bash out two chords and it can make you a million dollars. That's not a big deal, you know? Do you want to leave a stamp on the world? What do you want? I think that's the first question you ask yourself. What do you want to do with this? Because, there's a lot of people start for different reasons. Oh, I play guitar to get the chicks, you know? Or I get the money, or whatever. Or, man, I'm going to be impressing everybody now because I'm a virtuoso. To me, that's such a broad thing. I just know what I do. I basically sacrificed everything for this.

Matt: What's amazing is the whole virtuoso thing mixed with the rock music. You've been really successful at it. You had to have a lot of opposition because playing anything with a kind of virtuoso-like vibe and then mixing it with rock 'n' roll, it's the kind of...you know, people had to say to you, 'What are you doing?' You had to think at some point because it's not as complex or melodic as what you do. Was there a lot of opposition?

Yngwie: Of course, pretty much from the beginning, there were people who looked at me with wonder. They'd go, "What are you doing?" Because when I was 15 years old, from the time I was 14 or 15, I was doing this. I was playing dark, heavy, heavy shit with like insane guitar playing on top of it. I realized back then, I don't know why I did it, there wasn't exactly an end of the rainbow. There wasn't someone saying, "Yeah, if you do that, you'll get this," at all. Quite the opposite; people were saying, "If you do that, you'll never get anywhere."

I still did it. I don't know why I did it. It definitely was for some sort of passion that I had and probably still do. But, now I'm more aware of what can be done with it and what I can get from it. Back then it was a big question mark.

Matt: That's one of the things I really loved about your music, the fact that you've always stuck to your guns. So many players have just completely changed their sound after their third or fourth album. They lose some of their hardcore fans because they're always changing their style, changing their sound. But, you've kept the neoclassical sound going for so long, it's just great.

Yngwie: The reason for that is because I never faked it. I never faked it in any way. It's just what I do. This is what I am. This started very many years ago, before I even came to the States. This whole thing started long before then. I'm not putting it on. This is what...more is more. [Laughing]

Matt: Right. [Laughs]

Yngwie: I don't fake it. This is not something I'm trying to do because of something. This is it. This is what you see. This is what you get. This is the real thing. You can take it or you can leave it. It is what it is. This is not something that I'm doing because of any other reason. This is my true art, my true expression. This is what I stand for. This is what I do.

Of course, Nicola Paganini said, "One must feel strongly to make others feel strongly," and I think that's what part of my success, throughout my life, is that in all of the opposition and all the people who said, "What are you doing?", not following anything, blah, blah, blah. I felt strongly about what I did. I took people with me; people couldn't help but get into it. They'd go, "This guy's really serious."

So, for better or worse, that's been a bad thing a few times, but at the end of the day when everything comes through, it's like a full circle almost now. And I've gone through the whole thing. The reason I'm still here talking to you, the reason I'm not working somewhere else, doing something else, is because this is what I do. I never faked it and I never will. So that is the reason, I'm pretty sure of it.

Matt: That's why the fans will keep buying your discs, because you're true.

Yngwie: Thank you very much.

Matt: Any new projects on the horizon or is it just focusing kind of on what you've got going on right now?

Yngwie: This is more than enough, trust me. I've been sitting doing interviews all morning here, and this is a pleasure, of course. But, the whole tour is starting and it's a big thing going on.

Related Links
Yngwie Malmsteen
Fender Guitars Yngwie Malmsteen Tribute Model
Fender GIVEAWAY - Yngwie Malmsteen Tribute Model
Yngwie Malmsteen Interview by Modern Guitars Magazine (2005)
Fender Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Model

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