Last year, Yngwie Malmsteen released his twentieth studio album, ‘World on Fire’ after a four-year break from putting out new material (the longest of his career). The record has been extremely well received amongst fans, and with a major fall U.S. tour about to kick off next month.
Take a look at this great inteview he gave to Guitar Interactive Magazine editor Jonathan Graham at his first solo show in London for nearly a decade.
Check it out:
Yngwie Johan Malmsteen was born in Sweden and first became known in the 1980s for his neoclassical metal playing style in heavy metal, and has released 20 studio albums in a career spanning almost 40 years. In 2009, Time magazine rated Malmsteen as among the 10 greatest electric guitar players of all time.
He is the third child of a musical family. At the age of ten Malmsteen created his first band, Track on Earth, consisting of himself and a friend from school playing the drums. At the age of twelve he took his mother’s maiden name Malmsten as his surname, then slightly changed it to Malmsteen and altered his third given name Yngve to “Yngwie.”
As a teenager he was heavily influenced by classical music, particularly 19th century Italian violinist composer Niccolò Paganini, as well as Johann Sebastian Bach, a German multi instrumentalist and composer of the same century. During this time, he also discovered his most important guitar influence, Ritchie Blackmore. He also cites Uli Jon Roth and Brian May as significant influences.
Malmsteen has stated that Jimi Hendrix had no musical impact on him and did not contribute to his style, but watching the 18 September 1970 TV special, where Hendrix smashed and burned his guitar, made Malmsteen think “this is really cool”.