Yngwie Malmsteen explains why he refused to join UFO

The virtuoso Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen first achieved fame as a member of Steeler but he went to another level after becoming a member of Alcatrazz, recording the praised album “No Parole from Rock ‘n’ Roll”. After a fight with the vocalist Graham Bonnet he was fired and started his praised solo career. Since the early days he received many invitations to join bands, including UFO, British group fronted by Phil Mogg which had Michael Schenker as a guitarist during their most successful era.

He explained in an interview with Massa Power, the musician explained why he declined their invitation.

Yngwie Malmsteen explains why he refused to join UFO

“(Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar) I played around with Steeler; we were all over the Sunset Strip… I remember one night we played in Orange County, and Phil Mogg, of UFO came there. I love that band, it was great. So, he was all like, ‘Hey, I’m putting UFO back together. I’ve gotta get a great guitar player, so come to my house tomorrow.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll be there.'”

“So, the next morning, I get a phone call from somebody. I don’t know who it was. Some manager or something, from what became Alcatraz. It wasn’t called Alcatraz [yet]. That was the same day I was gonna see Phil. And so, they come and pick me up, and they bring me to this rehearsal room. And I started asking these guys, like, ‘What are your songs like’, and all that stuff. ‘Well, we don’t have any songs yet.’ I said, ‘What’s your direction?’ ‘We don’t have a direction yet… But you got the gig!’ I said, ‘Well, let me think about it. I gotta go see somebody.'”

He continued:

“I went to Phil Mogg’s house, and he was super cool, but he didn’t really have his stuff together that much as the other camp did. So, I called them from Phil’s house and said, ‘Okay, I’ll do your thing, but couple of conditions: I write the songs, and we get a new drummer.’ So we started [auditioning] drummers, and we had all these drummers, hundreds of drummers, and really good ones too. Ended up with the guy from Alice Cooper [Jannaro ‘Jan’ Uvena], but that’s how that happened.”

“I mean, it would have been awesome to be in UFO too, but that would mean I would have to do a lot of their classics and stuff like that — which is good, but I was more into the fresh start thing,” Yngwie Malmsteen said.

In 1984 Malmsteen released “Rising Force”, which is still considered a landmark for “neoclassical metal” music and shredding technique. The record won the Guitar Player’s award for Best Rock Album. Also was nominated for a Grammy Award for “Best Rock Instrumental”, reaching no. 60 on the Billboard album chart. Since then he has released 22 studio albums, the most recent one being “Parabellum” (2021).