Ask YNGWIE MALMSTEEN A Question

The "Maximum Threshold" radio show will record an interview with legendary guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen this Thursday, December 18 at 6:30 p.m. EST and is inviting the public to participate in the questions segment.

If you would like to speak with Yngwie, you can do so by logging in to the "Maximum Threshold"web site (free registration required) and accessing the chatroom around 6:00 p.m. EST.

The interview will be recorded and aired on the regular Saturday night (December 20) show between 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. EST.

If you have questions that you would like asked, email them to [email protected] by Thursday at 3:00 p.m. EST.

Dirty Rock Magazine recently conducted an interview with Yngwie Malmsteen. A few excerpts for the chat follow below.

Dirty Rock Magazine: How did the collaboration with Ripper [singer Tim Owens] come about? You guys obviously worked together well?

Yngwie: We've known each other for a long time and, you know, I made a decision to get a new singer first, because I write all the lyrics and melodies. So with songs like "Death Dealer" and "Damnation Game", all that shit. When they came together, I knew that I needed someone like Jeff Scott Soto on "Marching Out" type of singer that had the range and the power. Mark (Boals) had a lot of range but not really power and Doogie [White] didn't have much range or power (laughs),God bless him. But he wasn't going to work out on this one. So somebody mentioned Tim and I spoke to him and said, "Listen, I've got these songs. They're already finished. Do you want to come down and sing a couple of songs?" And the first songs he sang were "Live To Fight (Another Day)", "Be Careful What You Wish For" and "Priest of the Unholy" because they were all done. We said here's the lyrics, here's the melody, do it. And it was a no-brainer, you know, it worked so good.

Dirty Rock Magazine: Now you've worked with a number of different singers, how does your approach change or vary from singer to singer, album to album?

Yngwie: The last three years I would say probably starting with "Alchemy", that's when we decided I was taking over the whole, f##kin', everything. Up until then I would kind of let singers add a lyric here or there. Because, and to be honest with you, it's embarrassing in a way, I was f##kin' lazy man. And there was a lot of distractions and shit back then, you know, which there isn't now and I'm so f##king focused right now it's scary. I have no distractions, everything is clear and crystal and everything is exactly where… I know exactly what I'm doing. There's no struggling, there's searching, nothing. Just boom, done. It's not so much that I'm saying, oh I'm sure it's exactly where it's going, it kind of goes like that naturally without even trying. So last three years it's virtually the same. I write the lyrics, I write the melody, I show the singer and I produce it and everything. I sit in the control room and say, "I want [you to] sing it like this, sing it more like this, but this over here," done. Depending on how good they are. Mark was extremely good, technically very, very good. Doogie is different. He's a little bit more of hit-and-miss because the first album he did, "Attack", I showed him the first song called "Rise Up" and he f##ckin nailed it, man. It was beautiful. And another time I would show him "Boogie Man" on the next album and he just could not f##kin do it man. So he was a bit of a hit-and-miss thing. With Tim, he's little bit more like Mark. I showed him the shit and he f##kin nails it, man. So it's a very enjoyable thing. I know for a fact that singers are kind of born to expect to be the guy that does all that, the writing and all that. And in the traditional sense of rock 'n' roll, that is the way it's done. I try to explain to people the way it works because people go, "Whoa, he's a tricky bastard." Not to the people who do work with me, but the people who don't work with me that I try and explain it because they think I'm like Hitler. And it's not so much that, I'm just very, very specific and know what it is I'm going for and I don't need a producer to tell me how it should be. Or I don't need a singer to say, "Should I sing it like this?" It's not an ego thing it's I'm an artist in a way like a painter or composer like Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi. They wrote the cello parts, viola parts, violin 1, violin 2. There wasn't a cello guy in the second row going, "Hey, dude, can I try this?" In a very strange way, that's how I work, not because they're my ultimate heroes but it's just the way it's happened and I realised that when I haven't done it I was never happy.

Read the full interview in the latest issue of Dirty Rock Magazine, available at this location.

Fan-filmed video footage of Yngwie Malmsteen's October 26, 2008 concert at the Blender Theater in New York City can be viewed below (clip uploaded by "dreinlieb").