JEFF SCOTT SOTO: 'I Will Never Stop Extending The Olive Branch' To YNGWIE MALMSTEEN

In a new interview with Remzi "Jam Man" Yates of Rocking With Jam Man, acclaimed hard rock vocalist Jeff Scott Soto spoke about how Ritchie Blackmore's recent onstage reunion with DEEP PURPLE gave him hope that he can rebuild his personal relationship with legendary Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen, four decades after Jeff and Yngwie first worked together. Soto said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "[Ritchie's reunion with PURPLE] was an exciting moment that nobody expected that would ever happen, much less that it happened in our lifetime. And for everybody to see that, it just goes to show that there is hope. There is a chance that anything that's fractured or broken is fixable. There's this Krazy Glue you can put in pretty much any situation. So I will never stop extending the olive branch, telling Yngwie there's no reason, there's zero reason for us to have any animosity or any walls between us. So hopefully someday we can put that aside. If it's not put aside to actually work together, I don't really care. I care more for the personality side of things. I care more for the friendship."

Jeff continued: "I don't want any enemies when I leave this earth. I wanna go with a clear conscience that everybody was cool with me and I'm cool with them and not have any of that in my life. Anything you add to it — reunion, doing a show, an appearance — that's all bonus stuff. That's icing on the cake. The main thing right now is I want the cake, which, to me, is to get the friendship back intact and to not have any more animosities."

After Yates noted that everybody assumes a reconnection with Yngwie has to mean a reunion tour or somebody just making money, Jeff said: "That's the Internet at play. That's the World Wide Web always trying to come up with things that don't exist just to add more to the story, et cetera. And again, that's why I make it very clear — when I extend that olive branch, I make it very clear that I have no agenda. I don't have any M.O. It's all about I just wanna be friends with the guy. We had a great friendship.

"I understood what it was like to be friends with Yngwie," Soto explained. "I understood who he was and how he was, and from that, I accepted my role in how I am around him. And, yeah, I might have to be a little less 'me' for us to have a peaceful hang whatsoever, but I'm good like that. I'm a chameleon. I can hang with people who are not necessarily thinking and feeling the way I am about life. To me, it's all just about being cool with each other, and we had that. But, unfortunately, something, through the years, along the way, kind of came in the middle of that, and as I said, there's no reason why that can't be squashed and we move forward from it."

When asked what is actually harder to get past, things that happened when Jeff and Yngwie were young, or things that were said decades later when both Jeff and Yngwie were old enough to know exactly what they were saying to each other, Jeff responded: "I think the latter one, the second one, because that's more fresh. If something like that happened along the way, that wound is still open, and that would be the reflection of the relationship itself. Something that happened a long time ago, it's easier to go back, 'Oh my God, I can't believe we're not talking because of that. That's so stupid.' But if something happens more recent, it's kind of keeping the animosity or the wall between us. So I would say there's more damage to more recent things said and done."

As for whether he would rejoin Yngwie on stage for one song, if the opportunity came, with no tour attached, no record deal, no publicity stunt, Jeff said: "I can't speak for him, but I can speak for myself in terms of, 100% yes. I would do it in a heartbeat, and I would feel satisfied that that one time, that one shot was enough for us to bury the hatchet and actually just cruise into the future, even if we never do anything together again. It just opens that door of being friends again, of being able to call him on his birthday or say 'merry Christmas' or 'how's the family?' That kind of stuff. That's the kind of stuff I miss in our relationship. I don't really care about, 'Oh, I wanna sing another record for him.' 'Oh, if I do something with Yngwie, I can get a lot of social media action from it.' All that stuff means nothing to me. Zero."

Addressing the fact that the Internet has made it harder for Jeff to reconnect with Yngwie because every negative comment immediately becomes a war of words and every sentence gets turned into a headline, Soto said: "Yeah. And that's really all about, 'You know me, I know you. Don't let any of that stuff get under your skin.' As you said, there's so many things that they get warped or filtered or watered down and it turns into something that it wasn't meant to be or it shouldn't have been. So from that, it's like you know who I am. You know what I would say and how I would say it. If that was misconstrued or somebody wants to turn that into something it's not, you should know me well enough to know what I meant by that. And that's the bottom line. It comes down to the individuals. You can't let what the public or the Internet cowboys make up or wanna make up. You gotta make sure that you're strong enough with the individual or individuals, and they know your M.O., they know who you are and what you are all about. Because from that, you're able to get through and past any of that stuff."

When asked what would he would want Yngwie to generally understand about where Jeff stands with the guitarist as of now, Soto said: "Well, I've said it in many of an interview for many years now, and it's the same narrative. It's everything we've already discussed. I just want him to know that I want nothing from him. I'm not looking to be his friend again so hopefully I can be on an album with him, or I can co-write, or he can produce me. None of that. It's absolutely one trillion percent genuine that I miss my friend. We were friends before. We might have said some things along the way, or done some things along the way, that would have fractured or kept the relationship fractured longer. But, again, for every action there's a reaction. If an action was thrust upon me, I'm gonna react, and vice versa. It's human nature. It's who we are. It's what we are. But in the end, I'm looking just to be friends and just be good with everybody that's in my past, in my present, in my future, and that's just the way it is for me. That's how I see it."

Back in 2017, Soto, who sang on Yngwie's first two albums, 1984's "Rising Force" and 1985's "Marching Out", engaged in a war of words with Yngwie over the fact that Malmsteen claimed in an interview that he "always wrote everything," including the lyrics and melodies, and simply hired various vocalists to sing his material. Soto later told the "US American Made Guitars" show that "it's false information" to suggest that he contributed nothing to Yngwie's early albums "because we co-wrote [some of] those songs together. I actually authored those songs," he said. "For him to say, 'I wrote every lyric, every melody,' it's absolute falsity. And he's speaking out of whatever anger or whatever throwaway conversation he might be having, but when it's put on text, it comes across as very crude and very arrogant. So, of course, I don't take that kind of stuff too personally."

In a March 2023 interview with the YouTube channel of Brazilian music journalist Igor Miranda, Jeff reflected on his claim that Yngwie threatened to cancel his concert in May 2022 in Agoura Hills, California after finding out his former bandmate was in attendance. Jeff said: "I thought it was kind of funny. I mean, when I posted about it [on social media] that night, I was doing it because it was so unbelievable, I was laughing. I was, like, 'I have to share this because it's so silly.' But then to be called a liar about it, it made it even more funny to me, because why would I lie about something about that? Why would I even care to go to any extreme to go see somebody who doesn't wanna see me or doesn't want me around them? Of course I was there to see my friends' band playing. They invited me. It's a place that I go to all the time. I didn't feel there was any harm gonna be done if I just kind of stayed in the corner. And, of course, when the word was out that I was there, I was told if I'm gonna remain in the building, the show would be canceled. It's a thousand, one billion percent truth behind that. Two guys came up to me that work there, that I know that work there, they said, 'I don't know what this is about, Jeff, but I'm sorry to tell you that we've been informed if you don't leave, the show's gonna be canceled.' And I was gonna leave anyways. I was there to watch my friends' band. When they were finished, I was paying my bill to the bartender, who's also a very good friend of mine, and everybody watched that happening, and we were just, like, 'Can you believe this?'"

Jeff continued: "I wasn't there for the Yngwie show. I wasn't planning to stay. I didn't sneak in — none of that. Of course, it was so silly to me, it was so hilarious to me. But it's unfortunate that it has to be that, because I'm not looking to keep talking about this or to keep elevating it or to keep getting news from it. I want peace from everybody in my life. Anybody that has any issues with me, I would love to just give them a hug and move on with life and leave this world, leave this planet with no enemies. But, unfortunately, that's not the case on that side."

When Soto first posted about the Agoura Hills concert in May 2022, he wrote: "Hey my peeps, here's a fun little diddy for ya! I went to the Canyon Club tonight, my local watering hole for the past 21 years, it's like my Cheers where everybody knows my name...I actually went to see one of the support bands who were killer btw, I hesitated on going because my former ahem 'boss' was headlining but I was not planning to stay anyway...well, word got to him I was in the house and I was kindly told as long as I am present, the show would be cancelled... Now I've seen it all!

"I left as planned but it's kind of funny, I just had to share the ludicrousness (not a real word but seems to fit the detail) that continues in 2022, I laughed all the way home!' Jeff added. "I'm sure this will be shared like crazy but I couldn't help but sharing it with you all, good times!"

The following day, Malmsteen disputed Soto's account of what happened in Agoura Hills, writing on his Facebook page: " Hmmmm…. I think some people are making up stories to be in the media again. Kids, don't believe made up BS from people who are trying to stay relevant! He's not important for me to cancel my show to my fans. On the other hand I was told by my agent that he snuck in there without paying so the security threw him out. Certain people make up stories… turn up at my show, get kicked out by security because they snuck in the venue WITHOUT PAYING, then turn around make up a story to try and grab media attention… some people are sick. STOP stalking me and get help ".

When one fan questioned Yngwie about his claim that Jeff has to struggle to appear relevant on the scene today and challenged Malmsteen to "compare audience response to said projects and releases to what [Yngwie has] accomplished during the same period," Malmsteen responded: "Hmmm Let me think In the last 15/ 20 years … I have been on the American billboard chart every single time I have released a record including my last one! being playing theaters, promoters are happy. On top of that I have made mega deals including signature models with Major companies such as Marshall, Fender, Ovation, Dunlop, Seymour Duncan, Lewitt microphones and the list goes on. On top of that I have won awards for the most magazine covers ever in the history of certain guitar magazines. Would you like me to carry on?!? None of this matters to me, however what does matter is an intent to smear an attack me and my reputation for the last 40 years. Everything this man says is a lie with the intent to do damage. I have not once spoken about him and nor have any interest to simply because he’s not important to me. And yet he can’t stop talking about me on a regular basis! Making up stories because he has not had any relevant success on his own he tailgates on other people. He needs to just move on and stop stalking me. Oohh I almost forgot I have over HALF A MILLION listeners on Spotify every month alone! His let me look it up… oh no ONLY 40k! Yep he needs to keep slandering me a bit more."

Eight years ago, Soto told the "US American Made Guitars" about why he thinks Malmsteen has been making disparaging comments about him and other former singers in the press: "If anybody knows anything about Yngwie's… the business end of things, his wife is managing him. And through the years, she's gotten more control over the people in his life, the people that were in his life, and it's really sad to see that a lot us have been kind of locked out. Slowly but surely, everybody that was in his past, including his band, including myself who actually retained a great friendship and relationship with him, were just dialed out. And we were just kind of pushed to the wayside for whatever reason, whatever paranoias there are. I really don't understand it. I actually had a great relationship with both of them, and I just saw more and more that they were just pushing everybody away. They wanted their inner circle to be so small, and I never did anything to interrupt that circle. But there were others around that I'm very close to, and was very close to, one of them being Marcel Jacob, who was the bass player that was in [Yngwie's] band when I was in the band. We had a band together called TALISMAN for about nineteen years until [Marcel] took his own life back in 2009. But he and Yngwie had a bit of a conflict and they dangled that over my head for a couple of years until Marcel actually passed away in 2009. When that happened, I assumed, like everyone else that knew Marcel, the guys in the band EUROPE, so many people, whether they were big or small, acknowledged Marcel's passing. Everyone expected Yngwie to do the same, and when he didn't, it rubbed everyone the wrong way, including myself. We tried to at least just get a statement or an acknowledgement of it, and when he was not only not doing that but actually hanging up on people, blocking them or changing his number so nobody can reach him anymore about it, to me… I made a statement, and that probably got back to their camp, that said, 'To me, Yngwie is dead.' I don't wanna know or hear from him."

Soto added: "Marcel was one of my best friends, and if you can't put water under the bridge when somebody has passed, to me, that's just the weakest, juvenile way of dealing with life. And it must have gotten back to his camp, 'cause all of a sudden I was cut out."