YNGWIE MALMSTEEN Explains Why He Doesn't Work With Co-Producers And Co-Writers Anymore

During a press conference at Hellfest in Clisson, France, legendary Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen was asked if it is difficult for him to co-produce his albums with other people and whether he prefers to produce his albums entirely on his own. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I have a funny story to tell you guys. When I was a very young man, I came to America. I lived in America most of my life, and I spoke very, very good English coming to America, but there were some terms I didn't understand; I didn't get 'em, really. So I'm in the studio, and there was a producer there. And I'm doing a solo, and he goes, 'Oh, wow. That was really good, man. Yeah. Can we do one more? A little slower. Remember: less is more.' And I looked at him, like, 'Oh, you mean more is more, right?' And that was an honest reaction because I didn't know that stupid way of saying things, because less is not more; more is more.

"Basically, what a lot of people might not know is that I started playing when I was five years old — seven, really. I got my first guitar was five, but I started playing when I was seven," he continued. "And I was so extreme that I was having bands put together where I wrote the songs, I was the singer and a guitar player. I was a little kid, like fucking Michael Jackson or something, and I had a 20-year-old bass player and a 20-year-old drummer or whatever. From day one I did that. I was always a solo artist — always. And I never had a question about what I wanted. I never had a question about what I wanted to go with things, how I wanted to sound. I knew what it was. I knew what I wanted to play. I know what I wanna write. I know what kind of sound I want.

"I'm not knocking producers. I think they've done a lot of good things for a lot of bands. Mutt Lange is amazing. He made great music with the group — great direction, all this stuff. Martin Birch — a lot of people like that. The difference is that I already have this in [my head]. It's already there. So when I have someone else coming in, it doesn't add — it dilutes. Same thing with songwriting. And some people might think that, oh, I'm an egotist, whatever. No. The music is done. It's finished. All I do is to play it and record it. That's all I do.

"So I've been trying to explain this to so many people because in rock and roll, that doesn't happen," Yngwie added. "In rock and roll, even if you're a solo artist, like Ozzy Osbourne or whoever, they have songs written for them, they have producers and stuff like this. I don't do that. I do everything. I actually do everything. And it's not because I'm an egotistic person that I don't want anybody else to take the credit. No. It's because instead of what you would say a traditional rock and roll [songwriting partnership], Lennon-McCartney, Keith Richards-Mick Jagger — I love all them guys; I think they're fucking great. Instead of what they did, I work more like an author, like let's say Stephen King or Johann Sebastian Bach. Johann Sebastian Bach, 'Brandenburg Concertos', he would give the sheet music to all the musicians, and the cellist in the first row goes, Hey, can I play C sharp instead of C?' No, he didn't say that. He played the note that he was told, because that was what is written by him. So, basically I'm like a painter or an author like this. Like a painter, I paint half the big painting and I call my friend and I say, 'Hey, can you come and finish my half of my painting?' No, I don't do that. And that's why I don't have producers. That's why I don't have co-writers and so on. Because when I did have that, every single time I came out unhappy and I wasn't pleased with the result. And I only live once. So what I wanna leave behind, what I wanna create, what I wanna put out on records, what I wanna perform on stage is something that is purely my expression. Because I have so much inside. I want pure expression of myself. Not diluted by having Elvis Presley in the band. Most singers think they're Elvis Presley. They're not. They're just another instrument in my orchestra."

Yngwie will embark on a 40th-anniversary tour this fall. Support on the trek, which will kick off on September 26 in Fort Myers, Florida and conclude on November 18 in New York City, will come from singer-songwriter Kurt Deimer.

For more information, visit www.yngwiemalmsteen.com/tour.

Yngwie's latest album, "Parabellum", was released in July 2021 via Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label Group. Only four of the songs on the LP feature vocals. The album title is Latin, translating as "Prepare For War".

After working with some of the top hard singers of the past four decades, Yngwie now handles much of the lead vocals himself in his own band, backed by a lineup that includes keyboardist Nick Marino, bassist Emilio Martinez and drummer Kevin Klingenschmid.

In 2017, Malmsteen gave an interview to Metal Wani in which the iconic axeman said that he had no interest in collaborating with vocalists like Jeff Scott Soto, Joe Lynn Turner and Tim "Ripper" Owens ever again. "I'm very comfortable singing myself, first of all," Yngwie said. "Secondly, there's a certain disconnect when you write the song and you have someone else sing it for you. And it's kind of like a fakeness about it. I always wrote everything — I wrote all the lyrics, I wrote all the melodies, everything; it's just somebody else sung it. And to me, the singer is nothing else than a different… like a bass player or a keyboard player — they're not more important than any other musician. And they, unfortunately, seem to think that they are. And I've kind of had it with their sort of… self-absorbed sort of way, and I'm very much against it. No. I don't like that. I don't like any of those people, and I don't like to do anything with them ever again."

In the days after Yngwie's original interview with Metal Wani was published on BLABBERMOUTH.NET, several of the guitarist's former singers — including Soto, Turner and Owens — responded on social media, with Turner describing Malmsteen's statements as "the rantings of a megalomaniac desperately trying to justify his own insecurity." This was followed by a retort from a member of Yngwie's management team, who wrote on Malmsteen's Facebook page that the three vocalists "came out enraged, spitting insults and profanities" at the guitarist because "Yngwie said something that they didn't like." The management representative added: "It's very unfortunate that these past hired vocalists must resort to mudslinging and insults to elicit any kind of media attention towards them. Such classless, puerile words are ungentlemanly at best and absolutely disgraceful at worst."

Video courtesy of Loud TV