YNGWIE MALMSTEEN: 'I Had A Very Artistic Kind Of Upbringing'

Dave Harrison of Australia's X-Press Online recently conducted an interview with legendary Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

X-Press Online: Where did the idea to combine classical music and rock guitar come from?

Yngwie: I was the youngest member of my family, I have an older brother and sister and my mother, my father, my uncles, my aunts… everybody is a musician. My grandfather was a drummer… it's like music, music, music everywhere… and art, a lot of art and music. I had a very artistic kind of upbringing. As a little kid I wasn't really into being a musician. My mother gave me a guitar on my fifth birthday and a trumpet on my sixth birthday, and so on, but when I was seven I saw a TV news special about Jimi Hendrix. It showed him burning his guitar and you didn't even hear the music, just saw him burning a guitar, and I thought that was so cool. I already had a guitar, so I started playing that same day — September 18, 1970. I was only a little kid. One year later my older sister Lulu gave me DEEP PURPLE's "Fireball", which is a really hard rock album, and I went out and bought "In Rock" the next day. I was listening to songs like "Fireball", "Flight Of The Rat" — just so heavy — so I learned how to play all these solos and stuff and, contrary to most people's opinion or theory, is that DEEP PURPLE, along with all other rock 'n' roll bands were all blues-based. Pentatonic scales and my classical influence did not come from them. A lot of people seem to think so, but no no no no. I love these guys… my favourite band ever. My classical music didn't come from there, but my love for hard rock was definitely from PURPLE. What I wanted to do was try and take this whole thing with the double bass drums and the Marshalls all the way up and all that shit, and play with counterpoints and pedal notes, inverted chords, Phrygian modes, inverted scales, diminished scales… all that shit. Then I saw a TV program: it was a guy playing violin. They said it was music from Niccolo Paganini. When I heard that I said "Fuck, that's what I want to go for on the guitar." So my guitar playing is 99.9 percent influenced by classical violin… mainly Paganini, Vivaldi, and Tchaikovsky… and my songwriting is very Bach in the structuring, because I've always loved the counterpoint and the harmonic minor kind of things… but I love the sound of the metal ensemble. That's how it all started."

X-Press Online: Late drum legend Cozy Powell (RAINBOW, WHITESNAKE, BLACK SABBATH) played on your "Facing the Animal" album… what was it like working with him?

Yngwie: The first show I saw in my whole life, my first concert ever when I was 12 years old, was Ritchie Blackmore's RAINBOW on the "Rising" tour: Dio, Blackmore, Powell — man, I was fucking speechless for a month. I was only a little kid. His double bass drumming on the "Rising" album is just so there. Then I have him in my studio recording… amazing! Let's put it this way: Ian Paice is a monster technically, but Cozy had this thing… he was like a fucking freight train, man. God bless him.

X-Press Online: Have you any advice or wisdom you would like to give any aspiring or upcoming musicians who may be reading this?

Yngwie: Keep on doing it. I don't know how to explain it, really. My book will be a lot more in-depth, but the passion and the sacrifice that you have to have — you are going to be laughed at a lot of times and people are going to say you can't do it — that's when you don't quit and become a bus driver or something. Not that there is anything wrong with bus drivers, but there are great bus drivers and there are great musicians and you know what… we have to choose one. At the end of the day, you don't live other people's lives; you live your fucking life and what you've got to do, you've got to do. Sacrifice, ridicule… whatever you fucking have to take, do it anyway… it always works.

Read the entire interview at www.xpressmag.com.au.