Nikhil Dev

[edit] 1980s

In late 1982 Malmsteen was brought to the USA by Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records, who had heard a demo tape of Malmsteen’s playing. He had brief engagements with Steeler, for their self-titled album of 1983, then Alcatrazz, for their 1983 debut No Parole From Rock N’ Roll, and the 1984 live album Live Sentence. Malmsteen released his first solo album “Rising Force” in 1984. His album was really meant to be an instrumental side-project of Alcatrazz, but it contained vocals, and Malmsteen left Alcatrazz soon after the release of Rising Force. It was a success; it was the winner of Guitar Player Magazine’s Best Rock Album and was also nominated for a Grammy for ‘Best Rock Instrumental’, achieving #60 on the Billboard album chart. This was followed by “Marching Out” (1985). Jeff Scott Soto filled vocal duties on these initial albums.

His third album, Trilogy, featuring the vocals of Mark Boals, was released in 1986. In 1987, yet another singer, former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner joined his band. That year, Malmsteen was in a serious car accident, smashing his Jaguar XKE into a tree and putting him in a coma for a week. Nerve damage to his right hand was reported. In a tragic twist of fate, during his time in the hospital, Malmsteen’s mother died from cancer.

In the summer of 1988 he released his fourth album, Odyssey. Odyssey would be his biggest hit album, mainly because of its first single “Heaven Tonight”. Shows in Russia during the Odyssey tour were recorded, and released in 1989 as his fifth album Trial By Fire: Live in Leningrad. The concert in Leningrad was the largest ever by a western artist in the Soviet Union, and Malmsteen’s record sales in Russia totalled 27 million.

In late 1988, Malmsteen’s signature Fender Stratocaster guitar was released, making him and Eric Clapton the first artists to be honored by Fender.

Malmsteen’s style “Neo-classical” became moderately popular during the mid 1980s, with notable contemporaries such as Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Tony MacAlpine and Vinnie Moore all reaching prominence after Yngwie. However, only Paul Gilbert claimed Yngwie as an influence, with MacAlpine coming to the neoclassical/shred field by applying his classical piano training to his guitar playing and Moore arriving at a similar style because he shared Yngwie’s major influences, Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Al Di Meola, American jazz fusion great of Return to Forever fame.

[edit] 1990s

In the early 1990s Malmsteen released the albums Eclipse (1990), The Yngwie Malmsteen Collection (1991), Fire and Ice (1992) and The Seventh Sign (1994).

Despite his early success, and continuous success in Europe and Asia, by the early 1990s stylings of 1980s heavy metal had become unfashionable in the USA. It was quickly displaced by the Seattle grunge movement, where technical ability was replaced by simpler songs. The grunge rock movement arose in part as a backlash to the overly technical music produced by Malmsteen and his contemporaries, which was now regarded by many as ponderous, excessive, and self-indulgent.

In the 1990s, Malmsteen continued to record and release albums under the Japanese record label Pony Canyon, and maintained a devoted following from some fans in Europe and Japan, and to a lesser extent in the USA. In 2000, he once again acquired a contract with a US record label, Spitfire, and released his 1990s catalog into the US market for the first time, including what he regards as his masterpiece Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra, recorded with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague.

In 1993, Malmsteen’s mother-in-law, who was opposed to his engagement with her daughter, had him falsely arrested for threatening her with a shotgun and holding her daughter against her will. However, Malmsteen denied this and the charges were rapidly dropped.

[edit] 2000s

After the release of War to End All Wars in 2000, singer Mark Boals left the band. Yngwie went on tour with former Ark vocalist Jorn Lande. Due to various tensions on tour, Jorn left before the recording of Yngwie’s next album, Attack!!. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Doogie White. White’s vocals were well received by fans, and it seems that he has become a permanent member of the band.

In 2003, Malmsteen joined Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as part of the G3 supergroup. Yngwie made two rare guest appearances on keyboardist Derek Sherinian’s albums Black Utopia (2003), and Blood of the Snake (2006) where Yngwie is heard on the same tracks as Al Di Meola and Zakk Wylde.

Yngwie released Unleash the Fury in 2005. As stated in an issue of “Guitar World” magazine, he titled this album after the infamous ‘airline incident’, which occurred in a flight to Japan for the ‘Odyssey’ tour. He was drunk and behaving obnoxiously, until he fell asleep and was roused by a woman pouring a jug of iced water on him. Enraged, he shouted, “You’ve unleashed the fucking fury!” The audio from this moment was caught on tape by a fellow band member.

He is married to April and has a son named Antonio after Antonio Vivaldi. A noted Ferrari enthusiast, he owns a black 1985 308 GTS^[1] and a red 1962 250 GTO. In recent years, Yngwie has given up both smoking and drinking. The Malmsteen family lives in Miami Shores, Florida.

[edit] Equipment

[edit] Specialised guitar

Aside from technical prowess, distinctions of Malmsteen’s guitar style include a wide, violin-like vibrato inspired by classical violinists, and use of such minor scales as the Harmonic minor, and minor modes such as Phrygian, and Aeolian. Malmsteen cites the Fender Stratocaster and the single coil pickups as being instrumental to his unique tone. He uses his custom design by DiMarzio, a vertically-stacked humbucker mounted in a single coil housing. Malmsteen sought to combine the tone of a single coil with the reduced noise of a humbucker. The Malmsteen signature model Stratocaster made by Fender is based accurately upon this combination. Malmsteen prefers vintage Fender Stratocasters from 1968 through 1972. On all his guitars, the tone is completely disconnected along with the middle pickup. Yngwie only uses the bridge (DiMarzio HS-3) and neck pickups (DiMarzio YJM) on his guitars and allows the low output DiMarzio HS-3 on the bridge pickup to be driven by the floor pedals for his unique rich sound. All Malmsteen’s Stratocasters have brass nuts and are all refretted with Dunlop 6000 super jumbo fretwire. According to Fender, Yngwie has one of the most impressive collection of vintage Fender Stratocasters known. He has well over 200 Stratocasters, including one original Fender Stratocaster actually signed by Leo Fender.

The guitars he uses are recognizable by the addition of a custom scalloped fretboard. This is similar to a regular fretboard, but with wood ’scalloped’ or scooped away to form a concave shape in between the frets. Malmsteen allegedly conceived this design as a teenager while working in a music store in Stockholm, Sweden when he came across a 17th century lute with a scalloped neck using the raised wood as frets. However, this can also be viewed as an influence from Ritchie Blackmore, one of his most readily admitted idols, who also favours scalloped neck Fender Stratocasters. Malmsteen himself has said he learned most from Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar riffs and solos as a beginning guitarist. Also, jazz-fusion guitarist John McLaughlin used scalloped fingerboards long before Malmsteen came on the scene.

Even for the experienced guitar player, the scalloped fingerboard proves very difficult to perform on, as there is no surface contact between finger and wood to aid in the feel of the vibrato motion. The strings of the guitar, when fretted, are easily pushed sharp and out of tune. The highly accurate, yet delicate, controlled touch required to play properly with Malmsteen’s modified Stratocaster is elusive for most, and an integral part of Malmsteen’s technique.

Yngwie breifly used Schecter Guitars in the 1980’s, who built him strat-style guitars similar to his Fenders.