Yngwie Malmsteen

Yngwie Malmsteen
Background information
Birth name	Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck
Also known as	Yngwie J. Malmsteen
Born	June 30, 1963 (1963-06-30) (age 46) Stockholm, Sweden
Genre(s)	Neo-classical metal, power metal, heavy metal, hard rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, Songwriter
Instrument(s)	Guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals, sitar, cello
Years active	1978 - present
Label(s)	Polydor, Polygram, Elektra
Associated acts	Steeler, Alcatrazz, G3
Website	Official website
Notable instrument(s)
Signature Model Stratocaster

Yngwie Johan Malmsteen (pronounced /ˈɪŋveɪ ˈmɑːlmstiːn/ in English) (born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck on June 30, 1963 in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish guitarist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and bandleader. Malmsteen became notable in the mid-1980s for his technical fluency and neo-classical metal compositions. Four of his albums, from 1984 to 1988, Rising Force, Marching Out, Trilogy, and Odyssey, ranked in the top 100 for sales.^[1]

Biography

Early life

Malmsteen was born on June 30, 1963, as the first child of a musically talented family in Stockholm, Sweden. At age seven, he saw a television news report on the death of Jimi Hendrix. To quote his official website, "The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Malmsteen was born". At the age of 10 he took his mother's maiden name Malmsten as his surname, slightly changed it to Malmsteen, and Anglicised his given name Yngve to "Yngwie". Yngwie also created his first band "Track On Earth" at the age of 10, consisting of himself and a friend from school on drums. Malmsteen was a teenager when he first encountered the music of the 19th century violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, whom he cites as his biggest classical music influence.

Through his emulation of Paganini concerto pieces on guitar, Malmsteen developed a prodigious technical fluency. Malmsteen's guitar style includes 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 also cites Brian May of Queen, Steve Hackett of Genesis, Uli Jon Roth, Alex Lifeson of Rush, and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple as influences.

1980s

In late 1982 Malmsteen was brought to the U.S. 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, which featured Barrie Barlow of Jethro Tull on drums. 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.

Rising Force won the Guitar Player Magazine's award for Best Rock Album and was also nominated for a Grammy for 'Best Rock Instrumental', achieving #60 on the Billboard album chart. Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force (as his band was thereafter known) next released 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, another singer, former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner joined his band. That year, Malmsteen was in a serious car accident, smashing his Jaguar E-Type into a tree and putting him in a coma for a week. Nerve damage to his right hand was reported. 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.

Malmsteen's "Neo-classical" style of metal became moderately popular during the mid 1980s, with contemporaries such as Jason Becker, Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Tony MacAlpine and Vinnie Moore becoming prominent. MacAlpine came to the neoclassical/shred field by applying his classical piano training to his guitar playing and Moore arrived at a similar style because he shared Malmsteen's major influences. In late 1988, Malmsteen's signature Fender Stratocaster guitar was released, making him and Eric Clapton the first artists to be honored by Fender.

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 1980s heavy metal styles such as neoclassical metal and lengthy, virtuoso shred guitar solos had become unfashionable in the US. In 1993, Malmsteen's mother-in-law, who was opposed to his engagement with her daughter, had him arrested for threatening her with a shotgun and holding her daughter against her will ^[2]. The charges against Malmsteen were dropped when he denied the incident.

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.

2000s

After the release of War to End All Wars in 2000, singer Mark Boals left the band. Malmsteen went on tour with former Ark vocalist Jorn Lande. Due to various tensions on tour, Jorn left before the recording of Malmsteen's next album, Attack!!. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Doogie White. White's vocals were well received by fans. In 2003, Malmsteen joined Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as part of the G3 supergroup. Malmsteen made two guest appearances on keyboardist Derek Sherinian's albums Black Utopia (2003), and Blood of the Snake (2006) where Malmsteen is heard on the same tracks as Al Di Meola and Zakk Wylde. In 2004, Malmsteen made two cameo appearances on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law- possibly alluded to his status as a guitarist.

Malmsteen released Unleash the Fury in 2005. (This title may be a reference to an audio recording that supposedly captured Malmsteen's immoderate response to a flight attendant who spilled a beverage on him. The recording found popularity in filesharing networks as an example of the absurd behavior of celebrities.) He is married to April and has a son named Antonio after Antonio Vivaldi, and they live in Miami, Florida. A noted Ferrari enthusiast, he owned a black 1985 308 GTS^[3] for 18 years before selling it on eBay, and a red 1962 250 GTO.^[4] In the mid-2000s, he gave up smoking and drinking alcohol (date: April 2007). In 2007, Malmsteen was honored in the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II. Players can receive the "Yngwie Malmsteen" award by hitting 1000 or more notes in succession.^[5] February 2008 saw the replacement of singer Doogie White with former Iced Earth and Judas Priest and current Beyond Fear singer Tim Owens, with whom Malmsteen had once recorded a cover of Ozzy Osbourne's song "Mr. Crowley", for the 2000 Osbourne tribute album Bat Head Soup: A Tribute to Ozzy. The first Malmsteen album to feature Owens is entitled Perpetual Flame and was released on October 14. On November 25, 2008, Malmsteen had three of his songs ("Caprici Di Diablo", "Damnation Game", and "Red Devil") released as downloadable content for the video game Rock Band 2.

Equipment

Guitars

Malmsteen uses Fender Stratocasters, especially vintage instruments from 1968 through 1972. His Strats tend to feature scalloped fingerboards and DiMarzio HS-3 pickups, and (more recently) the staggered-polepiece HS-3 released as the Dimarzio YJM. He routinely disconnects the middle pickup and tone controls on his guitars. Malmsteen briefly used Schecter Guitars in the 1980s, who built him Stratocaster-style guitars similar to his Fenders. While in Alcatrazz, he also used Aria Pro II.

Live equipment

Malmsteen uses vintage Marshall amplifiers for his live performances, sometimes performing with a "wall" of up to 27 vintage Marshall 4x12 Cabinets with Celestion G12T-75 (75 watt) speakers. As for heads, Yngwie mainly uses 1972 Marshall MK II 50-watt heads, and (less often) 1959 Plexi 100-watt heads. Yngwie has also (very rarely) used a Fender Roc Pro 1000 head with an Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer. Current effect pedals consist of (in order) a Dunlop Crybaby Wah, DOD YJM308 Overdrive Preamp (in past years, a grey DOD 250), BOSS NS-2 Noise Suppressor, BOSS CH-1 Super Chorus, BOSS PS-5 Super Shifter, and Roland DC-10 Echo. Present in Yngwie's effects rack is a Korg DL8000 Delay. This gear is looped in a GCX Audio Switcher, which Yngwie controls with a Voodoo Lab Ground Control Pro foot controller.

Malmsteen used to use Moog Taurus bass pedals, but currently uses a Roland JV-1080 Synthesizer Module controlled by a Roland PK-5 Dynamic Foot Pedal.

Malmsteen's guitars onstage are 1968-1972 Fender Stratocasters. For his acoustic sets, Malmsteen uses a nylon strung electro-acoustic black or white Ovation Viper. Prior to the Ovations, Malmsteen used Aria, Alvarez & Gibson classical acoustics on stage. Yngwie run his Ovations through either an MXR Dyna Comp, or BOSS CS-3 Compression Sustainer, into a DI box which leads to a mixing desk. Malmsteen regularly performs onstage with a custom light top, heavy bottom string gauge ranging from .008 through .048 gauge, which are considered by most guitarists to be very thin, especially with the downtuning used. Malmsteen's picks are Jim Dunlop 1.5 white.

YJM308 Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive

Malmsteen had used the Gray DOD250 overdrive pedal exclusively throughout most of his career because of its warm, smooth and almost violin-like tonal characteristics, plus its dramatic yet clean signal boosting ability.

In order to protect his favorite but now Vintage Gray 250 pedals from the abuse of regular gigging and also to modernize his sound further for the new millennium, he assisted DOD in creating a somewhat treblier, less bass intensive version of their popular 90's reissue yellow DOD250 pedal, which then became his signature model YJM308 overdrive.

Yngwie's signature pedal was a big success first time around but got discontinued. It was later re-released due to public demand but has now been discontinued yet again. He now often uses the re-creation, named YJM308 after Malmsteen's initials and the name of his favorite car, the Ferrari 308.^[6]

Band members

For more details on this topic, see List of Yngwie Malmsteen band members.

Previous members

• Jeff Scott Soto - lead vocals (1984-1985)
• Mark Boals - lead vocals (1986-1996-1999-2001)
• Joe Lynn Turner - lead vocals (1988-1989)
• Goran Edman - lead vocals (1990-1992)
• Mike Vescera - lead vocals (1994-1995)
• Mats Leven - lead vocals (1997-1998)
• Doogie White - lead vocals (2001-2008)
• Anders Johansson - drums (1985-1989)
• Mike Terrana - drums (1994)
• Jens Johansson - keyboards (1984-1989)
• Mats Olausson - keyboards (1990-2001)
• Derek Sherinian - keyboards (2001-2003-2004; 2007-2008)
• Svante Henrysson - bass (1990-1992)
• Barry Sparks - bass (1994-1995)

Current members

• Tim "Ripper" Owens - lead vocals (2008-present)
• Yngwie Malmsteen - guitars (1978-present)
• Michael Troy - keyboards (2007-present)
• Bjorn Englen - bass (2008-present)
• Patrick Johansson - drums, percussion (2001-present)

Discography

Steeler

Alcatrazz

Solo

References

1. ↑ "Billboard.com". Retrieved on 2008-10-24.
2. ↑ "Yngwie at Guitarsite.com". Retrieved on 2007-05-26.
3. ↑ "roadgearmag.com".
4. ↑ yngwie.org. Yngwie Answers Your Questions. March 16, 2002.
5. ↑ Xbox360Achievements.org - Guitar Hero II Achievement List
6. ↑ "Lightning Guider". Retrieved on 2008-01-09.

See also

• Guitar Moves

External links

• Official website
• Audio Interview with Yngwie on GuitarJamDaily.com
• HardRadio.com interview with Yngwie