Rising Force
An Interview with Yngwie Malmsteen
by Richard Karsmakers
The following are two articles originally published in the
multi-media disk magazine "ST NEWS" (for Atari ST/TT/Falcon
users). Some references might be strange, but I left the whole
thing intact anyway. It comprises an interview with Yngwie
Malmsteen and the experiences at the soundcheck and concert
afterwards.
Hope you like it.
An Interview with Yngwie Malmsteen
When I set out trying to get an interview with Yngwie Malmsteen
after I heard he'd be playing in Holland for the first time since
November 1988, I really didn't take into consideration that it
might happen. As a matter of fact I sortof counted on it not
working out; I even believed that, like some years ago, all Dutch
tour dates would be cancelled.
But it did and they weren't, things which succeeded in exciting
me quite a bit. Had this happened two or three years ago I am
quite sure I would have wet my pants or something. Now it was
just very exciting and even provoking some nervousness. It is now
the day before the interview May 11th 1994, just past three in
the afternoon. I believe this whole thing might be worthy of a
real-time article.
15:07
About two hours ago, Rough Trade (the Dutch distributors of
Music For Nations, Yngwie's current label) called me to tell me I
should be at the Park Hotel at 13:00 hours tomorrow, contact the
tour manager (Dave Hulme) and get the whole thing going.
This actually meant the interview was quite certainly going to
happen, something I had doubted up to the minute before they
called.
It is going to happen. Already I feel I have to go to the
toilet.
March 11th 1994 - The Day
09:30
The alarm clock switches on, and the Dutch "Arbeidsvitaminen"
rouse me from my sleep. Today is the day. My bowels tell me I'm
still nervous. I get out of bed. We need to walk the dog (a dog
called Joey that we're looking after for the duration of some of
our friends' honeymoon).
I need to pack everything. Shouldn't forget to bring my guitar.
And the question sheet. I had some more questions last night in
bed when trying to get to sleep. Now what were they, again? Will
the buses drive? No strike or anything? Shouldn't we get an
earlier train, just in case? I shouldn't forget the walkman
batteries. And the guitar.
11:14
Miranda and me enter the bus. I am still quite nervous but I
suppress it by thinking of baseball. Always works.
In the bus I meet Theo-Hans, a guy that I met while waiting for
Satriani to pop up at the artist entrance at last year's
Vredenburg concert. I had met him again yesterday - by total
coincidence - and he had asked me if he could tag along to the
interview. I had told him he shouldn't count on getting in, but
he was welcome to try.
11:25
We arrive at Utrecht Central Station, way too early for the
11:47 intercity train to Rotterdam. I look at all the other
people walking there, who seem totally oblivious of the fact that
there are some among them who are going to meet one of the
leading guitar virtuosos alive today. Somehow I think this is
weird (which is weird in itself).
12:25
The train arrives at Rotterdam Central. I am supposed to meet
the tour manager, Dave Hulme, at Park Hotel, at ten minutes'
walking from Central Station. We've got aeons of time. Nothing
went wrong with either the bus or the train. Now the only thing
that can go wrong is one of us breaking a leg. We take extra care
when crossing the perilous Rotterdam streets.
12:40
We arrive at the hotel. It wasn't exactly a ten minutes' walk,
but we're early anyway. Nobody swiped us with their cars, and on
the way we even saw that Nighttown, the concert venue, still
exists. I start believing that actually this thing is beginning
to be reality.
All in all, my nerves have inflicted on my bladder a perverse
desire to unleash its fluids. I quickly find the nearest
available toilet. This is rather more precarious then some of you
might think. First of the Park Hotel is a really classy hotel,
Hilton-ish, and I feel severely out of place in a regular T-shirt
and black "Dynamo Open Air" boxer shorts. Also, they use some
sort of very artistic way to indicate where the toilets are. I
find them in the end, and with a genuinely pleasing smell
entering my nostrils (this was the first toilet I ever been in
actually smelling like a pleasure garden) and Richard Clayderman
pleasing me aurally, I relieve myself.
This is the obligatory reference to my bodily fluid system that
I tend to have in each real-time article. There won't be any
more, at least not in this article.
12:53
"Is that Mats?" Theo-Hans says as someone with long black hair
descends a flight of stairs. Indeed it is. I walk up to him and
ask him if perhaps he could be bothered to sign some CD liners.
Mats Olausson, keyboard player with Yngwie Malmsteen ever since
"Eclipse", proves a totally friendly dude (as would the others,
later). He has no problem signing all that we wish to be signed.
He even told us when the soundcheck would be so that we could
meet the others as well if we wanted to. After bidding us
farewell he disappears again.
12:55
I walk up to the reception desk and announce my arrival. I tell
them of my appointment with Dave Hulme. Two minutes later Dave is
downstairs, a middle-aged man wearing a "U.F.O." T-shirt. He
checks out the bar, finds a nice secluded corner and tells us to
take a seat there while he's getting Yngwie.
We sit down.
13:07
He walks in, and I have to admit I am suddenly getting a nerve
attack of sorts. We introduce ourselves. Dave sits down at the
bar and gets us a drink. I need a beer, definitely, so I ask one.
Yngwie sits down, too. He's not half as fat as I had imagined
he'd be, just a bit of a second chin. We chat a bit, and suddenly
the nerves go and I feel perfectly at ease. He's a totally
relaxed dude, not at all the person the press would have us
believe. I know this is a clich! thing that I've read in the
Malmsteen Militia Fanclub magazine several times before, and I
even know I always frowned on those very remarks, discarding them
as half-love-sick remarks of utter adoration and semi-
worshipping. Not so. I believe they, like mine, could be quite
true.
To the sound of background elevator music I start the interview.
In what kind of town were you born?
Yngwie: Stockholm. I was born in Stockholm, Sweden. A big city.
What is your fondest memory of Stockholm, or Sweden?
Yngwie: Well, it depends, because I grew up sortof er...I grew
up at my mother's house, of course, OK, so we lived in a house,
nice house, you know, with forest and stuff, but you had to go on
the subway for half an hour to go to the city, which I did *every
day* from the point that I was about 11 I did it every day,
because I had my recording studio...I started very early, you
see. What I liked a lot was just being able to compose a lot of
music and basically be free to do what I wanted to do. And my
mother wasn't the person to tell me "OK, you gotta do this, you
gotta do that, you should wear your hair like that", you know. I
was very lucky that way. That's what I like about Sweden. And
then eventually I moved into the city, and lived there until I
was 16 and moved to America when I was 19.
When did it become obvious that you were laid out to become a
guitarist?
Yngwie: I think I never had a doubt in my mind, really. I
started playing about 24 years ago, and from that point on,
really, I knew it. I knew this is why I'm here. This is why I'm
alive. And I still feel the same way.
There's this story about the two tape decks with different
speeds, hence your incredible playing speed. Is it true?
Yngwie: This is true. It's actually true. The funny thing was I
was so relentless about what I was doing, I would constantly,
well, record what I played. And I had this thing that if I don't
play better the next day than I did the day before, something was
really wrong. (With feeling) I'd fuckin' kick myself, "No, I
gotta be better, I gotta be better". I was, like, totally fanatic
about it, you know. Completely fanatic. My recorder in the
rehearsal place was a tape machine that ran at 4...em...4.75 I
think. And there's another international speed, 4.80 I believe,
which is different. This was before I had perfect pitch and shit
like that so I used to come home and listen to what I did and was
going, "Hmmm...pretty good, pretty good", and the next morning of
course I'd go ahead and play again and I thought my guitar was
out of tune because it's so fuckin' cold in the subway, you know,
so I'd just tune it up again, you know, to the new pitch, and I
played to that. And I went like "wrrr, wrrr" (fingers flying),
and go "man, that's fast" and that escalated it. Actually this is
one of the really few things that are true about me. There's so
many things said about me that are just complete fuckin'
bullshit.
What was the first record you ever bought?
Yngwie: The first album I got I didn't buy, I got it for my
birthday. It was Deep Purple's "Fireball", on my eighth birthday,
and from that point on I had no doubt in my mind what I wanted to
be. That album fuckin' kicked my ass, you know. You know how it
starts, right? With the bass drum like that. It was, like, '71,
and nobody played like *that*. I did listen to Jimi Hendrix
before them, and my sister was a big influence on me because
everything she'd listen to I'd listen to too. She was six years
older than me. And she's the one who said to me, on the 18th of
September 1970, she said, "come and look at the TV," and they
showed Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire, the same day he
died, you know, because it was on the news. And I already had a
guitar, I got it on my fifth birthday, and I started playing on
it the same day.
What was the first guitar you had?
Yngwie: It was an acoustic guitar, you know, a cheap acoustic
guitar.
What was the first electric guitar you had?
Yngwie: That was also a cheap electric guitar. I don't remember
what it's called, you know, it's one of those very cheap fuckin'
things, about 50 bucks or something, no, probably not even that
much, 25 or something. But it worked great, and I would customize
it, you know, I'd put a tremolo bar on it, and put different
pickups in it and shit like that.
Scallop?
Yngwie: I didn't do that particular one. I did that when I
started working in a shop, I was about 14, as an apprentice, you
know. And I saw this 16th century lute, you know, and instead of
frets it had the wood carved out like this (makes a dulled "U"
form with his fingers). I thought, "Hmm, that looks interesting",
so I just did it and I liked it and since then I've done it.
You mentioned "Fireball" just a while ago, but which CD do you
miss most now because you left it at home?
Yngwie: Em...I don't listen to music, you know. I brought some
of the classical ones with me. Paganini, of course, Vivaldi. I
don't really listen much to music because all I do is travel and
do interviews. That's all I do, it's my job. I do 6 or 7
interviews a day.
As to your own records, which do you think is your least
favourite of your own records - excepting Steeler and Alcatrazz
of course?
Yngwie: (Laughs) Alcatrazz I actually liked.
Why don't you play any of the old songs then?
Yngwie: Well, that's a very good question and I will give you a
very good answer. I constantly get shit about my shows being too
long. They're, like, 2 hours and 20 minutes. And I *still* don't
play all the songs I want to play, you know. On this last tour we
played "Hiroshima Mon Amour", but with 7 solo studio albums it's
hard to choose which ones to play. The record company tries to
push me, they say, "play all the new songs", but I don't want to
play only the new songs, I want to play some of the classics too,
the kids want to hear them too, "Far Beyond the Sun" and shit
like that, which I do.
You still like playing that?
Yngwie: Oh yeah, it's a blast every night. Because, you know,
the song is really the biggest challenge every night, because it
has to be so...(sniffs his nose in contemplation)...intense, and
also the guitar solo which is...never the same. You see, I
improvise everything, so to me nothing gets stale.
What is your favourite pre-"The Seventh Sign" song?
Yngwie: It's hard to say, you know, because I always say, when
they ask me "so which one is your favourite song", I go, well,
"Have you got children? Yeah, well, which one is your favourite
child?" And they say "Well, no, I like them all," you know. The
same thing. The music is my children. And another thing is that I
don't put something on an album that I don't really like. I never
had a filler song. I always like everything.
Could you hazard telling me which you like best of "The Seventh
Sign" songs then, perhaps?
Yngwie: That question is definitely the hardest to answer. I
think that album has such an extremely wide variety of types of
songs. I mean compare "Prisoner of Your Love" with "Pyramid of
Cheops" for instance, it's very very different. But they are all
strong in their own sense, so I couldn't say I like either one
[most]. With this album there is absolutely no way I could say I
like one track more than another. There's a few songs that I do
prefer to play live, for instance "Seventh Sign", "Never Die",
"Crash & Burn", "Forever One" are the songs that sound best on
stage. We've been trying to play "I Don't Know" - doesn't come
across live. We tried to play "Meant To Be" - does not come
across live. In *my* opinion, that is. "Pyramid of Cheops" is
really good, live. Basically, if you listen to the album there's
one guitar, one keyboard player, there's one bass player and
there's a singer and a drummer. It's a very...it's not live, but
it's an album that you could play live, you know. Which I like,
'cause I've done albums where there's been so many fuckin'
overdubs that...(loses track of what he wanted to say).
You mean "Live in Leningrad"?
Yngwie: "Live in Leningrad" has a couple of small fix-ups, yeah,
it does. There's a couple of fix-ups on the live album, which
everybody does. However, I want to tell you something. We just
did, on this last Japanese tour, well, a month ago, we filmed the
whole Budo Kan show - 18 cameras, 48 track recording - and we
didn't fix up *one single thing*. It will be released in June.
Nothing, *nothing* is touched. It's completely like the show,
every fuckin' thing. And, you know, there's a couple of little
booboos, but, you know, I like it. I mean, I decided that this
time I'm not gonna fix anything. Joe Lynn Turner just about
resang the whole fuckin' album. He was fired, OK? I redid some of
the rhythm guitars because the string broke or something like
that, or it was a little bit sloppy, but the solos weren't
overdubbed. On this one I did nothing, not a fuckin' thing. What
I did was I took the tape and sat together with this guy - he's
from here actually, Erwin...Erwin something, what was his last
name, he's Dutch... Anyway, him and me just sat down and mixed
what's on there. Didn't redo any vocals, didn't redo any guitars,
nothing. Not a fuckin' thing.
Will the songs you performed at the Leo Fender memorial concert
ever be released commercially, on an EP for example, or as bonus
tracks somewhere?
Yngwie: I thought it was a really shitty show but, then again, I
mean, I didn't mean to [play]. I just had a few beers and said,
"fuck, of course I'm going to contribute to this," you know, so I
just went up and did it. It wasn't a serious thing at all.
It may be interesting as a collectors' item though.
Yngwie: I'll tell you what may be worth released as collectors'
item, which is gonna happen too, which is my 16 tracks stuff that
I recorded before I recorded this album, and one of those 16
track songs actually appears on the Japanese pressing ("Angel in
Heat", ED.). I sing lead on that. And they're gonna release a
song I've just recorded for a Japanese wrestler. It's gonna be a
"steam song" as he walks out. He's not a Sumo Wrestler, it's
called...something..."shoot wrestling" I think. It's like
American professional wrestling but they do it for real. They
really kick the f...you see teeth flying and shit, you know.
Anyway, so, it's true. I do that, and there's gonna be one extra
song, and there's gonna be two live tracks on that. That's only
going to be released in Japan, and I heard there's something like
300,000 pre-sold.
You're quite a success in Japan - as opposed to Europe, you
might say.
Yngwie: We should change that, shouldn't we? The Japanese are
very guitar-oriented. I wanna say this, and I don't wanna come
across the wrong way, you know, but this is a mere fact, not just
something that I'm saying. A mere fact. From "Fire & Ice" on, no
western artist, including Metallica, Guns'n'Roses, Michael
Jackson, Cher, you name it, no western artist, *any* western
artist, ever has sold more records than I have in Japan. "Fire &
Ice" went straight number one, double platinum in four days, and
now it's, like, triple platinum. I mean Guns'n'Roses sell like
45,000 copies there, which is good...(pauses for dramatic impact)
I sell 400,000. I have no idea why that is. As to the situation
in Europe, I'm doing everything I can. I'm doing every interview
I can, the shows, and I think the record company is going to
concentrate a bit more on promoting me, which hasn't happened
before. For many fuckin' years, man, I've been working real hard
on this, you know, and I still don't think I have something like
proper success, really.
"Tribute to Jimi Hendrix" albums are fairly popular, for example
those by Randy Hansen and Paul Gilbert. Since you're quite a fan
of Jimi hendrix, too, wouldn't you like a go at such a project,
too?
Yngwie: Not really, no. I think that's overdone. Everybody asks
me, "do you ever wanna do an acoustic album," or "do you want to
do a blues album", or an album that's only classical, or "do you
wanna do an album that's only instrumental," and the answers to
all these questions are the same: No. I have no desire at all to
do that. I want to do albums like "The Seventh Sign", that has
songs that go somewhere and that say something and that have the
instrumental passages as well, the classical guitars, sitar even,
you know, I like that too, and bluesier stuff like "Bad Blood"
and stuff. I don't like to do one album that all the fuckin'
same. I like to do albums that have a lot of different avenues.
It's like, you know, "Hairtrigger", you know, is, like, fuckin'
punching out, you know, but then you have "Forever One" that's a
more delicate song. I don't like to have albums that have the
same shit over and over, you know. I don't like them. Bands like
Judas Priest and AC/DC and all these bands, I personally like
them, but I wouldn't do an album the way they do, that is so the
same, you know.
You're also quite a fan of Ritchie Blackmore (ex-ex-ex Deep
Purple). Some people even say you've got a Blackmore fixation.
Have you ever met him?
Yngwie: Many times. Actually, he's a fan of me. No, of course,
you know, I love Deep Purple. That was, like, a *huge* influence
on me when I was young. No question about it. I think maybe that
they live at lost right now, especially with the new addition of
the guitar player. I think that's a shame. I mean Joe Satriani's
a *good* guitar player but he doesn't fit [in] Deep Purple,
that's just the way it is. He doesn't fit [in] the concept of
Deep Purple. First of all he's using humbucking pickups which is
a fuckin' sin. If you wanna play Deep Purple music you don't use
humbucking pickups, you use single coil.
Have you seen the "Rising Force '85" live video and were you
content with the way the video editors have fucked it up video-
wise?
Yngwie: I've seen it a long time ago. It's pathetic. But the new
one won't be like that, the Budo Kan one. From what I've seen so
far it's really good. A lot better, a lot better than that.
Now for a question that so far you've answered with "Well, I
don't listen to guitar players that much"...
Yngwie: Well, I don't (smiles).
...the question is: Who are your favourite guitar players?
Yngwie: (Heaves a deep sigh, probably this is still a difficult
question) Oh god (laughs). I like Alan Holdsworth. Al DiMeola is
very good. Uli Jon Roth (ex-Scorpions, ED.) is good. Early
Blackmore stuff, like from "Made in Japan", was extremely good.
Em...I mean...that's about it really. I don't listen to guitar
players. I *used* to when I was younger but I don't do it
anymore.
What is your favourite drink?
Yngwie: Red wine. Definitely. Italian red wine.
What is your favourite guitar?
The Fender Stratocaster. I have one that I've had for, like, 18
years, that I don't bring on tour any more. It's the one on the
cover of my first album. That one...
At this moment the background music transforms into a non-vocal
version of "Lambada". The music is truly revolting, worse than
Richard Clayderman actually, so I retract my earlier statement
with regard to that.
Yngwie: We played that at my wedding ("Lambada", ED.). Anyway,
that one's a '71 cream Strat with maple neck, then I have a '56
that I also used to use a lot. I also left that one at home. But
I have 175 guitars. A lot of guitars. I try to make sure that
each one I use on stage is a very good one. They wear out really
quickly because I kick them around a lot.
How many guitars would you estimate become, let's say,
redundant, due to excessive wear during a tour?
Yngwie: (Some sadness in his voice) I just broke a 1960 one, and
sometimes I set my guitars on fire. But those are not the main
ones. Beyond repair, maybe 5. Not beyond repair, maybe 10.
Is there a person in the music industry which one day you'd
really like to meet?
He thinks for a long while. I add "except for Jimi Hendrix" to
keep things going.
Yngwie: (He grins) I do like a guy called Ian Anderson (from
Jethro Tull, ED.) a lot. I've never met him. I worked with people
that worked with him a lot, such as Barrymore Barlow and some of
the crew people. I know him a little bit through that. But Ian
Anderson is a fuckin' genius, you know. It's just the way he
always does the coolest arrangements and stuff, and a lot of
stage presence.
Suppose I would want to be Malmsteen II. What would I have to
do? Any tips for the next generation?
Yngwie: You have to understand that when it comes to my approach
to this, it's not only playing guitar, you see. It's much, much
more than that. I wouldn't call it spiritual, but it's something
that I don't really have control over, when it comes to my
compositions and also my improvisations. It's very hard for me to
give anyone advise because nobody ever gave me any advice. I did
an educational video once, but that's a kindof silly one anyway
because you won't learn anything from it. It's just me sitting
down and saying, well, "here's this one thing," and I go "wrrt
wrrt wrrt" and, "this is the same again but a bit slower", "wrrt
wrrt wrrt", and, "OK, here's another one". I've never been taught
anything so I don't exactly know how to teach, except for the
fact that I can tell you exactly which scales to use, and which
notes to use in certain chord progressions, you know, which I
think is very self-explanatory anyway. You can learn that just by
listening.
OK, upon us now is the "words to react to" section. Please react
quickly and briefly.
MTV.
Yngwie: MTV? I don't think it should be called "Music
Television" because they don't play music. I think it's really
gone out of hand. Out of fuckin' control. I would like to see it
change or disappear. I think what it's done is that it ruined,
you know, the mystique of stuff, you know. When I was a kid I
wondered what it'd be like to see a proper show, I would never
see them on TV or nothing, and if there was a show I'd fuckin'
put a tent outside and sleep. Nowadays kids are getting real
blas!, because they see it on TV and say, "fuck, I'm not gonna
pay 30 dollars to see a show, not to see a show, no way man".
Ron Keel (the singer of the first bigger band Yngwie was in,
Steeler).
Yngwie: Wrong key. That's my answer.
Upplands Vasby (which is where the earliest known bootleg live
recording of Yngwie was done - just personal curiosity really).
Yngwie: It was an interesting area of people living there. I had
a girlfriend there so I was there quite often. It's kindof a
suburb, but it's kinda far away from Stockholm. It had its own
little shopping mall and pub, whatever. That was about '79, '80.
The Malmsteen Militia (the official fan club).
Yngwie: I love it. I think it's exceptional. I think the fans
are wonderful and I think that the whole way it's put together is
great. It's very informative, and I know them, and they're also
good friends of my wife and stuff.
Silver Mountain (a band Yngwie was in, sortof, in Sweden).
Yngwie: That was interesting because that's how I found
out...em...I met this guy in Stockholm and he heard me playing in
a music store and said, "I know this guy that sortof plays like
you" and I say, "yeah?" (something like contempt on his face
there). So he says it was Jonas Hansson, and I must be honest
with you, I don't think he plays like me, nowhere near like me.
Well, anyway, he was the guitar player in Silver Mountain, and he
played me a tape and I said, "Fuck, what a great keyboard
player!", and that was Jens (Jens Johansson, keyboard player on
the first four Yngwie solo albums, ED.). And that's how I got
hooked up with Jens. This was just, like, a month before I left
for America. I went down and recorded something with them and
then I went up to the States and then a few years later I called
Jens up and asked him if he wanted to do the gig.
Graham Bonnet (singer of the second bigger band he was in,
Alcatrazz).
Yngwie: I saw him for the first time in 11 years at the L.A.
show. And we were, like, hanging and stuff (laughs). He's one
funny guy, very strange.
You don't hate him? I mean there's this story going around about
this last Alcatrazz gig where he disconnected your guitar cord in
the middle of a solo. Did you forgive him?
Yngwie: Yeah. I didn't forgive him *then*, though.
Steve Vai.
Yngwie: He is a cool guy. I like him. We speak sometimes, and
stuff like that, but I just don't like his choice of notes, and
his tremolo bar all over the place. I just don't like it. But I'm
sure he's very good, maybe he just doesn't want to play any other
way, you know.
Joe Lynn Turner (the singer on "Odyssey").
Yngwie: Joe's another funny guy. Joe is a great singer, no
question about it, a real good singer. Actually we're on friendly
terms now, but I don't think we can work together because we have
this...we've got way too different tastes and we're both kinda
like...a little too passionate and stuff like that so we could
get into a conflict.
On stage, you mean?
Yngwie: No, off stage.
I sense a delicate subject. I don't want to provoke him, so I go
on to the next word.
Joe Satriani.
Yngwie: Joe Satriani is a good player. I think he is very good,
but he doesn't seem to play with a lot of passion, he doesn't
come across like someone who (with feeling) really, *really*
plays. He sounds very well-rehearsed, and very sortof, like, it
sounds as if he is sitting down, you know.
Mike Varney.
Yngwie: He did me a good favour when I was 19 years old. He did
not pay for my ticket, though, though he claims he did. Ron Keel
didn't pay for it either, my mother paid for the fuckin' ticket
to get to the States. Mike Varney inflicted a great deal of harm
on me, when I sortof left his so-called 'stable', by manipulating
every guitar player in the fuckin' world to play like me, and
*sign* every guitar player in the fuckin' world that played like
me. Because the whole market is now saturated with neoclassical
guitar players and took away from the impact that my style could
have had, because my style was *that* style. And now a million
others do the same. I mean you know Tony MacAlpine, Vinnie Moore,
Joey Tafolla, you name it, did complete blatant rip-offs. That's
what it was, and all thanks to him, which I think was a bad thing
to do.
Bill Clinton.
Yngwie: I think he's a fuckin' clown.
Religion.
Yngwie: It could be a very good thing for some people, but
religion could also be a very bad thing. I think that religion is
very [much] commercialized, especially Christian religion in
America, with the TV preachers and stuff, which is totally wrong.
"Send us money so I can buy a gold Rolex!" But I mean I don't
believe in a specific religion, even though (moves some the
assorted chains and stuff on his arms and neck) I have something
like fifty crosses on. I believe there is something, definitely
something. Before I went to the States some of the recordings I
did were some of the heaviest blackest shit. I mean devil-
worshipping fuckin' lyrics and the heaviest, darkest riffs, and
fast riffs, like death and thrash and all together, but with
classical influences also. That's the way I used to do things,
then. "Lucifer's Friend" and "Voodoo Nights", I had songs like
that. I actually think that influenced some of the bands that do
it today. I never heard someone do that before I did it. [Black]
Sabbath did it, you know, but not to that same sound.
Entombed.
Yngwie: The band? I never heard of them. I know they're from
Sweden but I haven't lived there for, like, 11 years. I've heard
of the name, but I've never heard them play.
Polygram.
Yngwie: I think they fucked me around a lot. I think that they
could have probably made me a lot bigger success if they would
have wanted to. I wasn't Def Leppard, I wasn't Bon Jovi, you
know, I was Yngwie Malmsteen and I was on the same label and they
made so much fuckin' money with those other bands that they
really didn't care about me. So I moved on to Electrica...
electric... (stumbles over the word, unscrews his tongue)
Elektra. And that was even worse. They were even worse. I could
not believe it, this just had to be a fuckin' joke, you know.
They completely ignored me. Most people didn't even know the
album was out.
The Seventh Sign.
Yngwie: I know this is a clich! thing that everybody says when
they come out with a new album but I believe, strongly believe,
that this is the best album I've done. I *really* believe that. I
mean I would almost always say that, although I didn't say it
when I made "Odyssey", and I didn't say it when I made "Fire &
Ice", you know. But I do say it with this one, I really do.
Because I think it has the most complete songwriting, the most
complete playing, and singing, and it's all properly mashed
together. "Eclipse" I thought was a good album *but* the singer
was just somewhere else. He wasn't singing what he wanted to
sing. He sang what I told him to sing but he didn't sing with
conviction. Whereas with Michael Vescera (the current singer,
ED.), even though I tell him what to sing - I give him word for
word what I want him to sing, each note - (sings "Never
Dieeeeee") but he really means it even though he didn't write it.
And I think that's really put the cap on the whole thing, made it
stronger.
Your image.
Yngwie: My image is what people think of me, not what I make
myself to look like, or seem like. My image is up to everybody's
individual ideas. I don't really have an image, I just am what I
am.
Criticism.
Yngwie: Good criticism is good, criticism that doesn't have any
substance whatsoever, just basically trying to cut your part, I
think I could live without it. But, then again, I don't give a
fuck. Because I know what I do, I know what I want, I know what I
*can* do, and I know where I'm going. I am a very determined
person.
Donuts.
Yngwie: Donuts?! I fuckin' *hate* donuts! Is that the Pantera
thing? I've never seen that. What the fuck *is* that thing?
I explain what I've heard of the "Cowboys From Hell" Pantera
home video, where they accidentally stumble into him at a hotel
and he is offered an impromptu donut which he rather explicitly
refuses, after which he moves into the elevator with some babes
and Pantera scratches a message - something along the lines of
"fuck off Malmshit poser fag" - on the back of his tour van.
Yngwie: (Frowns, but sees the humour - I think) Hmm... that's
interesting.
And with that I reached the end of the interview, at around
13:45, which means we had taken rather longer than the alotted
time. For the last twenty minutes I had already seen a journalist
standing around (of "Watt!", a Dutch rock music magazine).
However, next we first wanted some stuff signed - my guitar and
rather a lot of CD liners (Theo-Hans had brought something like
20 CDs with him, that needed to be signed both in the liner and
on the actual CD itself). I could see Dave getting a bit edgy, I
think, so I quickly asked Malmsteen if perhaps he would care to
pose with an "ST NEWS - the Atari ST Disk Magazine" T-shirt. No
problem. After saying goodbye we went to have a chat with Dave to
see if we could meet the other members of the band. Again, this
would be no problem. We had to make sure to be at the artist
entrance of "Nighttown" at around 16:00 and we could get
backstage and witness the whole soundcheck thing as well (mainly
because we were also members of the Malmsteen Militia and wearing
our Militia T-shirts!).
But that experience is to be found elsewhere in this issue.
Concert Review - Yngwie Malmsteen
Nighttown, Rotterdam, May 12th 1994. Surprise support act
Skyclad.
After having interviewed Mr. Malmsteen (see elsewhere) I went to
Nighttown with Theo-Hans. Miranda went home to look at our guest
Joey (the dog) and drop off my guitar and other stuff at home,
to meet me again at 19:30 when she'd come back. There were
already a few other people standing there, fans like us, waiting
for Malmsteen to arrive in a fashion similar to me about a year
ago when I wanted to meet Joe Satriani. I had a bite to eat and
at a quarter to four we went to the side entrance. The other
members of the band arrived on the dot, and Malmsteen and tour
manager Dave Hulme arrived by cab about five minutes later. Both
Theo-Hans and me were allowed in. A security dude tried to
prevent us, but Malmsteen said, "it's OK, they're all right" so
we entered from the backstage area.
I walked onto the back of the stage, Mike Terrana's impressive
drumkit straight before me and about a dozen Fender Stratocasters
to my left. I touched one of them and it was a little bit like
magic. I think I was in a state of utter enthrallment as I
crossed the stage and walked off it at the front. Theo-Hans and
me got out CD liners and gold/silver pens for signatures in case
any of the musicians had time to spare later on.
There was a small drum kit standing in front of the stage with a
"SKYCLAD" box lying near. I thought no more of it for the time
being. I was too busy being totally enawed. There's only so much
you can truly concentrate on.
It was a cool soundcheck. They just played some songs while the
sound was being adjusted, ranging from some Van Halen ("Ain't
Talking 'Bout Love" and "Mean Streets"), Hendrix ("Spanish Castle
Magic" and a bit of "Red House"), Deep Purple ("Burn") and
Queen/Metallica ("Stone Cold Crazy") to some of his own stuff
("Pyramid of Cheops", "I'll See the Light Tonight", "Crash &
Burn", "Hairtrigger", "Forever One" and some more). At the
instant when he took out a Gibson Flying V to play "Pyramid of
Cheops", one of my favourite tracks off "The Seventh Sign", I
truly thought I was dreaming. Not in the metaphoric sense, but
actually truly. I found myself blinking my eyes, pinching my arm,
but I wasn't asleep. This was reality, incredible though it was.
Yngwie even practised his guitar pick kicking'n'hurling so in
turns we got them off the floor. I got four. I value these higher
than the concert ones, because in concert he plays with them for
something like 30 seconds whereas these were used for almost a
whole song, like.
The soundcheck took quite a while, and each of the musician
became available for signing at one time or other. Especially the
drummer and the bass player (Barry Sparks) were amicable fellows.
Mats Olausson (keyboards) was friendly, too, but was more busy.
The singer (Michael Vescera) was less apt to talk, but most
importantly we got him to sign all necessary stuff.
Around this time I found out that Skyclad was actually the
support act. I didn't have any Skyclad CD liners with me but got
all band members to sign on a piece of paper. I had a talk with
their singer, Martin Walkyier, an incredibly small man, and made
use of this golden second opportunity to ask him what the address
of their co-manager, Tony Bray, might be. He was pleased to give
it, which means you might expect an interview with this Venom
drummer (and possibly old members Mantas and Cronos (!!) too) in
an ST NEWS issue coming soon.
At something like 18:45 the Skyclad soundcheck was over. In the
mean time we had also caught a heavily painted glimpse of Amber -
Yngwie's new photomodel wife - but we hadn't sortof had the
courage nor quickness to ask her to sign the "The Seventh Sign"
CD liner too (she'd written the lyrics to "Prisoner of your
Love", not at all a good song actually, but who cares). She could
barely walk because of the height of her heels, and if she hadn't
been wearing a large coat we might actually not have seen her at
all as she moved her almost absurdly slim form between a few air
molecules and disappeared.
Theo-Hans stayed inside when, at 19:00, Nighttown opened its
doors. I got something to eat outside and fetched Miranda from
Rotterdam Central Station at 19:30. Because I had a photo pass
and we were on the guest list we could get in for free.
Incredibly I found two of my close "V.I.R.U.S." friends without
tickets (hi Thomas and Bo!) standing in front of us in the queue
so I could sell them our tickets and get in with the photo pass.
We got into the crowd and somehow succeeded in meeting up with
Theo-Hans again, right in front at the right, where Malmsteen
would stand. I was basically one or two feet off the stage, a
more than OK position for the experience I was going to have.
Last time I had seen Malmsteen I had been something like 10 or
15 metres off the stage and my photocamera had been a throw-away
one. Of the 36 pictures I had taken, a mere 4 had something
discernible on it. This time I had a proper camera (with zoom)
and I was close. This couldn't go wrong (and, as it would turn
out, it didn't).
Skyclad had the exceedingly thankless task of opening before a
sold-out audience that had come for Malmsteen only. I think there
was only one true Skyclad fan, and one semi-fan (and that was
me). They played a good set including two of my favourites,
"Spinning Jenny" and "Widdershins Jig". They played for about 45
minutes after which they had, remarkably, received quite a good
response.
Almost ten minutes early, Malmsteen started with the usual
guitar antics. When he came on I realised he still hadn't changed
that much - he was still wearing extremely tight trousers and he
had made up his eyes, though he had left off the uniform stuff.
Why on earth does he do the make-up? After three songs it started
to blotch and all pictures have him looking like a severely
sleepy drug addict.
I had never seen Malmsteen this active on stage before. He was
constantly running from left to right and posing in all kinds of
ways (yes, he definitely is a poser, but that's what my camera
wants!), throwing his guitar about, playing with his teeth, and
generally not standing still for a second except when an acoustic
guitar on a stand forced him to stay at one spot. I made some
terrific pictures, all the time trying to evade the fanatic
jumping of some of the even more zealous fans who seemed to want
to touch Yngwie at every possible instant. I had earplugs in for
most of the concert which made everything brilliant. It's
unbelievable how notes played in rapid sequence give you the idea
what you're hearing is totally out of tune when heard without
earplugs. Never again!
I didn't get any additional guitar picks and didn't actually try
to, either. I had four of them in my wallet already. Now it was
time for the masses to get them (which they did most
enthusiastically).
Well, what did he play? I am quite sure he didn't play
"Hairtrigger" even though he did it during soundcheck, and he
played nothing off "Fire & Ice" (which is more than all right
with me, and says all about what he thinks of that album himself,
though he could have played "Perpetual" for all I care). He did
play "Rising Force" (the only one off "Odyssey" not counting a
"Krakatau" excerpt in the extended guitar solo spot), "See the
Light Tonight" (the only song off "Marching Out"), "Bedroom Eyes"
(the only one off "Eclipse"), "You Don't Remember, I'll Never
Forget" (the only song off "Trilogy" not counting the bit of
"Trilogy Suite Op:5" in the guitar solo spot) and for the rest
his set concentrated on "The Seventh Sign" with the title track,
"Never Die" (the first track), "Forever One" (introducing a
terribly shy Amber on the stage to give him some white wine, to
the whistling sound of male libidos wanting to make themselves
heard), "Bad Blood", "Pyramid of Cheops" and "Crash and Burn". Of
course he also did "Far Beyond the Sun" and the various pseudo-
classical bits (Albinoni, etc.), whereas the encore had "Black
Star" (with prolonged acoustic intro), a second Amber appearance
and some covers - "Burn", "Stone Cold Crazy" and "Spanish Castle
Magic" that I can recall. I really like him playing cover songs,
very much actually, but if that's his excuse for not playing some
of his own older stuff I'd rather have them skipped and instead
have Alcatrazz' "Kree Nakorie", "Crying", "Soldier Without Faith"
and the full "Trilogy" or "Krakatau".
The whole experience lasted about 2 hours and a quarter and was
a thoroughly enjoyable one. I even discovered that what had
started off with a cigarette in the guitar head Hendrix-style
during "Deja Vu" on the "Odyssey" tour had now evolved into
chainsmoking and a cigarette butt hurling act. I forgot the
cigarette brand, but during the interview he had already remarked
a whole package of them had a much tar and nicotin as one
Marlboro.
We didn't bother buying a T-shirt (all designs concentrated too
much on Yngwie's face for our taste) and crossed the street for
some French Fries with mayo, curry and onions ("Grote friet
speciaal"!). Some time later we got into a train literally filled
with Feyenoord Football Club supporters (they had won some sort
of cup earlier that evening). But even that didn't succeed in
spoiling this great day.
