For more than 40 years, Yngwie Malmsteen has stood as rock’s supreme neoclassical shredder. In that time – since bursting onto the scene with Steeler and Alcatrazz in the early 1980s, before beginning his now-22-album-strong solo career – the Swedish guitarist has crossed paths with virtually every major rock and metal figure of the era.
“I know them all,” says Malmsteen, who recently celebrated his 40th anniversary as a solo artist with the two CD+DVD concert recording Tokyo Live. In fact, he adds, “it would be quicker for me to mention to you the people I haven’t met and hung out with”.
Malmsteen’s rock-star address book began filling up literally the first night he touched down in America, when his new bandmates in Steeler whisked him straight to the legendary Rainbow Bar & Grill in Los Angeles. Within hours the newcomer was chatting away with one of his idols, Ronnie James Dio, kicking off what would become four decades of “happy moods” (as he puts it diplomatically) with music’s elite.
Chatting to Classic Rock, he runs us through some of the famous figures he’s rubbed shoulders with – and, in one case, rubbed the wrong way – over the years.
Ritchie Blackmore
I first met Ritchie Blackmore at the Rainbow, too, believe it or not. I was in Alcatrazz at the time, and I saw him sitting there in a booth by himself. I was just a little boisterous kid then, nineteen years old. I went up to him and said: “Hey man, I’m playing tonight. I have your old singer [Graham Bonnet] in my band.” And he’s looking at me like I probably would look at somebody coming up to me now, like: “Yeah. Can’t you see I’m having some food here?”
About a year and a half later I ended up getting the same guitar tech as Ritchie had back in the day. He told me: “Hey, Ritchie’s playing Long Beach Arena with Deep Purple.” So I went and saw the show. Then I went backstage and asked somebody if I could say hi to Ritchie. They laughed and said: “No one says hi to Ritchie.”
So I started walking back to my car, and this guy started running after me with a camera, yelling, “Hey, hey, hey, Ritchie wants to see you! Ritchie wants to see you! Can you believe this?” Like it was a big deal. But he takes me to see him, and I walk into Ritchie’s dressing room and he’s lying on the table in his black trench coat – lying like Burt Reynolds, up on his elbow. He’s looking at me, trying to intimidate me. I said: “Hey, dude, what’s going on?” and I took his soccer ball that was in the room and started bouncing it around. He asked: “You play soccer?”
All of a sudden he was like a little kid. We hung out the entire night, just talked about music. He gave me one of his bracelets and said: “This is good if you get bad tendonitis,” because I had some tendonitis in my hand. He told me all the tricks about eating bananas and drinking Gatorade and everything. We had the greatest time.
A couple years later, he’s playing again. I come to see him and he didn’t want to know me. But it’s okay. People have to be in the mood. I mean, people come up to me and I don’t feel like it sometimes, too. So I’m not knocking him. Ritchie is awesome. I love him.
Lemmy
Have I ever met Lemmy? Let me tell you something. Me and Lemmy were musically very different, but as people we would hang out. The very first time – I’m trying to remember – it was probably at a little bar on Wardour Street [in London’s Soho] that I used to go to. He was always there. Then when he moved to America, I hung out with him there too, but not as much as I did in England. We’d talk about history and stuff like that. Things that other people didn’t do.
Over the years we did gigs together, and I’ve got some funny pictures with him, especially back in the days when everybody was partying and stuff. But it’s hard to pick out just one story – it was a fuzzy period, so to speak. In fact I found a picture just the other day of me and him and we’re… how should one say… in a “happy mood.”
Ronnie James Dio
I had just landed in America, and the guys in Steeler said: “Hey, let’s go to the Rainbow.” I said: “Where’s that?” This was 1982, so it was at, like, the height of the scene. When I was twelve years old I saw my very first concert. It was at the Stockholm Concert Hall, which is a classical theatre. For some reason they put a rock band there, and it was Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. And it was Ronnie Dio, Ritchie Blackmore, Cozy Powell… so it was pretty surreal for me to see Ronnie there at the Rainbow.
We started talking and everything, and he was very friendly. A very nice guy. We became friends right there and then. Later on we ended up living next to each other. There was an Indian restaurant nearby, called Star Of India, that we used to sit in. I recorded with him, I have hundreds of pictures of me and him playing on stage, all that stuff. We were very close. Me and Ronnie hung out a lot. Probably the most out of all those people.
Phil Mogg
I was gigging around with Steeler, and Phil Mogg from UFO came to a show. He said: “I’m putting UFO back together, come to my house tomorrow.” I was like: “Wow, I’m going to get to play with UFO!” I was so excited.
Next morning, I get a call from some people in the Alcatrazz camp – although it wasn’t called Alcatrazz yet. They didn’t have songs, they didn’t have anything. They just had an idea to put together a band with Graham Bonnet as the singer. I went and met with them that day, and I had to go from there right to Phil Mogg’s house. Phil Mogg, super-nice guy, but he wasn’t well together at the time.
As much I love UFO, I called the Alcatrazz guys from Phil’s house and said: “Okay, I’ll join your thing. But two conditions: I write the songs, and we’ll get a new drummer.” I think joining UFO would’ve been a good thing, but it is what it is. I did what I did, and I don’t regret anything. Everything is a learning curve.
Metallica
The Alcatrazz thing, I wouldn’t say it was really big, but we had a lot of money behind us. I found out later it was all embezzled money, but we had first class airplane tickets, limos, everything. And we’d go up to San Francisco all the time, take a picture on Alcatraz Island, things like that.
One time when we were there I went out on the scene, and it was all the bands like Exodus and Armored Saint, and they were talking about a new band, Metallica. This was 1983, before they had made it. But I ended up at Metallica’s place, which was a little house, and we were jamming, and everybody was really, really drunk.
A few times after that I would bump into them at the Rainbow when they were in LA. They would come back to my house and we’d listen to Deep Purple, and they would bang their head on the floor to the music. Plus, you know, I’m Swedish, and Lars [Ulrich] is Danish. It’s the same language, just a different accent, basically. Different dialect. So we had that.
Brian May
I was playing guitar at Musikmesse Frankfurt, which is like the European equivalent of the NAMM show. I was in this little cubicle at one of the stands, just playing, when I kept hearing somebody in the back of the room going: “Who the fack? What the fack?” He was freaking out about my guitar playing.
I didn’t know who it was at first. Then later I realised it was Brian May from Queen! He came up to me afterward and we became really friendly. We went to dinner and everything. He was super-nice, so I spent a lot of time with him. We hung out a few times in England, too.
David Lee Roth
In 1985 I did a headline tour of the United States, and I had an opening band called Talas, which was Billy Sheehan’s band. Dave Roth used to come to the shows, and I knew him because I used to hang with him at the Troubadour. We would party together. He was a cool guy. He would come to the shows, and he always had advice. I remember he would tell me: “I’ve been reading so many interviews, you’re doing it all wrong.” He would say: “Don’t talk like that. Don’t say these things.” I said: “Okay, thank you for the advice.”
He’s funny as shit, that guy. He’s a motormouth. Anyway, it was pretty clear at this time that he was either out of Van Halen or just about out. And I suppose I was one of the hottest guys, so he was eyeing me out for that. He wasn’t blatant about it, but he was definitely wanting to see if I wanted to do it.
Angus Young and Brian Johnson
I did four months opening for AC/DC [on 1985’s Fly On The Wall tour]. Me and Angus and Brian became really close, hanging out all the time. Brian’s a car guy like me, and back then I was driving a Jaguar E-Type with a V12 engine, and he had a Jaguar E-Type with a six-cylinder engine. I would say: “I’ve got twelve.” And he’d go, “Well, this one’s the original one…”
Angus, we’d just sit and jam on stuff. I took one of my guitars and said: “Hey, Angus, I got a song idea for you – the chords A, C, D, C.” And I played this progression, and he goes: “Well I already did that.” We were always joking around like that. Super-nice people. Love them.
Gene Simmons
I remember one time I came to Stockholm and I was staying in the same hotel as Kiss. Gene was sitting in the bar, even though he wasn’t drinking. He goes: “What are you doing?” I said: “I just came back from Prague. I was recording with the Symphony Orchestra.” He goes: “Yeah, you can do that.” Like: “You can do that, but we can’t, because we’re just doing this for the money,” kind of thing. He didn’t say it like that, but he’s a very, very clever guy. I enjoy talking with him a lot.
Actually, I remember back in 1982, before I went to America, someone must have played Kiss my cassette. They called me [after Ace Frehley left the band], and the guy on the phone was like: “You’re hot! You’re hot!” I’m like:, “What? Hot?” Then: “We heard you. We wanna get you in. But we need to know one thing: are you six foot tall?” Now, I’m six-three, but I didn’t know how to say that in feet. So I said I was one metre, ninety-two centimetres. They never called back. It was very bizarre.
Eddie Van Halen (almost)
I never said a bad word about him. I never will. Because I think he was amazing. But I used to know a guy that worked in the grocery store where Eddie would shop, and the guy would ask him: “Hey, what do you think about Yngwie Malmsteen, the new Swedish kid?” And Eddie would say: “I don’t know who that is.”
Meanwhile, Dave Roth told me that Eddie would have his ghetto blaster, playing my shit on it all day long. There’s one time I remember where I was nominated for a Grammy, and I go to the show – I had my tux on and everything – and I see Eddie there. I’m waving at him, trying to get his attention, and he sees me… and he runs away. He literally ran away!
I have an even more incredible story. I was doing a concert festival in Holland, and Van Halen was headlining. I’m like: “Great, I finally get to meet Eddie and give him my concerto”. Because I’m proud of my concerto, you know? But I find out they cancelled the show. They said Alex Van Halen had broken his little finger or something.
And then I hear that the promoter got a phone call from Eddie himself, who said: “Just to let you know, if Yngwie Malmsteen is playing, I’m not playing. And I will never fucking play the same stage as Yngwie Malmsteen.” I’m like: “What?” He obviously felt threatened. Which is crazy to me. You’re fucking Eddie Van Halen! Nobody could threaten you!
Tokyo Live is out now via Music Theories Recordings.
