"Cover Boy,"
Guitar World, February 1997
Yngwie Malmsteen looks to his guitar heroes for "Inspiration." It's the opening night of Yngwie Malmsteen's world tour in support of his new album, Inspiration, and the several thousand fans packed into the Metropolitan in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, respond to his every guitar lick with fervor, throwing their fists into the air as they ecstatically headbang to his neoclassical heavy metal. Yngwie has never played South America before, and his fanatical welcome by the Metropolitan crowd reflects just how anxiously the continent has been awaiting his arrival.
One of the few guitarists from the fast-and-flashy Eighties who has managed to keep his career alive in the U.S., Yngwie has at the same time seen his influence and popularity grow overseas. Malmsteen's current multi-continent jaunt will take him and his new band (vocalist Mark Boals, keyboardist Mats Olausson, bassist Barry Dunaway, and drummer Tommy Aldridge) through South America, Japan, Europe, and the U.S.
"The crowd is amazing here," says Yngwie, relaxing backstage in Rio after a triumphant performance. "Normally I have to say, 'Okay, now it's your turn to sing along.' But the audience started singing without me asking them to. The people here have had my albums for 10 years, so obviously they're very excited to see me."
Malmsteen is gratified that his audience responded to his larger-than-life persona, particularly since he, himself, is a man who expects his heroes to be heroes. "When I was a kid I used to look at pictures of Hendrix and Ritchie Blackmore and be blown away by the way they looked and dressed," he recalls. "They weren't regular people. They seemed untouchable and elevated from the norm. I've always felt that the way you come across is very important. That's why I can't understand the alternative music scene--everyone is dressing in shorts and sneakers--I can't get into that."
On Inspiration, Yngwie pays tribute to his heroes with versions of his favorite songs from their catalogs. "The name for this album is truly appropriate," he says. "Not only does it feature the songs that inspired me as a young man, but it was recorded in a very inspiring fashion, as well. My playing is live-sounding and very free. There are very few guitar overdubs and sometimes my playing is a bit over-the-top. My motto is, 'More is more.' Even when I listen back to the album now, it sounds like a fist in your face.
"Inspiration was recorded with friends," he adds, "and it turned into a big party with a lot of good people involved. It was initially intended to be a side project and a way for me to break in the new studio in my home. [See GW January 1996 for an overview of Yngwie's Miami studio.]
"I'd like to point out that Inspiration is not a 'cover' album," he notes. "I incorporated my own style into each and every song, and none of them sound like copies of the originals. There is a definite Malmsteen flavor to all of them, and I play a variety of styles."
That certainly is true. Among the covers is a fusion tune (U.K.'s "In the Dead of Night"), a classic rocker (Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son"), European heavy metal (Scorpions' "Sails of Charon"), psychedelic blues (Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression") and five Ritchie Blackmore songs (Deep Purple's "Pictures of Home," "Child in Time," "Mistreated," and "Demon's Eye," and Rainbow's "Gates of Babylon").
"No band had a bigger impact on me than Deep Purple," says Malmsteen. "For my eighth birthday I was given a copy of Fireball by my sister, and Blackmore's playing on 'Demon's Eye' kicked my ass across the room! It's total blues. In the rare album pressing that I have, 'Strange Kind of Woman' was for some reason deleted and substituted with 'Demon's Eye.'
"Except for 'Carry On Wayward Son,' every song on Inspiration came off of albums that had more well-known songs on them. I chose songs that made me what I am today, rock and roll-wise. I really didn't want to include songs that everyone knows."
Malmsteen speaks of Deep Purple the way other men speak of their lovers: "The second Purple album that I heard was Machine Head, and I loved every song on it. But I didn't want to do 'Smoke on the Water,' 'Highway Star' or 'Lazy' on Inspiration because those songs have been done to death. So I chose 'Pictures of Home' instead.
"One of my all-time favorite Blackmore songs is 'Gates of Babylon,' the one song I absolutely had to have on Inspiration. To me, that was the epitome of how good you can play guitar, and I felt dwarfed by it. That song probably fits my style more than anything else on Inspiration."
Fans of Allan Holdsworth's fluid, jazz-flavored virtuosity will want to hear Malmsteen's whiplashing rendition of "In the Dead of Night." "That solo was one take. I tried my best to follow Holdsworth's superb legato playing, but it's nowhere as good. It's a cool song to play lead over because you get to use your brain a lot."
Malmsteen hopes that covering the material of other artists will help him attract new fans. "For the U.S. market, Inspiration is the right album for me now," he says. "By doing 'Carry On Wayward Son' I might be able to get airplay in the U.S. And also, my version of 'Manic Depression' might give people a different impression of me because I sing lead vocals. Hendrix was my biggest early influence, and I would never have picked up a guitar in the first place if it weren't for him."
Though universally heralded as a guitarist's guitarist, Yngwie can burn brightly on bass, too. He played a Fender Precision on most of Inspiration. "I'm most pleased with my bass work on 'Gates of Babylon' and [Rush's] 'Anthem' because I really get to let loose on those tracks," he says. "I prefer playing bass with a pick because you can never get the same sound with your fingers. There's always a bit of a clunk whenever you hit a note with your fingers, whereas with a pick there's an instantaneous attack and you can play more accurately. Many really good bassists find it degrading to play with a pick; they think it's far more impressive to play with your fingers. That may be true, but I don't think it sounds as good."
Just prior to embarking on his international tour in support of Inspiration, Yngwie finished composing A Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra, the most ambitious project of his career. "The guitar will be the only modern instrument on it," he says. "Once it is scored, it will be rehearsed and set into stone with an orchestra and choir. I've talked to the Leningrad Philharmonic and the New York Symphony, and both were very much interested in working with me. But I don't want a symphony orchestra--I want a Baroque chamber orchestra because I want a more intimate sound. I'll be recording the Concerto Suite this coming June with the Prague Philharmonic, and I hope to be able to perform it live with an orchestra in major cities all over the world in 1998.
"I'm probably more highly regarded in classical circles than in rock circles these days," says Malmsteen. "Classical musicians look at me as a contemporary soloist rather than as a rock guitarist. I get fan letters from violinists who listen to my albums before going on stage to play Tchaikovsky concertos! The circle is complete: I took from classical music and now classical musicians are getting something from me. This 'Concerto' project is something I've always wanted to do, and I'm not pretentious about it. It's not like, 'Oh, I think I'll do a concerto." It's a natural evolution of what I've always wanted to do, and I'm shooting high. It's really going to be my magnum opus.
"Whenever I compose, I arrange everything--the bass and vocal lines, the keyboard modulations and voicing, and even how I want the drums to sound. That's how all classical composers work, and that is how I've always worked, so this project is not so alien to me. And orchestra members don't have overblown egos; they play whatever is written out on paper. I mean, no cellist will say, 'I don't like this part--I'm not going to play it,' because if he did, he'd get a big boot crack in his ass. As most people know, I'm no run-of-the-mill guitarist who just plays a bunch of chords. I've never worked that way--not since I started playing in bands as a teenager. Never!"
Yngwie hopes the Concerto Suite will prove to Malmsteen's detractors, once and for all, that he is capable of more than just fretboard flash. "I don't know of any other guitarist who has undertaken so adventurous a project," he says. "When other people utilize an orchestra, they usually have live rock drums and maybe a vocalist. They have a band and an orchestra. What I'm doing is not the same thing. It's only me, an orchestra, and a choir. It's a scary thing and not so easy to pull off, but I like a good challenge. And since I'm the composer and soloist, there is obviously going to be lots of guitar. Ultimately, the Concerto Suite will be very baroque-sounding, but it will also have some regal, bombastic sounds reminiscent of Beethoven, like the opening fanfare. There's also a fugue that is very Bach-like, and a requiem--11 movements in all. That's why it's called a concerto suite. On most of the movements I'll be playing electric guitar, and there will be some acoustic playing as well.
"It will go a lot further, classically, than my first solo album ever did," says Malmsteen. "Rising Force put classical elements in a rock setting. This is going to be a pure classical album but done with electric guitar. It should be filed in record stores in the classical music section. With this endeavor, I'd like to be accepted as a contemporary classical composer."
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