Shred Man Walking
Guitar World, February 2001
"For the past five years my former manager had been telling me I couldn't get a record deal in the States to save my life," says Yngwie Malmsteen, relaxing at his Miami home a few days before heading off on a three-continent press jaunt. "So I fired my manager. And here I am, six months later, with a new U.S. record deal. Not only are they releasing my new album, of which I'm extremely proud, but they're releasing my last eight albums here as well."
War to End All Wars (Spitfire) is Malmsteen's new album, and the metal guitar legend has good reason to be proud of it. Not only does it show him at his peak performance as a songwriter and guitarist-- it also signifies his new concerted effort to return as America's king of shred. It's a title Malmsteen held throughout much of the Eighties, when he was unquestionably the genre's most technically accomplished guitarist, a virtuoso who fused classical influences and metal into a dazzling, lightning-fast technique.
But while Malmsteen's legend remains intact, his career has taken its share of hard knocks. A 1987 car accident nearly killed him and left him with extensive nerve damage in his picking hand. While recovering, he learned that his mother had died and that his manager had bilked him out of much of his earnings. Although he fully recovered and went on to score a hit with the 1988 single "Heaven Tonight," the ascent of the grunge/alternative scene destroyed his chance of capitalizing on one of the best albums of his career, 1992's Fire & Ice (Elektra). In the intervening years, he's seen his first two marriages fall apart and been swindled, once again, by underhanded management.
Now, at last, both Malmsteen's career and personal life are on track. By releasing his eight most recent albums, several of which were previously unavailable in the U.S., Spitfire Records is giving new life to Malmsteen's Nineties catalog, which was largely ignored by American audiences. What's more, Malmsteen is married once again, with a two-and-a-half-year-old son. For once, family life seems to agree with him. Now 37, Yngwie Malmsteen is unwaveringly focused, and less wild by far than in his hard-living heyday.
"Finally, I have stability in my life," he says. "When you're living a wild life and partying too much, your inspiration is there but it's more scattered. Now I can really concentrate, which is why my playing on my new album is better and more focused than ever before."
That focus is apparent on War to End All Wars, a ferocious melodic onslaught that holds true to the metal bombast-cum-classical beauty of vintage Yngwie. As always, he pulls off fret-scorching guitar licks, wielding them with new-found authority. For years, his skills have made guitarists shake their heads in wonder; yet his talent for playing ultra-fast guitar runs is even more mind-boggling today. Small wonder that even current players like Slipknot's Mick Thomson and Creed's Mark Tremonti claim Yngwie among their influences.
"All I ever wanted was to make a living playing music in the States," says Malmsteen. "I had no idea whatsoever that my playing style would influence so many musicians."
When 19-year-old Yngwie Malmsteen burst onto the L.A. music scene in 1983, he injected the guitar world with a much-needed shot of adrenaline at a time when Eddie Van Halen's two-handed-tapping frenzy was the most copied technique among rock guitarists. Performing first with Steeler and shortly afterwqrd with Alcatrazz, Malmsteen introduced guitarists to alternate picking, sweep arpeggios and harmonic-minor scales. Eventually, his influence became so widespread that GIT's curriculum at Musician's Institute in Los Angeles dedicated a part of its program to the techniques Malmsteen popularized. Says Yngwie, "I've always wanted to combine the aggression of metal with the beauty of classical music so you'd have the best of both worlds. And I've not swayed from that path ever since."
Even when his stateside popularity declined, Malmsteen continued to find good fortune overseas, where his brand of neo-classical metal shred has never gone out of fashion. But now, in his determination to capture the U.S. market, Malmsteen has placed greater emphasis than ever before on his songwriting. In that respect, War to End All Wars (on which he also played bass) features some of his strongest compositions. Instead of creating vehicles for superkinetic guitar excursions, Malmsteen has carefully constructed a collection of tunes whose melodies stick with you even while his guitar playing blows you away.
Yngwie is the first to admit that much of his previous output wasn't up to his best abilities. "There's no doubt that I pretty much wrote the book on overplaying," he says. "For years, my credo has always been, 'more is more,' but now I understand the value of playing just what a song calls for. War to End All Wars is a celebration of songwriting. It's a tribute to the value of marrying melody with lyrics and riffs, and just making it all work together. The guitar solos-- I just knocked them out; they're not calculated. As for the songwriting, I just wanted to write songs that really flowed."
It's a vibe that he carried throughout the album, straight to the recording process, which took place in his own state-of-the-art home studio. "I've always felt a bit stifled in the studio," he admits. "I used to have Red Light Fever. But now that I've been recording in my own place, I don't hold back any longer. I'm comfortable enough to step out and throw myself over the cliff and hope that I land someplace soft. I was very, very careful to avoid making mistakes on my earlier records. Now I let loose completely. I'm popping strings left and right! I'm doing this insane run now where I bend the high E string from the 21st fret, C#, all the way up to F#, which is way beyond the fretboard. Sometimes the string holds and sometimes it breaks. I go crazy in my studio-- I scream into the pickups, scrape the guitar against the console. I'm putting a lot more energy into my playing than ever before.
"My solos are completely off-the-cuff, since they're all improvised," he adds. "Lots of guitarists figure out what they'll play in the solo before they record it. If I come up with an extremely advanced and complicated passage-- a very difficult arpeggio or something-- I can still play it off the top of my head, no problem, because it's just reproducing something that's already been conceived. However, it's very difficult to pull a guitar solo out of the air that's going to blow everybody-- including myself-- away. You can't push a button and just make it happen. And when you know you're being recorded, it makes it even harder. I very much enjoy listening back to what I recorded and saying, 'Wow--I can't believe I actually played that.' "
In addition to Malmsteen's improved songwriting, what gives War to End All Wars an edge over his previous rip-fests is its fierce, in-your-face sound. Mark Boal's impassioned vocals sail above the music, and each instrument cuts through the mix with clarity and richness. By utilizing analog and digital technology, Yngwie has crafted an album that combines the best of both worlds.
"Historically, rock and roll has been recorded on two-inch 24-track analog machines," he explains. "However, the new 24-bit hard disk recorders currently on the market are so ridiculously good that it would be a shame not to use them. The digital domain is virtually unavoidable these days." Malmsteen struck a compromise between the two formats. "The drums, bass, rhythm guitar and organs on the new album were recorded on my Studer A827 analog machine. I also used an Otari Radar2 random access digital audio recorder, which I purchased about two years ago. It's great for recording back-up vocals and any other kind of overdub, and it's especially useful for recording guitar solos because it has very accurate punch in/out features.
"I invested tens of thousands of dollars into my studio," he adds, "because I didn't want any limitations whatsoever. And even though I'm using computers now and again to run my console, you must never forget that I make my living playing a piece of wood!"
To that end, Yngwie's instrument of choice is the Fender Stratocaster. "God bless Fender for making the most timeless instrument," he says. "A Fender Stratocaster is like a Stradivarius; it's an instrument that cnnot be improved upon or made to look any cooler."
At present, Malmsteen has some 20 Strats that are virtually identical to "the Duck"-- his 1971 cream-colored Strat, so nicknamed for the Donald Duck sticker on its headstock. Apparently, his taste for cream-colored Strats knows no bounds. "Whenever I happen to be in a guitar store anywhere in the world and come across a '71/72 cream-white Strat with a maple neck, I'll buy it."
Although Fender markets a signature series Yngwie Malmsteen model Stratocaster, Yngwie played vintage Strats on War to End All Wars. "I played my older guitars on the new album," he explains, "because I've grown so accustomed to them that it's like shaking hands with some old friends."
At the urging of the album's engineer, Brian Fitzpatrick, Malmsteen was coaxed into playing the Duck on his new album. "Brian kept handing me that guitar during the recording. I said, 'I haven't played that thing in years-- that one's done!' I retired it years ago because it had gotten too worn out from constant onstage abuse. But Brian said to try it out, and I wound up recording many of the rhythm tracks with it."
Apart from that excursion into the past, Malmsteen's focus is squarely on the future. He's well aware that metal has changed dramatically in recent years. But with characteristic confidence, Yngwie believes he has what it takes to win over a new generation of metal fans raised on Korn and Pantera. "As long as those fans get to hear the album, I think they'll like it, because my music is very aggressive. The major difference between my kind of heavy rock and theirs is the singing. I write the guitar melodies and the vocal melodies. The vocalist in my band doesn't sound like he's choking on something, which is what so many vocalists in today's bands sound like they're doing."
It certainly doesn't hurt that, for once, Malmsteen has help in his bid for stateside success. Spitfire Records is working in conjunction with Malmsteen's overseas labels to put him back in the spotlight-- and, perhaps, into an altogether different musical genre. Among his past works being issued by Spitfire is Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in E flat minor Op. 1, his most ambitious effort to date. The album has received acclaim overseas, especially in Japan, where Malmsteen will perform the work live with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra next June. An audio CD and DVD of the concert are planned, after which Yngwie plans to perform additional classical shows with orchestras in selected major cities worldwide. If that tour is successful, Malmsteen will become the only rock guitarist to make a full-bodied transition into bona fide classical music.
But even if that happens, one supposes Malmsteen won't really be satisfied until he stakes his claim in America's metal scene. "Metal is on an upswing," he says, "with a vengeance-- I can feel it. And even if it doesn't come back with a vengeance, I am coming back with a vengeance. That I can assure you."
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