Top 55 Yngwie Malmsteen Quotes

To get a feel for the right-hand picking technique, you have to let the pick ‘fall’ from string to string as if you were strumming a chord. It’s important that you don’t separate the pick strokes.

Everything that I think that a society should offer someone, which is nothing other than the ability to be able to do what you wanna do, is offered by America.

When Alcatrazz played in Japan in early ’84, the record label offered me the opportunity to do a solo album while continuing to play in the band. I wanted the whole album to have vocals, but the record company didn’t want that. Initially, the album was released solely in Japan.

My band’s motto is ‘Yngwie or the highway.’ Do you think Leonardo Da Vinci allowed someone who came later to add to his paintings? It’s impossible. That’s the whole issue. I’m not a typical rock n’ roll guitarist nor a simple band member.

At first, I didn’t think playing guitar was the right thing for me to do. But after seeing Jimi Hendrix on television the day he died, I realized it was a really cool instrument to play and not wimpy at all, which was how I originally perceived it.

I didn’t have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn’t ‘practice’ it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

I love all kinds of Indian music, and Indian food as well. If the chance arises for me to play in India, I’m there.

I am convinced that there are few, if any, American people that could even start believing or understanding what living in a socialist country does to a person.

Using double coil pickups kills a lot of the guitar tone – you lose the acoustic mechanics. With my single-coils driven through the Marshalls and overdrive, it sounds massive.

I think that Zappa intentionally made his music weird, but did it with intelligence.

If you suck, you’re gonna suck real bad, and if you play well, it’s going to sound really good.

There was an old acoustic in the house that my mother had given me for my fifth birthday. I took it off the wall and started jamming. I was seven years old at the time.

Using double coil pickups kills a lot of the guitar tone – you lose the acoustic mechanics. With my single-coils driven through the Marshalls and overdrive, it sounds massive.

It doesn’t matter what you make – if you create a movie or build a car or whatever, it’s the amount of blood, sweat, and tears and money and everything that goes into it that needs to be rewarded.

The biggest mistake people make about me is that they see me as some sort of god-like figure with a big ego. If I see a button, a T-shirt, that says, ‘Yngwie is God,’ I just look at it as a complimentary way of people telling me they like me. Although it’s very flattering, it doesn’t change the way I look at myself.

I’ve learned not to say, ‘No, I’d never do that.’

I’d rather have people dislike my style than change it. If someone says, ‘Hey, Yngwie, you play too damn much,’ I don’t care. They way I play is the way I like to play. If people like it, great. If they don’t, it’s still fine with me.

If you look at somebody like Bach, he didn’t need collaborators to write for keyboards, cello, violin or anything else. I feel the same way about my music. The times that I have worked with other people, I’ve been very unhappy with the results.

I still love to go in the studio and write and all that.

I want to say something very clearly. I understand that I’m a self-confident person who might come off with the wrong attitude sometimes, but I don’t mean to. I just believe in certain things, and I know exactly what I want. I’ve always sacrificed things in order to become the best musician I could be.

It doesn’t matter what you make – if you create a movie or build a car or whatever, it’s the amount of blood, sweat, and tears and money and everything that goes into it that needs to be rewarded.

Steeler was a good start for my career. They didn’t play anything dangerous – everything was formulaic – but I played all this crazy stuff on top of it, and that turned out to be an interesting combination. But by the time ‘Steeler’ came out, I was already out of the band.

When I was first getting into the guitar, I played it incessantly. I lived it, breathed it, ate it, and slept it. I was also extremely self-critical, so from early on, I made sure to develop good playing habits – I constantly strove to sound in tune and have a great tone, and to play cleanly and in time.

I think the singer in Pearl Jam should eat some Pearl Jam! He cannot sing to save his life! And the guitar player needs to seek help.

I am convinced that there are few, if any, American people that could even start believing or understanding what living in a socialist country does to a person.

‘Spellbound’ has a lot of guitar playing on it, obviously, but I wanted to keep it with a more straightforward beat. It doesn’t have so many stops and things like that. Whereas if you listen to ‘Majestic 12,’ that’s like a little symphony.

Every record store and record chain has folded; they don’t exist. They do not exist. And the only two outlets that would still sell CDs were Best Buy and Wal-Mart. They now have stopped selling it. There’s nowhere you can go into a store and buy a CD in America. That’s how it is.

Everything that I think that a society should offer someone, which is nothing other than the ability to be able to do what you wanna do, is offered by America.

When I was a kid, I played drums, and when I first got a 4-track, I would put down drumbeats and then do the rest of the tracks on top.

A lot of people don’t realize that guitar playing is very much like singing or playing any of the glissando-type instruments – you have to do it in tune.

Sweep picking is when the right hand sweeps down and up the strings in succession. But when you do sweep picking, one note rings into the next, and it sounds almost like you’re playing a chord, and that’s exactly what you don’t want.

I’d rather have people dislike my style than change it. If someone says, ‘Hey, Yngwie, you play too damn much,’ I don’t care. They way I play is the way I like to play. If people like it, great. If they don’t, it’s still fine with me.

I learned a lot from other people, and was inspired by what they did, but I didn’t copy anyone. I put many different blocks together to become what I am. I don’t know if that would have happened if everything was handed to me on a plate.

Someone like Allan Holdsworth sometimes plays the wackiest things, but does it with panache, such taste.

Every other guitar player was just copying other guitarists. From the time I was 13 up until 18, I practiced at least eight hours a day, every day. My health suffered for it – I was losing sleep and not eating properly.

I think that Zappa intentionally made his music weird, but did it with intelligence.

When I play guitar, it’s automatic. I don’t try to do something; I just do it. And it’s already so ingrained in what I do, I don’t think about it. I don’t try to do something – I just do it. And the more I do it that way, the more I surprise myself. And if I surprise myself, that’s the best thing.

People – myself included – expect a certain standard from me. I always have to elaborate or improve on my playing. My success hasn’t made me at all laid-back. That relentless drive is still there.

I joined Alcatrazz a month after I recorded ‘Steeler.’ The big difference between Steeler and Alcatrazz is that in Alcatrazz, I wrote the songs. When I went to the Alcatrazz audition, they had no songs and no direction. They also had a questionable drummer.

I love all kinds of Indian music, and Indian food as well. If the chance arises for me to play in India, I’m there.

The business has changed dramatically from what it was even just a few years ago. Music isn’t even distributed the same way anymore. Even CDs are becoming a thing of the past. The Internet has made it easier to get my music out to anyone who wants it, but at the same time, I feel like we’re losing the mystique.

My band’s motto is ‘Yngwie or the highway.’ Do you think Leonardo Da Vinci allowed someone who came later to add to his paintings? It’s impossible. That’s the whole issue. I’m not a typical rock n’ roll guitarist nor a simple band member.

At first, I didn’t think playing guitar was the right thing for me to do. But after seeing Jimi Hendrix on television the day he died, I realized it was a really cool instrument to play and not wimpy at all, which was how I originally perceived it.

My fourth birthday, I was given a violin, and my fifth birthday, a guitar. I didn’t start to play until I saw Hendrix on TV. They showed him setting his guitar on fire and burning it for the Monterey Pop Festival.

I emigrated to the U.S. on February 3, 1983, when I was 19 years old. I joined Steeler right away and recorded the album the following month. I’d been playing in bands in Sweden since the age of 11, but ‘Steeler’ was my first album.

What I do know is rock and roll and metal never goes away, ever. It took the back seat in America in the ’90s. In Japan and South America, it was still really big. I never followed trends, so I don’t know the exact function of them.