Interview with Yngwie Malmsteen at Hard Rock Hell with Dawn Osborne of TotalRock

Yngwie you’ve been here in the UK doing a few dates, such as Hard Rock Hell. But it’s been a long time since you’ve been here?

The last time we played here was in 2017, a one off show.

And it was the pandemic and everything like that that got in the way?

Absolutely. Yeah, that was a really bad thing. It was crazy bad.

Now, you got a new album out in the time over the pandemic, it’s called Parabellum. How did you come to that title?

Well, I like to do things, you know, that have some sort of a deeper meaning, in Latin Parabellum means prepare for war from the phrase if you want peace, prepare for war, and also it’s what a nine millimetre round is called. I am a gun collector.

When I was thinking about the Latin I was thinking, if Yngwie Malmsteen had been around the ancient Romans would have listened to him. There’s a sense of grandeur about your music, an awareness of a  place in history, being the best, all things that the Romans loved.

I’m going to Rome right after this.

Okay, well, they love you in Italy?

Yeah, it’s been great. Actually the whole world has been really nice to me. So I can say thank you to everybody.

When I think of you, I think of three P’s perfectionist, passion and power. It was really funny to see your story about less is more do you want to tell that story again for people?

It’s actually a true story. I grew up in Sweden, but I’ve been in America for 40 years or so. But anyways, before I came to America, I actually spoke English fluently. But obviously, there were some terms and sayings that were not on my radar. So I was doing a solo in the studio, and it was this producer. I don’t usually use producers, but this was an album, some other band. So I’m doing a solo take and he goes, “Oh, that was really good. Yeah. Really nice. Um, can we do one more? You know, a little slower, a little less notes, remember, less is more”. And I looked at him thinking he means more is more. I really honestly thought he misspoke. Obviously, that’s a term they like to use. I’ve never believed less is more personally.

Going back to the new album, it’s a return to neo classical, (because you did a blues album before that). It’s more the kind of stuff that you’re traditionally known for. And you said that you took more time in the pandemic over it. You pay absolute attention to everything you do, all the detail, everything must be right. And I understand you’ve done it so people would listen in strict order to the whole album as a body of work.

That’s what I like them to. It’s like making a film, a movie, you don’t just want to look at one scene, you know, because it’s really put together so that it forms a whole. Normally, I would be touring and recording and touring, which is actually really good. But I had a lot of time in the Pandemic to refine things. You gotta be really careful not to try to refine things too much, because if you do you lose the spontaneous feel. I learned a lesson a long time ago that, even if you have a lot of time, you shouldn’t necessarily use all the time. So, what I did was I tried to keep everything the very first takes, stuff like that. But I did spend a long time on the arrangements and the production, and how I made everything flow together. And you know, introductions, little intros. I would sit and I would drive, I love my car. So I was driving around in my car, I was listening to the song, maybe I recorded a solo there, like three, four days ago, that was improvised. They are always improvised. And I hear a note “Oh, yeah, I like that. Note that I want to put a third harmony on that.” So, a lot of times I would make an album and when it was finished, I would think, “Oh, I should have done that”. But on this one, I actually did it. So in this one, there’s really nothing I would change even now. Whereas on most other albums I’ve made, I would say, “Oh, I would have done that little different, I’m gonna do this little different”, whatever. But this one still, till this day remains exactly like I wanted it. That’s fantastic. Yes and very rare for me.

It may change the way you do things in future?

I don’t think it’s ever gonna be made like that again, because it was very concentrated. Because I do enjoy just going on the road, I like that to keep it fresh. I mean, Parabellum was definitely a very, very, very, very thought out thing, except for the solos, obviously, because they’re always, always improvised. And I don’t want to do more than one take. An if it doesn’t happen for us take one, then I’ll do it another day. I don’t even listen to it. I just do one take and that’s it.

I saw your Rick Beato interview and you were saying you thought it was strange that everybody else learned their solo and did it again?

Well, I’m not talking down at that. I’m just saying it’s very strange to me, you know, because ever since I started playing, which is a long time ago, I just play. I happen to know exactly what I’m doing. There’s no mystery about the the theory, the science behind the music. I’m extremely aware of that. Basically, you know, where not to go. But you don’t go to same place. You don’t go to the same place, but you don’t go to the wrong place.

A lot of people don’t have that musical knowledge though. You have to be really skilled in order to be able to improvise all the time, you have to really understand the way music works.

But the funny thing is that I grew up in a family of classical musicians. Okay, all of them. Opera singers, violinists, pianists, flautists, whatever, you know, all of that. And I also had some other members of my family with jazz. And I know this classical realm very well, you know, not only the music, but also how the people how they function and stuff, because I’ve done a lot of stuff with the orchestra as well, you know, but the thing is that, as great as they are, the difference from what they’re doing and what the original composers did from Mozart to Beethoven, Bach to Vivaldi and Paganini, any of the great ones that you can think of, they were improvisers. Whereas people in the classical realm now that’s a very alien thing to them. Glenn Gould, for instance, he was amazing. He would interpret a Bach piece. He would do it so, so perfect. I admire that. But that’s not what I do, that’s not what the composers did either. That’s not what Bach thought. When they wrote cadenza on the page in E flat, that meant a solo part for the soloist, but they had to write something down. So now when the violinist, when he plays something like that, it’s a very different way of approaching the music. And then you have people that jam all the time, and just play like blues and stuff like this, which is great, too. But I like to, I like to just surprise myself, you know, which is very difficult to do. You know, where to go where not to go. But you want to go somewhere different anyway. And that’s the challenge and the excitement and the danger, and that’s why I’m still doing it. I don’t think I would do it otherwise.

I also thought it was amazing to think of you in your car, listening to the music and deciding whether or not to put vocals on the tracks and singing. Do you make up the lyrics as you’re going along? Do you improvise those as well?

Maybe, that’s never really a set thing. Ancient Aliens History Channel or a political thing or whatever happened in ancient Sumeria or what happened yesterday in the political realm, it could be anything triggering off .. or just a word, one word could be a trigger for a song, or a lyrical line just comes to me. And the title comes in afterwards. You know, like ‘Wolf at the Door’, for instance. That’s not something I thought, it was a title I put in after the lyrics are written. So I say that it’s never a set way. No.

There are four songs with lyrics on the album?

Yeah

I loved the cover, which is a very intimate portrait, actually, I think it shows you, the real man. Tell us a little bit about the artwork of the cover?

Well, it was my wife’s idea. She, she wanted me to be as a painting and it was a very good idea. And then it goes to her charity and we were involved with that. I wasn’t sure about a portrait. But it came out great. I’m really happy with it, good painter, very different, it’s cool.

Okay, now you have an iconic image like Ritchie Blackmore, not many people have that kind of image as a guitarist. People are really in awe of you, there’s almost afraid of you, I would say, because your reputation precedes you, when people meet you. And I just wondered, the real man against the image? Are you comfortable with that? How is it for you?

You know, I don’t really put something on. I’ve always been extremely determined and very, very clear, in my vision, extremely clear. And I never really wondered about anything, I knew, and I know, “that’s where I’m going”, boom, like that. And that’s obviously how I managed to come from a socialist country in the Arctic Circle to this, because I went against everything that they told me to do. But, that’s neither here nor there. The performance is the thing, that’s a natural thing for me, I like to perform, I like to get a visual with the music as well. But it’s not something I tried to do or put on, it just happens. I saw some funny comments on that Rick Beato thing. “He seems like such a nice guy.” And I’m like, I’m not doing anything different than I ever did. I’m just exactly the same. When I grew up, for instance, you know, a lot of people said, “Well, you can’t do that. You can’t play like that. You’re never gonna make it. You have to play like this. You have to do it like this.” And I said, “Well, that’s great. Why don’t you do that, then? You know, and keep that for your solo album”. But the thing is that, if I had to do that, to get well known, then I’d rather not be well known. Because if it’s not real, I don’t want to do it.

There’s a couple of tracks on the album, one’s called ‘Eternal Bliss’, one’s called ‘God Particle’, and there’s quite some spiritual content to some of those tracks, I think. Are you a spiritual person?

I am in a weird way, because people don’t think that I am. But I really am. Because I’m a very deep thinker. You know, and I always was. I was talking, thinking, full of philosophical terms, when I was like, five years old.  One of the frequent questions I would ask my mother was, “why do we live here?” referring to Sweden. “It’s too cold here.” A trivial example, but anyway, the thing is, that I believe in a greater thing. 100%. Much greater than us. But I’m not sure that anyone has the real answers. I’m not like a real follower or nothing, you know? I mean, I’m not against religion at all. I think that’s great. Most people actually find that it’s a very good thing. I’m a Christian. I believe in that, but I’m not saying that. I just know, that we are not it, there’s something much bigger than us. And I can tell you that I get some sort of signals, something comes to me, and I have no fucking idea where it comes from. That’s a fact. When I saw my son being born, that was that was it, you know, “there’s a God for sure”. And then you can believe whatever you want, call it whatever you want, but there’s something much bigger than us. 100%.

You almost mentioned it when you were thinking about lyrics in the car, do you think it is some sort of divine inspiration?

You could call it that? Yeah. You could call it that for sure. I don’t question it. You know, I just let it happen. And that’s really the greatest moments, you know, when creation or, music in my case, is when it just is. It’s complete, it’s finished, done. I don’t even have to think about anything he’s done, you know? So it’s a gift from somewhere. I don’t know what it is. Obviously if somebody said you have to write a country and western song now, I could do that right now.  If I had to write a death metal song, I can do that too. Because I know the tricks of the trade. I know how it’s done. But I wouldn’t consider that a creation that I would be very proud of. On the ‘Parabellum’ album I think I recorded something like 99 things, but kept it down to 10. 90% was good, but it wasn’t the prime inspiration.

The Spark?

Yeah What sort of happens and you kind of just flow with it, rather than pushing yourself. That’s the best time.

The radio version of this interview’s gonna go out on Christmas Eve. What does Christmas mean to you?

Oh, I have very good memories of Christmas as a kid, you know, it was really good. It was always really dark and cold. But that was a very nice time. Always, always beautiful.

Your idea of Christmas is very traditional then because in Sweden, they really do the traditional Christmas?

It’s the biggest thing there. It was when I was a kid anyway. I mean, it was the biggest thing. Yeah, it was really cool.

And how do you spend Christmas day typically, what’s a typical Christmas?

Nothing special. It all depends. We have the tree you know, presents, nothing extreme. It’s not the same as when you were a kid. And then my son is grown up now too.

Yeah, you must be hell to buy for,  what do you give the man who has everything already? But it’s nice when someone cares about you and buys you something?

Yeah.

And if you could give a present to the world, what would you give the world?

Wisdom because with wisdom follows peace and harmony and creativity and not all the shit that’s going on in this world now. Okay, I’m not saying that I could do that. But if I could, I would.

Yeah! That’s a great note to end on. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.