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Yngwie Malmsteen is arguably the most technically
accomplished hard rock guitarist to emerge during the '80s. Combining
a dazzling technique honed over years of obsessive practice with
a love for such classical composers as Bach, Beethoven, and Paganini,
Malmsteen's distinctively Baroque, gothic compositional style
and lightning-fast arpeggiated solos rewrote the book on heavy
metal guitar. His largely instrumental debut album, Rising Force,
immediately upped the ante for aspiring hard rock guitarists and
provided the major catalyst for the '80s guitar phenomenon known
as "shredding," in which the music's main focus was on impossibly
fast, demanding licks rather than songwriting.
Malmsteen released a series of albums over the course of the '80s
that, aside from slight differences in approach and execution,
were strongly similar to Rising Force, and critics charged him
with showing little artistic progression. He was also reviled
as an egotist whose emphasis on blazing technique ultimately made
for boring, mechanical, masturbatory music with no room for subtlety
or emotion. Malmsteen responded by insisting that since he was
already playing music he loved, he had no desire to develop any
further, and that his love did come through in his playing. He
also vehemently insisted that it was his imitators, not him, who
reduced songwriting and composition to merely generic vehicles
to show off the guitar player's amazing technique.
Toward the end of the decade, Malmsteen fell out of favor with
metal audiences, and even some of his musician fan base seemed
to tire of him and the incredible amount of practice it would
take for them to emulate him. Following a series of personal setbacks,
tragedies, and even injuries, Malmsteen eventually resurfaced
on small, independent labels and then recorded at a prolific,
rapid pace, continuing to play the music he loved in his patented
neo-classical style.
Yngwie (pronounced "ING-vay") Malmsteen was born Lars Johann Yngwie
Lannerback in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1963, later adopting his mother's
maiden name following his parents' divorce. He was an unruly child,
and his mother tried without initial success to interest him in
music as an outlet. However, when seven-year-old Yngwie saw a
television special on the death of Jimi Hendrix featuring live
performance footage of Hendrix setting his guitar on fire, he
became obsessed with the guitar, learning to play the music of
both Hendrix and favorites Deep Purple. Through Purple guitarist
Ritchie Blackmore's use of diatonic minor scales over simple blues
riffs, Malmsteen was led toward classical music, and his sister
exposed him to composers like Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Mozart.
He spent hours practicing obsessively until his fingers bled,
and by age ten, his mother allowed him to stay home from school
to develop his musical talents, particularly since he was considered
a behavioral nightmare.
Also at age ten, Malmsteen became enamored of the music of 19th
century violinist/composer Niccolo Paganini, as well as Paganini's
flamboyant style and wild-man image; this would provide the blueprint
for Malmsteen's synthesis of classical music and rock. By the
time he was 18, Malmsteen was playing around Sweden with various
bands attempting to find an audience for his technically staggering
instrumental explorations, but most listeners preferred more accessible
pop music; frustrated, Malmsteen sent demo tapes to record companies
overseas. When Mike Varney, president of Shrapnel Records — a
label synonymous with the term "shredder" — heard Malmsteen's
tape, he invited the guitarist to come to the United States and
join the band Steeler in 1981.
Steeler recorded one album with Malmsteen on guitar, but dissatisfied
with the band's rather generic style, Malmsteen moved on to the
group Alcatrazz, whose Deep Purple and Rainbow influences better
suited the guitarist's style. Still not quite satisfied, Malmsteen
formed his own band, Rising Force, with longtime friend and keyboardist
Jens Johansson. The new band's first album, also called Rising
Force, was released in 1984; it was a largely instrumental affair
spotlighting Malmsteen's incendiary guitar work and Johansson's
nearly equally developed technique. The album was an immediate
sensation in guitar circles, winning countless reader's polls
in guitar magazines, reaching number 60 on Billboard's album chart
(no mean feat for an instrumental album), and receiving a Grammy
nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Malmsteen's
subsequent albums, Marching Out and Trilogy, also sold quite well
and consolidated his reputation and influence as a composer as
well as a soloist.
However, on June 22, 1987, a speeding Malmsteen crashed his Jaguar
into a tree; in breaking the steering wheel with his head, he
received a blood clot in his brain which nearly killed him and
extensively damaged the nerves leading to his picking hand. In
the course of recovery, he learned that his mother had died and
that his manager had swindled him out of his earnings. Undaunted,
Malmsteen regained the use of his hand and recorded Odyssey, his
most accessible, radio-friendly collection to date; the single
"Heaven Tonight" widened his audience beyond a devoted core of
guitar fans and helped push the album into Billboard's Top 40.
Following a world tour including the then-Soviet Union, the Rising
Force unit disbanded, and Malmsteen formed a new band in his native
Sweden for 1990's Eclipse. The album was a success in Europe and
Japan, but stiffed in the U.S. without much promotion.
An angry Malmsteen left PolyGram and, prior to the release of
1992's Fire and Ice, he was married to and divorced from a Swedish
pop singer. Fire and Ice debuted at number one on the Japanese
charts, and Malmsteen toured the world again. However, disaster
struck frequently over the next two years. Hurricane Andrew destroyed
Malmsteen's Miami property; his manager of four years died of
a heart attack; Elektra dropped him from their roster; a freak
accident left the guitarist with a broken hand, in addition to
frequent bouts of tendinitis caused by his lightning technique;
and in August 1993, Malmsteen's future mother-in-law, opposed
to his engagement to her daughter, had him falsely arrested for
holding the woman hostage with a gun. The charges were quickly
dropped, and Malmsteen secured a deal with the Japanese label
Pony Canyon after his hand had healed completely.
He returned to recording with a vengeance, releasing The Seventh
Sign in 1994, as well as two mini-albums (Power and Glory and
I Can't Wait), and then Magnum Opus in 1995 and the all-covers
album Inspiration in 1996. After several years in near obscurity,
Malmsteen returned to the headlines in 2002, after a fellow airline
passenger threw water on Malmsteen after he allegedly made a slanderous
comment about homosexuals. This incensed Malmsteen, who had to
be escorted away by security, all the while he screamed to the
passenger that she had "unleashed the f***king fury". This stint
proved to be so popular in revitalizing his career that his come
back album in 2005 appropriated the phrases as its title. While
his popularity has largely faded in the U.S. due to a backlash
against the excesses of '80s shredders, Malmsteen still finds
audiences in Europe and is more popular in Japan and Asia than
ever.
This bio courtesy www.allmusic.com
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