Yngwie Malmsteen – Biography | Shredaholic.com (original) (raw)

Posted by on 12/21/04 • Categorized as Artists

ok, so he wasn’t the first person to play classical music on the guitar…

…but he sure did take it to the extreme…

Lars Johann Yngwie Lannerback was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on the last day of June, 1963. He was a very obsessed guitar player when he was young and practised constantly; his early idols were Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, and Eddie Van Halen mainly. After listening to a lot of rock music he gradually got tired of the pentatonic ”box shape” sound and wanted to take it further. It was then when he started listening to classical music and was fascinated by its intense melodies and song structures and eventually decided he wanted to combine the music intensity and feel of classical music and the power of rock to create his own sound.

Once he was old enough, he went to the USA to record his first album entitled ”Rising Force’’; this is one of the best if not the best ”neo-classical” albums you will hear and one that revolutionised the genre. Yngwie blew all the guitar players away at the time with his blistering speed and technique, and arguably today remains the king of neo-classical metal.

In 1987 Yngwie suffered a near-fatal car crash, resulting in a blood clot to his brain, putting him in a coma. After lying unconscious for nearly a week he pulled through only to discover his picking hand was dead, he eventually pulled thorough thankfully in the end.

Yngwie has worked with many artists on his records notably Joe Lynn Turner, Jeff Scott Soto and the Johanssen brothers, and has gone on to tour the world and release a lot more music. Also Yngwie has never changed his style to fit trends; he just writes music for himself, which is good advice for new aspiring young guitarists.

Yngwie J. Malmsteen – We Salute You.

Tagged as: Biography, Yngwie Malmsteen