Yngwie Malmsteen

Yngwie Malmsteen released ‘Blue Lightning’ in 2019, his twenty-first studio album and second collection of covers, extending a recording career that has now spanned more than 40 years. Widely regarded as one of the best guitarists in rock and metal, he first rose to prominence in the 1980s for bringing a neoclassical playing style into heavy metal.

Born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck on 30 June 1963 in Stockholm, Sweden, he grew up as the third child in a musical family. In 1975, his mother took back her mother Maud’s maiden name Malmsten, which Yngve adopted before reshaping it into Malmsteen and altering his third given name to ‘Yngwie’. He played his first show on 11 May 1976 with his first band, Track on Earth, alongside his cousin Erik Lannerbäck and a schoolfriend on drums; his brother Björn later joined on drums.

As a teenager, Malmsteen was heavily influenced by classical music, especially the 19th-century Italian violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini and Johann Sebastian Bach. He has stated that his guitar playing draws from classical violin rather than classical guitar, and that he is not influenced by the blues or Ritchie Blackmore’s style. Though he says Jimi Hendrix had no musical impact on him, seeing 1970 TV news footage of Hendrix smashing and burning his guitar at the Monterey Pop Festival made him think, ‘This is really cool.’

Across 22 studio albums, his catalog includes ‘Attack!!’ from 2002, his first record with singer Doogie White and keyboardist Derek Sherinian, and 2010’s ‘Relentless’, his eighteenth album, released on 23 November 2010 through his own independent label Rising Force Records and featuring ex-Judas Priest singer Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens. Early in his career he also appeared in music videos with Alcatrazz, including ‘Island in the Sun’ and ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ in 1983.