Yngwie Malmsteen first became known in the 1980s for his neoclassical playing style in heavy metal, and has released 22 studio albums in a career spanning over 40 years.
37 Facts About Yngwie Malmsteen
2.
Yngwie Malmsteen was born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerback in Stockholm, Sweden, the third child of a musical family.
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At age 10, Yngwie Malmsteen created his first band, Track on Earth, consisting of himself and a friend from school playing the drums.
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At age 12, he took his mother's maiden name Malmsten as his surname, then slightly changed it to Malmsteen and altered his third given name Yngve to "Yngwie".
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Yngwie Malmsteen has stated that Jimi Hendrix had no musical impact on him and did not contribute to his style.
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In early 1982, Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records, who had heard a demo tape of Yngwie Malmsteen's playing from the 1978 demo titled Powerhouse, brought Yngwie Malmsteen to the United States.
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Yngwie Malmsteen played briefly with the band Steeler on its 1983 self-titled album.
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Yngwie Malmsteen then appeared with Graham Bonnet in the band Alcatrazz, playing on its 1983 debut No Parole from Rock 'n' Roll and the 1984 live album Live Sentence.
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Bonnet and Yngwie Malmsteen clashed about who was the frontman and had a fight during a show.
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Yngwie Malmsteen was fired on the spot from Alcatrazz and replaced by Steve Vai.
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In 1984, Yngwie Malmsteen released his first solo album Rising Force, which featured Barrie Barlow of Jethro Tull on drums and keyboard player Jens Johansson.
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Yngwie Malmsteen's album was meant to be an instrumental side-project of Alcatrazz, but it ended up featuring vocals by Jeff Scott Soto and Malmsteen left Alcatrazz soon after the release of Rising Force.
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The tour was cancelled after Yngwie Malmsteen was involved in a serious car accident, smashing his V12 Jaguar E-Type into a tree, which put him in a coma for a week.
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Yngwie Malmsteen continued to record and release albums under the Japanese record label Pony Canyon and maintained a devoted following with fans in Europe and Japan and to a lesser extent in the US.
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In 1996, Yngwie Malmsteen joined forces with former band members Jeff Scott Soto and Marcel Jacob on the "Human Clay" album where he played lead guitar on the track "Jealousy".
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Yngwie Malmsteen was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Doogie White, whose vocals were well received by fans.
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In 2003, Yngwie Malmsteen joined Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as part of the G3 supergroup, a tour showcasing guitar performances.
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Yngwie Malmsteen made two guest appearances on keyboardist Derek Sherinian's albums Black Utopia, and Blood of the Snake where Yngwie Malmsteen plays on the same tracks as Al Di Meola and Zakk Wylde.
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In 2004, Yngwie Malmsteen made two cameo appearances on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.
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Yngwie Malmsteen was drunk and behaving obnoxiously, until he fell asleep and was roused by a woman pouring a jug of iced water on him.
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Yngwie Malmsteen says that the name of the album refers to both the energy of the album and the incident.
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In 2007, Yngwie Malmsteen was honored in the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II.
23.
February 2008 saw the replacement of singer Doogie White with former Iced Earth and Judas Priest and current Beyond Fear singer Tim "Ripper" Owens, with whom Yngwie Malmsteen had once recorded a cover of Ozzy Osbourne's song "Mr Crowley", for the 2000 Osbourne tribute album Bat Head Soup: A Tribute to Ozzy.
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On 25 November 2008, Yngwie Malmsteen had three of his songs released as downloadable content for the video games Rock Band Rock Band 2 and later Rock Band 3.
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In 2008, Yngwie Malmsteen was a special guest on the VH1 Classic show "That Metal Show".
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On 10 March 2009, Yngwie Malmsteen's label Rising Force released Angels of Love, an all-instrumental album, which featured acoustic arrangements of some of his best-known ballads.
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Yngwie Malmsteen recently released another album compilation entitled High Impact on 8 December 2009.
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Yngwie Malmsteen appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on 3 February 2011 to promote his album.
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On 6 August 2011, Yngwie Malmsteen made another appearance in the United States, playing a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a game between the St Louis Cardinals and Florida Marlins at Sun Life Stadium.
30.
In February 2015, it was announced that Yngwie Malmsteen was in the studio working on a new album.
31.
In 2018, it was announced that Yngwie Malmsteen had signed with Mascot Records, with a new studio album expected the following year.
32.
On 8 May 2021, Yngwie Malmsteen was reported to have launched the Parabellum album and video for the "Paganini-referencing" track "Wolves at the Door".
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Yngwie Malmsteen was married to Swedish singer Erika Norberg and was married to Amber Dawn Landin.
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Yngwie Malmsteen has been a longtime user of Fender Stratocasters with DiMarzio HS3 single-coil pickups "for playing at blistering volume with no hum or screechiness".
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Yngwie Malmsteen has a Fender Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Stratocaster since 1986.
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Besides Stratocasters, Yngwie Malmsteen has played and appeared in ads for non-Fender guitars and played non-Strat-shaped guitars, early in his career.
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Today, for acoustic and nylon string guitars, Yngwie Malmsteen uses his signature Ovation YM68s.