Yngwie brags about his ability to write Country and Western/Reggae/Death Metal

[Greg McCoy]

I fucking love YJM, so no hate here, and I will definitely get his new album and see him live whenever possible. I also think he's a great guy who gets a lot of unnecessary flack. He is one of the greatest ever. Not only as a guitarist but also as a showman.

But god damn if he isn't dropping some of the most Yngwie quotes ever to promote his new record. The man's ability to convey perfectly harmless and completely correct ideas in a way that somehow make him seem like an egocentric idiot is unparalleled.

The perfectly reasonable idea Yngwie meant to convey: "Well, the theory behind music is universal, so I could really do any genre."

What Yngwie ended up saying: "I could write the greatest country and western song with a reggae/death metal bridge right now on the spot to prove my talent to you, pull it straight out of my soul"

Only Yngwie could stick his foot in mouth like that and fuck up a perfectly sensible answer in which he is trying to convey the reasonable and correct idea that music theory is genre-less and make it about his abilities to write reggae.

Although weirdly enough, maybe he is actually going Reggae/full Bob Marley. The cover for the new album looks like this, because of course it does.

[Hulk Krogan]

I've seen Ynwgie jam on Jimi Hendrix tunes before and I'm calling bullshit on this.

[scole]

He didn’t say the songs he wrote in those styles would be any good..

[Greg McCoy]

I've seen Ynwgie jam on Jimi Hendrix tunes before and I'm calling bullshit on this.

The best thing to come out of the history of Guitar World Magazine is the Abbath interview where he does his "Yngwie lick". Don't know if it's in this one, but it's from this session.

The funniest part is that Abbath and Yngwie are pretty much the exact same person. Ultra bombastic with mental health and substance abuse issues but on some level vaguely aware of how ridiculous they are and play it up. Abbath way more than Yngwie on that last bit.

There is ample evidence that when Yngwie drops the "arrogant rockstar" act he picked up when he moved to the US in the 80s (dude has been wearing a wig since the 80s) he is really a nice guy and at least semi lucid. This is such a funny story. https://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/b...wie-malmsteen/

Apparently he was just led to believe he had to act like that in the '80s and by this point has largely internalized it.

Dude is one of a kind though, I don't care what anyone says. All the other shred guys are interchangeable snoozefests. There is only one YJM. Massive fan.

[Chris]

I've seen Ynwgie jam on Jimi Hendrix tunes before and I'm calling bullshit on this.

I dunno, this pretty much rules.

[Markus]

I've seen Ynwgie jam on Jimi Hendrix tunes before and I'm calling bullshit on this.

Huh, the "Purple Haze" version I've seen from him was pretty cool. A bit over the top at times, but that's Yngwie. But based on that, if he wanted, he could totally nail the Hendrix style by just toning down the shred for 3 minutes..

[jacksonplayer]

This was the work product that resulted from Zappa hearing a country song on the tour bus and claiming he could write something like that in 10 minutes:

[RevDrucifer]

I have to assume at this point his management has gone to him and said, “Look, your personality is bigger than your music these days. Keep being Yngwie J. Malmsteen whenever you can. Be the flamboyant, cocky guy you were in the 80’s because that’s the Yngwie people love.”

He had a period from like, 2010-2020 where he seemed like he had calmed down quite a bit. I saw him crack jokes on his self for his attitude in the 80’s, but this is right back to old form.

[jacksonplayer]

Reading Yngwie's comment charitably, I see him as saying "I've learned enough over the years that I could work in almost any musical genre, but I do this particular thing because it comes from my musical soul."

That's pretty reasonable, actually, it's just that he doesn't phrase it very well--it looks like he's implying he'd be better at country, reggae, etc. than the people who work in those genres, when I don't think that's what he actually means.

I do think he's slipping, though. He forgot the "J." in his name on the album cover.

[Greg McCoy]

I have to assume at this point his management has gone to him and said, “Look, your personality is bigger than your music these days. Keep being Yngwie J. Malmsteen whenever you can. Be the flamboyant, cocky guy you were in the 80’s because that’s the Yngwie people love.”

He had a period from like, 2010-2020 where he seemed like he had calmed down quite a bit. I saw him crack jokes on his self for his attitude in the 80’s, but this is right back to old form.

He's a mercurial dude, and a not insignificant amount of the general human population suffers from conditions like Bipolar Disorder.

I'll take someone who is real and has bad days of being a total asshole over someone who does the really fakey hyper curated "such a humble nice guy" thing any day of the week.

That's especially true in the modern social media age. I can't stand the people who are like "oh, so and so is such a humble down to earth guy".

Usually the guys who present the hyper curated squeaky clean image of "a nice humble down to earth guy who never gets a bit unhinged" are the biggest assholes. That's all a sham act.

Sebastian Bach also gets a lot of it, Bruce Dickinson also has, surprisingly (to me at least), a lot of detractors.

Like, they are just acting like real human beings.

I'll take "real" over "such a nice guy, never has any YJM/Sebastian Bach/Bruce Dickinson unhinged moments" any day of the week. I'm actually surprised at how many people fall for it.

Usually the guys who have reputations as kind of highly strung are capable of being actual nice guys, and the guys with this super curated image of "nice humble guys" are shams. It's about as fake as the "If I could have anything it would be world peace" answer at beauty pageants or your ungrateful relative who is always the first to say "I think we should go around the table and say what we are thankful for" at thanksgiving.

I also know a ton of dudes who put up the Stepford Wives fakey fake thing because it makes for the smoothest sailing networking wise, and I'm always amused hearing people being like, "oh, he's just such a nice humble guy that is never an asshole like YJM". Nah, they are just smart enough to keep that out of view to avoid making waves. Their actual friends know perfectly well they can be massive assholes, like every other normal person.

The amount of people who fall for it blows my mind. And then the inevitable shock when a story comes out, as they often do, that the guys who had the most impeccable facade of "nice mild mannered guy who is so humble" is a massive diva behind the scenes to people who actually know him.

For a genre that focuses on authenticity and a macho image, the amount of metal fans that can't tell the difference between "is a nice and humble guy for PR reasons" and "is actually a pretty nice guy but can also be a total asshole like most real people who don't put up facades for networking reasons" is mindblowing. It's even more oblivious than the people who can't tell the difference between "Real smiling" and "posed smiling for a photo op".

It's even more obnoxious than the fans who are like "I just think it's great that everyone in this scene has eachothers backs, they are all congratulating eachother on their successes and encouraging eachother in public posts on social media and in interviews! So heartwarming."

You have to dumb as shit to fall for that stuff. That's called "networking" and is part of a tit for tat system built on mutual exposure and publicity. A lot of those times dudes hate eachothers guts.

Like, if someone is actually your friend, they aren't going to only communicate with you when it generates PR for them with a name drop to demonstrate a networking association in a social media "shoutout" to make you look like a nice humble dude.

You learn that especially quick doing photography. Everyone is a cool "humble and down to earth" guy with ultra friendly strained and posed smiles for the 30 seconds a lens is pointed at them standing in a line with other people with arms on each others shoulders, and then they fuck back off to whatever they were doing.

[Dominic]

ITT: Yng does Yng.

I love Yng.

I do think he's slipping, though. He forgot the "J." in his name on the album cover.

Get with the programme, dude. The J fell off for Live in Leningrad and didn't come back until Concerto Suite.

[Valtteri]

Good to see Yngwie is still himself. I seem to remember him blaming most of his bad rep on the Johansson brothers in his book.

The funniest part is that Abbath and Yngwie are pretty much the exact same person. Ultra bombastic with mental health and substance abuse issues but on some level vaguely aware of how ridiculous they are and play it up. Abbath way more than Yngwie on that last bit.

I've only seen Abbath live when he played with his Motörhead tribute band once; they were all completely shitfaced, but still put on an amazing show.

[Bloody_Inferno]

This was the work product that resulted from Zappa hearing a country song on the tour bus and claiming he could write something like that in 10 minutes:

Zappa has a better experience in shifting through multiple genees than Yngwie.

Ween took this concept further and did a full authentic country album with some of Nashville's finest.

[Drew]

I've seen Ynwgie jam on Jimi Hendrix tunes before and I'm calling bullshit on this.

Yeah, idunno, I had the same reaction to his talk about how he could do a great blues album if he wanted to, but his take on "Red House" from one of the G3 albums actually WAS pretty awesome. Hardly traditional, still sounded like him... but it worked.

I think I'd want to at least hear him out before saying he couldn't write a pretty good country song, and I', not even really a fan of most of his music.

[Soopahmahn]

I'm still waiting for clips, goddammit this would be glorious.

[bigdave]

I dunno, this pretty much rules.

Right? I am sure a guy as talented as YJM could certainly do any style he wanted, maybe not hit records but I would bet the guitar parts ruled. I've seen him do a bunch of blues, we know he does classical and I do not doubt one bit that if he wanted to he could chicken pick or play jazz standards.

What would freak everyone out would be him in jeans with no wig playing a Tele , that might be a sign of the End Times.

[jacksonplayer]

What would freak everyone out would be him in jeans with no wig playing a Tele , that might be a sign of the End Times.

I'd buy a ticket to see that, actually.

For what it's worth, the hard part of writing country songs is coming up with a single simple killer hook and lyrics that speak to everyone's common experience. The level of musical difficulty is secondary. I don't know that Yngwie would have as easy a time with that as he thinks. There's a reason why the best songwriters in Nashville make a killing.

[osiris]

The best thing to come out of the history of Guitar World Magazine is the Abbath interview where he does his "Yngwie lick". Don't know if it's in this one, but it's from this session.

The funniest part is that Abbath and Yngwie are pretty much the exact same person. Ultra bombastic with mental health and substance abuse issues but on some level vaguely aware of how ridiculous they are and play it up. Abbath way more than Yngwie on that last bit.

I often return to this video, sometimes to just show people that Abbath is Black Metal Yngwie. The part that nails it is how he keeps brushing his hair back and tossing his head :-D

[bigdave]

I'd buy a ticket to see that, actually.

For what it's worth, the hard part of writing country songs is coming up with a single simple killer hook and lyrics that speak to everyone's common experience. The level of musical difficulty is secondary. I don't know that Yngwie would have as easy a time with that as he thinks. There's a reason why the best songwriters in Nashville make a killing.

He could do like tons of country artists do and get outside writers. I'd even offer him the use of my country song "Trash Tragety" to get him a start.

"... its a bonified, certified, and a little county fried white trash tragety...."

[beneharris]

(dude has been wearing a wig since the 80s)

Has he really? I have a hard time picturing Yngwie as an old guy with no hair. It hurts

[jacksonplayer]

He could do like tons of country artists do and get outside writers. I'd even offer him the use of my country song "Trash Tragety" to get him a start.

"... its a bonified, certified, and a little county fried white trash tragety...."

Pretty good! You need to up your song title lengths if you want to reach the big leagues, though.

[bigdave]

Pretty good! You need to up your song title lengths if you want to reach the big leagues, though.

Yeah well its a older song from 15 years ago or so , and I had concern on the title having too narrow a demographic since everyone has their own trash sector, but something inclusive and catchy has illuded me.

[jacksonplayer]

Yeah well its a older song from 15 years ago or so , and I had concern on the title having too narrow a demographic since everyone has their own trash sector, but something inclusive and catchy has illuded me.

"This Trash Used to Be Her Treasure"

[bigdave]

"This Trash Used to Be Her Treasure"

Nice, we should finish this and get this to YJM right away. He has a little pot belly without the gurdle, ya think he can muster up full on Dicky Do?