At the age of 10 he took his mother's maiden name Malmsteen as his surname, and Anglicised his given name Yngve to "Yngwie". Yngwie (pronounced ing-vay") means "young Viking man" in Swedish.
Malmsteen was in his teens when he first encountered the music of the 19th century violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, whom he cites as his biggest classical influence. Through his emulation of Paganini concerto pieces on guitar, Malmsteen developed a prodigious technical fluency. Malmsteen also cites Jimi Hendrix, Brian May of Queen, Steve Hackett of Genesis, Uli Jon Roth, and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple as influences.
Malmsteen broke new ground and contributed to the evolution of modern rock guitar, particularly with his embracing of modal progressions and classically-influenced techniques not widely used in rock music. He is often credited, along with Randy Rhoads, with increasing the popularity of the neoclassical heavy metal genre and inspiring a new generation of electric guitarists including Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, and Tony MacAlpine.
1980'sIn late 1982 Malmsteen was brought to the USA by Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records, who had heard a demo tape of Malmsteen's playing. He had brief engagements with Steeler, for their self-titled album of 1983, then Alcatrazz, for their 1983 debut No Parole From Rock N' Roll, and the 1984 live album Live Sentence. Malmsteen released his first solo album Rising Force in 1984. His album was really meant to be an instrumental side-project of Alcatrazz, but it contained vocals, and Malmsteen left Alcatrazz soon after the release of Rising Force. It was a success; it was the winner of Guitar Player Magazine's Best Rock Album and was also nominated for a Grammy for 'Best Rock Instrumental', achieving #60 on the Billboard album chart. This was followed by Marching Out (1985). Jeff Scott Soto filled vocal duties on these initial albums.
His third album, Trilogy, featuring the vocals of Mark Boals, was released in 1986. In 1987, yet another singer, former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner joined his band. That year, Malmsteen was in a serious car accident, smashing his Jaguar XKE into a tree and putting him in a coma for a week. Nerve damage to his right hand was reported. In a tragic twist of fate, during his time in the hospital, Malmsteen's mother died from cancer.
In the summer of 1988 he released his fourth album, Odyssey. Odyssey would be his biggest hit album, mainly because of its first single "Heaven Tonight". Shows in Russia during the Odyssey tour were recorded, and released in 1989 as his fifth album Trial By Fire: Live in Leningrad. The concert in Leningrad was the largest ever by a western artist in the Soviet Union.
In late 1988, Malmsteen's signature Fender Stratocaster guitar was released, making him and Eric Clapton the first artists to be honored by Fender.
Malmsteen's "Neo-classical" style of metal became moderately popular during the mid 1980s, with notable contemporaries such as Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Tony MacAlpine and Vinnie Moore all reaching prominence after Yngwie. However, only Paul Gilbert claimed Yngwie as an influence, with MacAlpine coming to the neoclassical/shred field by applying his classical piano training to his guitar playing and Moore arriving at a similar style because he shared Yngwie's major influences, Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Al Di Meola, American jazz fusion great of Return to Forever fame.
1990'sIn the early 1990s Malmsteen released the albums Eclipse (1990), The Yngwie Malmsteen Collection (1991), Fire and Ice (1992) and The Seventh Sign (1994).
Despite his early success, and continuous success in Europe and Asia, by the early 1990s stylings of 1980s heavy metal had become unfashionable in the USA. It was quickly displaced by the Seattle grunge movement, where technical ability was replaced by simpler songs.
In the 1990s, Malmsteen continued to record and release albums under the Japanese record label Pony Canyon, and maintained a devoted following from some fans in Europe and Japan, and to a lesser extent in the USA. In 2000, he once again acquired a contract with a US record label, Spitfire, and released his 1990s catalog into the US market for the first time, including what he regards as his masterpiece, Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra, recorded with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague.
In 1993, Malmsteen's mother-in-law, who was opposed to his engagement with her daughter, had him arrested for threatening her with a shotgun and holding her daughter against her will [1]. The charges against Malmsteen were quickly dropped when he denied that the incident ever occurred.
2000'sAfter the release of War to End All Wars in 2000, singer Mark Boals left the band. Yngwie went on tour with former Ark vocalist Jorn Lande. Due to various tensions on tour, Jorn left before the recording of Yngwie's next album, Attack!!. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Doogie White. White's vocals were well received by fans, and it seems that he has become a permanent member of the band.
In 2003, Malmsteen joined Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as part of the G3 supergroup. Yngwie made two rare guest appearances on keyboardist Derek Sherinian's albums Black Utopia (2003), and Blood of the Snake (2006) where Yngwie is heard on the same tracks as Al Di Meola and Zakk Wylde.
Yngwie released Unleash the Fury in 2005. As stated in an issue of "Guitar World" magazine, he titled this album after the infamous 'airline incident', which occurred in a flight to Japan for the 'Odyssey' tour. He was drunk and behaving obnoxiously, until he fell asleep and was roused by a woman pouring a jug of iced water on him. Enraged, he shouted, "You've released the fucking fury!" The audio from this incident was caught on tape (
http://www.blabbermouth.net/yngwie_tokyo_flight.mp3) by a fellow band member.
He is married to April and has a son named Antonio after Antonio Vivaldi. A noted Ferrari enthusiast, he owns a black 1985 308 GTS and a red 1962 250 GTO. In recent years, Yngwie has given up both smoking and drinking. The Malmsteen family lives in Miami, Florida.
