I always wrote everything - I wrote all the lyrics, I wrote all the melodies, everything; it's just somebody else sung it. And to me, the singer is nothing else than a different... like a bass player or a keyboard player - they're not more important than any other musician.

Yngwie Malmsteen

Steve Morse is a very good guitar player, but he's American, and he's using humbucker pickups. If you ask me, those two are not good.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I think the singer in Pearl Jam should eat some Pearl Jam! He cannot sing to save his life! And the guitar player needs to seek help.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I think that Zappa intentionally made his music weird, but did it with intelligence.

Yngwie Malmsteen

The simple truth is that in order to become good, you have to be obsessed. You have to put in an awful lot of time and hard work and couple that with desire and unflagging perseverance.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I joined Alcatrazz a month after I recorded 'Steeler.' The big difference between Steeler and Alcatrazz is that in Alcatrazz, I wrote the songs. When I went to the Alcatrazz audition, they had no songs and no direction. They also had a questionable drummer.

Yngwie Malmsteen

When the glam metal thing of the late '80s became too glammy, then instead of having two bottles of hairspray in your hair, it became better not to wash your hair at all. To me it's all trend stuff. I don't follow that stuff. I just do what I feel is the right thing. I don't know what the reason is for that. It's not fashion.

Yngwie Malmsteen

My band's motto is 'Yngwie or the highway.' Do you think Leonardo Da Vinci allowed someone who came later to add to his paintings? It's impossible. That's the whole issue. I'm not a typical rock n' roll guitarist nor a simple band member.

Yngwie Malmsteen

To get a feel for the right-hand picking technique, you have to let the pick 'fall' from string to string as if you were strumming a chord. It's important that you don't separate the pick strokes.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I remember when I was a kid, if you had your name on a piece of vinyl, man, you were, like, in the halls of Valhalla; all of sudden, you were hanging out with Odin and being at the table of the gods. You were the real deal; you weren't some guy struggling in a garage somewhere.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I didn't have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn't 'practice' it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I grew up in a family that was very musical, learned the blues and everything like that. And I became a little bit frustrated with the simplicity of rock n' roll and blues. I started listening to a lot of classical music - mainly Bach, Vivaldi.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I'd love to perform in India, but I don't book the gigs. It's one of the few places I haven't played. One of the Indian instruments that I love is the sitar. I played it on some of my songs, including 'Pyramid of Cheops' and 'Crucify.'

Yngwie Malmsteen

Using double coil pickups kills a lot of the guitar tone - you lose the acoustic mechanics. With my single-coils driven through the Marshalls and overdrive, it sounds massive.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I've been playing for aeons now, but way, way back, I remember Eddie Van Halen came out ,and I loved his playing. He was amazing. But then everyone started copying his guitars with Floyds, and I didn't.

Yngwie Malmsteen

Every day has to be a day that counts. It can't be a wasted day. I'm very dedicated to always keep doing something that I would consider good.

Yngwie Malmsteen

I'm very selfish. I make music that I love because I only live once, and I'm an artist. I don't try to revolt against anybody, and I don't try to please anybody. I feel very strongly that I if love it, someone else will love it - not everybody, though.

Yngwie Malmsteen

People - myself included - expect a certain standard from me. I always have to elaborate or improve on my playing. My success hasn't made me at all laid-back. That relentless drive is still there.

Yngwie Malmsteen

Sweep picking is when the right hand sweeps down and up the strings in succession. But when you do sweep picking, one note rings into the next, and it sounds almost like you're playing a chord, and that's exactly what you don't want.

Yngwie Malmsteen

The business has changed dramatically from what it was even just a few years ago. Music isn't even distributed the same way anymore. Even CDs are becoming a thing of the past. The Internet has made it easier to get my music out to anyone who wants it, but at the same time, I feel like we're losing the mystique.

Yngwie Malmsteen

When Alcatrazz played in Japan in early '84, the record label offered me the opportunity to do a solo album while continuing to play in the band. I wanted the whole album to have vocals, but the record company didn't want that. Initially, the album was released solely in Japan.

Yngwie Malmsteen