You think you know someone, but can you really know anyone? Take Yngwie Malmsteen. We’ve had him on the phone. We’ve shot video with the man. He holds nothing back. As an interviewee, the shred maestro is an open book. Pure entertainment, too.
And yet, just as you think you’ve got him all figured out – Paganini-inspired, mahoosive all-Marshall backline, exclusively drives Ferrari sports cars, plays Fender Stratocasters – he drops the bombshell that he has been collecting Gibson guitars on the fly.
In the latest issue of Guitarist, he explains his relationship with the Big G, so to speak, and reveals the one Gibson that he returns to time and time again.
“I own a 1958 Flying V, plus old 335s and stuff like that. There are some old Les Pauls in my collection,” says Malmsteen. “Even though I don’t use them much, it’s nice to have them lying around.”
Malmsteen had already proven that his style works on a thicker ‘50s profile Les Paul neck, affixed to the body with hide glue instead of the four bolts of the Stratocaster’s neck joint. He went viral after shredding the bejeezus out of a 1959 Les Paul Standard. He even threw in a little turbo blues, just to show what a good sport he is.
One thing we took from that footage was that it just sounded like Yngwie. The best players always just sound like themselves, whether on their regular Strat or on a six-figure holy-grail single-cut whose weight and dimensions still momentarily throw Malmsteen whenever he picks one up.
“That ’59 I played was okay,” remembers Malmsteen. “Les Pauls can vary in terms of neck thickness, but they have a certain feel. I find the balance and weight of those guitars a bit strange, you almost have to hold them a certain way.”
Isn’t that true of all guitars, Yngwie? Well, it’s certainly true of his favorite Gibson. Though his has some choice modifications to make him feel more at home on it.
“The one Gibson I come back to a lot is the Flying V,” he says. “I really like those guitars. There’s one I have from the ‘60s that has three Strat pickups, a whammy bar and a scalloped neck. It’s pretty cool.”
You can read this interview with Yngwie Malmsteen in the latest issue of Guitarist, which is out now. Better still, save and subscribe.
In other Malmsteen news, he recently revealed that he was on the shortlist to play with David Lee Roth after he went solo – a gig that ultimately went to Steve Vai.
