YNGWIE MALMSTEEN - "I Don’t Need Producers, Outside Writers, And I No Longer Need Singers"

12:18 Wednesday, 18 October 2023

In the latest issue of Classic Rock magazine (order here), guitar legend Yngwie Malmsteen adressed the question of how much of the negative attention he has received over the course of his career is deserved, or whether he’s misunderstood. Following is an excerpt from the story.

Malmsteen: "People really don’t understand what I’m doing. This is not a band. It hasn’t been a band since 1984. That’s strange for rock n’roll people to comprehend, but it’s how I work. I’m a painter. I won’t do half a painting and call you up and say: 'Dave, please finish it for me.' Working with others, I felt like I was subtracting something, and not adding. That’s often mistaken for egotism, but really it isn’t. Singers have a real problem with the fact that they are part of the ensemble, performing my music. They just don’t get it.”

“The way I work is different to everybody else. I can wake up in the middle of the night and hear a perfectly completed song – including the production. Therefore I don’t need producers, outside writers, and I no longer need singers."