Legendary guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen, who has often been criticized for his his blistering arpeggios, exotic scale runs and infatuation with harmonic minor, says that he doesn’t pay attention to his detractors.
“I think maybe people are very short-sighted, and that’s just the way people are,” he tells Eonmusic in a new interview. “I learned to live with that a long time ago. You’ve got to understand that before — I mean, 37 years ago — I came to the States, I was struggling in all sorts of ways, because I wasn’t trying to be commercial sounding or anything like that. The vein of music that I did was extremely heavy, extremely fast, extremely complicated. If you heard some of the demos that I did in ‘79 or ‘80, it was basically pretty extreme, and so a lot of people go, like, ‘This guy’ll never make it.’ They were always laughing. I’ve heard shit like that all my life, it seems.”
Malmsteen credits his perseverance for helping him reach his goals and his dreams.
Among the songs Malmsteen tackles on “Blue Lightning” are classics by The Beatles (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”), Jimi Hendrix (“Foxey Lady”, “Purple Haze”), The Rolling Stones (“Paint It Black”), ZZ Top (“Blue Jean Blues”), Deep Purple (“Demon’s Eye”, “Smoke On The Water”) and Eric Clapton (“Forever Man”).
(Blabbermouth)