Johnny Marr spent much of his career avoiding the guitar-hero label.

As guitarist with the Smiths and throughout his solo career, Marr largely shunned guitar solos, prioritized songs over showmanship and frequently criticized the cult of virtuosity that dominated rock guitar culture in the 1980s.

That philosophy helped make Marr one of the most influential players of his generation. While the Smiths scored 17 hit singles in the 1980s, Marr built the band’s sound around intricate layers of overdubbed guitars, unusual chord voicings and a vast palette of tones. His style drew from the rock ’n’ roll primitivism of the ’60s, the grooves of the ’70s and the bright, chiming textures of the ’80s, creating a sound that inspired countless guitarists.

“I’ve always believed that any instrumentalist is basically just an accompanist to the singer and the words,” Marr told Guitar Player in 1990. “That’s born out of being a fan of records before I was a fan of guitar players. I’m interested in melody, lyrics, and the overall song. I don’t like to waste notes, not even one.”

The guitarist recently made headlines for a different reason, announcing plans to auction nearly 100 acoustic and electric guitars from his personal collection, including instruments used with the Smiths.

Among the highlights is the 1960 Cherry Red Gibson ES-355 that Sire Records founder Seymour Stein bought for Marr to help persuade the Smiths to sign with the label. The guitar is expected to fetch as much as $198,000. Also heading to auction is Marr’s 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo, which he purchased in 1983 and used on the Smiths’ self-titled debut, including “This Charming Man.” Marr later loaned the guitar to Noel Gallagher, who used it during the recording of Definitely Maybe. It subsequently appeared on the cover of Oasis’s “Supersonic” single.

Speaking to the BBC about the sale, Marr explained, “I didn’t like the idea of my studio space becoming a museum.”

Back in 1990, however, Marr was focused on another subject entirely: the army of guitar shredders dominating magazine covers and guitar-store walls.

“Who was it that said, ‘The reason why all those guitar players play so many notes is because they can’t find the right one?’” he asked Guitar Player in a cover interview. “I like to put the right note in the right place, and my influences have always been those kinds of players. Keith Richards comes to mind, and I really like Nils Lofgren’s soloing, because he’s so melodic. I love John Lennon’s rhythm playing, and George Harrison was an incredible guitarist.”

Marr’s admiration for melody and economy put him at odds with much of the era’s guitar culture.

“There’s a lot of guitar culture that I don’t like at all,” he said. “I find the traditional idea of the guitar hero to be really irrelevant to the 1990s. I don’t think that young people are that impressed with some guy brandishing spandex trousers and a hideously shaped guitar, playing that kind of masturbatory, egotistical noise.

“Being a soloist who wants to just display virtuosity is a dated philosophy, and I don’t think there’s any room for it in pop music. It’s the last stand of late-’60s/early-’70s rockism, and it should have gone a long time ago.”

Despite his criticism of shred culture, Marr made clear he respected players with genuine technical ability.

“I have a healthy respect for guitarists like Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen, disciplined players who really know what they’re doing — if you’re going to be a virtuoso, you can’t be hit-and-miss. But I think people like Yngwie Malmsteen should be forgotten as soon as possible, I really do.”

Marr then offered one of the interview’s most provocative observations.

“It’s got very little to do with music, and the ‘I’m the fastest gun in town’ idea is almost like homosexual panic. Nothing against gays, but when players perpetrate this incredibly sexist image of being so macho, I find it suspicious.

“Plus, I can’t do all that stuff, so that’s why I say it’s stupid,” he added with a laugh.

Fresh off celebrating the 40th anniversary of his groundbreaking debut Rising Force, Yngwie Malmsteen is once again unleashing the fury with a brand-new live album, Tokyo Live, that captures the neoclassical icon doing what he does best.

“I don’t plan anything,” he tells Guitar Player. “Not the solos, not the intros, not even the setlist. It’s like jumping onto a battlefield.”

And while his lifelong devotion to the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach has shaped the intricate harmonic language he’s famous for, Malmsteen reveals that his first guitar hero was actually Eric Clapton.

“I didn’t even know it was him at the time,” he says of hearing John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers as a child. “I just knew the guitar playing was amazing.”

From reel-to-reel recording experiments at age nine to turning down offers from some of rock’s biggest bands, the Swedish virtuoso opens up about his career, his new live album, the art of improvisation, and why he says the term sweep picking “certainly doesn’t explain” what he does with a six-string.

You’ve released a few live records over the years. What, for you, is the secret to a great live album — aside from a great performance, of course?

I learned through many years of doing this that the most important thing is to forget it’s being filmed or recorded. You have to be completely at ease with it.

We filmed two nights — Tokyo and Osaka. I said, “We need both.” That way, because everything I play is improvised — solos, intros, even the set list — if something doesn’t go right, there’s another take. Psychologically, that’s very good.

I don’t plan anything. Everything is completely spontaneous. So, yeah — you take a risk.

Tokyo Live is packed with classics from across four decades of your music career. What’s the most challenging song in your set to perform right now?

The thing is, with the songs, I’m funny like that. If I know a piece, even if it’s difficult to play, I’m not worried. I can play it. That’s not the issue.

It’s the improvisation. The spur-of-the-moment stuff — I can’t always control that. It depends on the audience, the sound in the hall, the lighting, the smoke bombs — all of it. Everything has to fall into place or you can knock yourself out of the right headspace. And then… you might not feel as inspired.

There’s something called “tennis memory.” In tennis, you have to forget whether you won or lost the last point and just focus on the point you’re playing — not the one before, not the one coming up. That’s what I try to do.

So it’s not a piece, per se, that is challenging, it’s the entire thing. It’s like jumping onto a battlefield, you know?

This album is a great representation of your current live show, but do you remember the first time you actually heard yourself recorded, playing?

Oh my god, yeah. We’re talking way back. My grandmother had this old two-track reel-to-reel. It wasn’t stereo — just two mono tracks, but what I realized was, I could record my guitar on one track, play it back, and record another guitar over it. I thought I invented double-tracking!

I was like, “Yeah, that’s cool!” I remember hearing more than one guitar on a Deep Purple album and thinking Ian Gillan played the second part, because there was a picture of him holding a guitar on the sleeve.

So I did it. I was nine, maybe 10. There was no internet back then. You had to figure this stuff out on your own.

How important do you think recording yourself and listening back was in your development as a player?

Extremely important. What I realized early on was that the only way to really judge where you’re at — how good or bad you are — is to record yourself. When you’re playing, your brain’s focused on so many things — picking, bending, everything — so you don’t hear it objectively.

I quickly saw that recording was the only way to tell, “That’s good. That’s bad. That needs work.” And I was extremely picky — even at nine years old. Maybe younger — seven or eight.

As I progressed, I understood more and more that whether it’s writing, improvisation or execution, it all has to be recorded. I still have some of those early tapes. You can hear me playing arpeggios back in ’77 or ’78. I was already there, you know.

You mentioned before that at nine years old, hearing Deep Purple’s Fireball had a massive impact on you. How quickly after that were you learning these Blackmore riffs?

Well, the story goes a little different. Without me actually knowing, my first favorite guitar player was Eric Clapton — and I didn’t know it was him. My mum had a record called John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and that’s all I knew. I didn’t really look at the record. I just heard it and thought the guitar playing was — this was when I was like seven years old — I was going, “Oh my god, this is so amazing.” It still is.

Then when I was eight, I got Deep Purple’s Fireball. And back then in Sweden, there wasn’t any real radio or anything like that. The only way you’d hear records was through your mates at school or whatever. So I put this record on, and the first thing I hear is double bass. And I was like… wow!

And you were just learning these guitar parts by ear, I’m guessing?

Yeah, by ear. Everything started with the blues box kind of thing. Then, around age 10, I heard Genesis — Selling England by the Pound — and they were using pedal tones and intervals, and I was like, “Wow, what is going on?” Because it wasn’t just the five-note thing anymore.

Then I got into Johann Sebastian Bach. My mom had hundreds of records — Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart — and a lot of jazz, too. But for some reason, jazz never clicked with me.

I had already fallen in love with distorted guitars and double bass drums, and I didn’t want to change that, but when I heard those tonalities and chord progressions from Bach — the counterpoint and all that — I was hooked.

I’d never heard anyone take the actual thought process of Baroque classical and apply it to hard rock. Sure, some bands did little bits here and there, but it was always rooted in the blues, and maybe they’d toss in one idea — but that’s where it stopped.

As a prodigy yourself, where do you stand on the whole “natural talent vs hard work” debate?

That’s a really good question. My mum always would say to me, “You have a gift from God,” and I’d say, “Yeah, sure — but I’m working my ass off,” you know?

But I guess I must have had some sort of pitch, or playing gift, because I remember very clearly being very, very young — I mean right off the bat — that I realized when you bend and vibrate and stuff like that, there’s a pitch there that has to be correct. I realized that from day one.

You’re a master of many guitar techniques, but in the past you’ve rejected the claim that you incorporate sweep picking in your playing. Do you kind of feel as if the term sweep picking is almost a little bit of a derogatory term toward the way you play?

Well, it certainly doesn’t explain it, you know. Because if sweep picking just means, like, two downstrokes in a row, then one up, then down-up like alternate picking — or two down and two up or whatever — you can’t really call that sweep picking. You could call it string skipping or something else.

I was never really taught, per se. I more or less invented my technique, because I never heard anyone play what I was hearing in my head. And it’s not always the same either. So I didn’t think about it in terms of mechanics as much as I thought about how it sounded.

In terms of visualization of the fretboard, was there a breakthrough moment for you — or was it just piecemeal, bit by bit?

Kind of. I talk about this in my book Relentless — the only book worth buying. The first two notes I played — I’m talking about the first day I started playing — I noticed a pattern and thought, Okay, you can do the exact same things on different strings.

I learned that really quick. I don’t remember exactly how it happened. I just figured it out myself. Well, it was hearing it and then kind of seeing it too, you know.

I always thought in linear modes, but very early on realized that there was much more going on than just a box.

When you first arrived in the U.S., you quickly joined the band Steeler, but I understand there were a few other big offers you had to turn down over the years?

Yeah. The first show with Steeler was at the Reseda Country Club in Reseda — 30 people there. I remember it like it was yesterday.

The second show we did was at the Troubadour in Hollywood. And it’s a classic moment, you know, because I’m in the dressing room upstairs — you can see the street from the window, and it’s lines around the block.

I’m standing there tuning my guitar, and I go like, “Hmm,” and I ask somebody that worked there, “Hey, who’s playing tonight?” And he goes, “You are!”

It was the talk of the town, you know, this crazy kid from Sweden playing. It was a funny moment in time.

In the early days with Steeler, I was offered to join UFO. And on the same day, I got contacted by what became Alcatrazz. It wasn’t called Alcatrazz yet. They didn’t have any songs. I wrote all of them.

I chose Alcatrazz because I wanted to write songs. As much as I liked UFO, I didn’t want to step into someone else’s thing.

I was also asked to join David Lee Roth’s band. He was leaving — or had just left — Van Halen. At the time, I was on a big U.S. tour with AC/DC, and then I did my own American tour with Talas opening — Billy Sheehan’s band.

Dave would come to the shows all the time. We’d hang out, too, at the Troubadour and places like that — back in the party days, you know? He obviously asked Billy too, and Billy took it. It would’ve been a great thing, I think.

It wasn’t officially on paper or anything, but it was clear what he was thinking. I was thinking, Oh no, I’m doing great, so I didn’t do anything.

Before all of that, I was offered to join Kiss. They called me up in 1982, when I was still in Sweden, because a tape of me had been circulating. They called me saying, “You’re hot, you’re hot.” I’m like, “Huh?”

They wanted someone over six feet tall. I’m six-foot-three, but I didn’t know that at the time because I used metric. I said, “I’m 192.” They didn’t know what that meant, so that was the end of it.

Through all the lineup changes and different personnel over the years, your 1972 Fender Stratocaster — the Duck — has been the one constant throughout your career. Is there a chance we’d ever see it on the road again?

No, but here’s the thing — Fender made me a copy to use onstage that’s just like the real one. It’s got the same cracks, everything — even down to the screws a tech put on wrong and a rusty tremolo bar.

Fender’s been amazing. They just released a 30th anniversary model, and yesterday, I was talking to them about doing a 40th. So keep an eye out for that.

Eddie Van Halen's reputation as one of the best guitarists in the world was well established by the early 1980s

Nevertheless, the virtuoso was reportedly intimidated by a newcomer on the scene: Yngwie Malmsteen.

The Swedish shredder's star rose after he was introduced to the guitar scene by Guitar Player in its February 1983 issue. His stock went higher as he networked in L.A. and earned his stripes, first with Steeler and then with Graham Bonnett’s Alcatrazz, having turned down a spot in UFO.

By that point, Van Halen were five albums deep into their career, having turned the guitar world on its head with “Eruption” and Eddie’s superlative tapping exploits in 1978.

But just as Eddie’s tapping had astonished guitarists five years prior, Malmsteen’s hyperspeed, classically infused playing began earning raves and injecting a fresh and superhuman element into the guitar scene.

According to Malmsteen, this had EVH running scared.

“I never said a bad word about him, because I think he was amazing,” the guitarist says in the new issue of Classic Rock. “But I used to know a guy that worked in the grocery store where Eddie would shop, and the guy would ask him, 'Hey, what do you think about Yngwie Malmsteen, the new Swedish kid?'

"And Eddie would say 'I don't know what that is.'"

Malmsteen claims he knew better, citing a source who was very familiar with Eddie: former Van Halen singer David Lee Roth.

“Dave Roth told me that Eddie would have his ghetto blaster, playing my shit on it all day long!”

Roth’s account is suspect, considering his reputation for questionable statements, and the second-hand statement from a grocery store clerk isn't exactly damning evidence.

But Malmsteen says he saw the effect he had on his fellow shredder with his own eyes.

“There's one time I remember when I was nominated for a Grammy [in 1986],” he recollects. Van Halen’s “Jump” had been nominated for Best Rock Performance two years earlier, only to lose out to Prince's “Purple Rain.” Now it was Malmsteen’s turn in the limelight, with his second album, Rising Force, up for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

“I go to the show — I had my tux on and everything — and I see Eddie there," Yngwie recalls. "I’m waving at him, trying to get his attention, he sees me, and he runs away. He literally ran away!”

“And I have an even more incredible story,” he continues. “I was doing a concert festival in Holland, and Van Halen was headlining. I'm like, ‘Great, I finally get to meet Eddie and give him my concerto.’ Because I'm proud of my concerto, you know?”

But his chance to finally meet the guitar superstar was scuppered when Van Halen pulled out of the show.

“They said Alex Van Halen had broken his little finger or something,” Malmsteen says, skeptically. “Then I hear that the promoter got a phone call from Eddie himself, who said, ‘Just to let you know, if Yngwie Malmsteen is playing, I'm not playing. And I will never fucking play the same stage as Yngwie Malmsteen.’

“He obviously felt threatened. Which is crazy to me. You're fucking Eddie Van Halen! Nobody could threaten you!”

To Malmsteen, it felt like a strange turn of events considering that Van Halen’s “attitude” had completely changed his own approach to recording only a few years earlier. He says he first discovered Van Halen through his then-drummer, who brought Van Halen's debut album to the studio.

“It was like somebody had dropped a fucking bomb. It was so good,” he says.

“But the funny thing is, it wasn't the 'Eruption' solo that really knocked me out. It was their attitude to go into the studio and record live. That was such an inspiration. So I decided I was going to record everything live from then on.”

Expanding on that moment during an interview with Guitar World in 2021, he said, “Overall it was the whole ‘Turn your fucking shit up and go for it’ thing that really got to me about Eddie. The impact he had on me was unbelievable. On all of us. It’s just crazy.”

Meanwhile, Eddie’s spirit continues in several ways, with Wolfgang Van Halen using his iconic Frankenstein guitar to record his new single, “The End” and Sammy Hagar, who has just begun his Best of All Worlds residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, says he wrote his new song with the guitarist in a dream.

Hagar also believes that his time with Van Halen helped Eddie become a better songwriter.

Swedish speed merchant Yngwie Malmsteen once said that he arrived in America “with one guitar, one toothbrush,” and a dream, before a Guitar Player spotlight, on a search for “the next big guitar hero,” thrust him into the limelight.

In the latest episode of The Eddie Trunk Podcast, he reveals that both UFO and Graham Bonnett’s Alcatrazz came knocking on his door in 1983.

“I played around with Steeler; we were all over the Sunset Strip,” Malmsteen tells Eddie Trunk. “One night we played in Orange County, and Phil Mogg of UFO came. I love that band, it was great. So, he was all like, 'Hey, I'm putting UFO back together. I've gotta get a great guitar player, so come to my house tomorrow.' I said, 'Yeah, I'll be there.'

“So, the next morning, I get a phone call from somebody. I don't know who it was. Some manager or something, from what became Alcatrazz. And that was the same day I was gonna see Phil.”

With a love triangle forming, Malmsteen met up with Bonnet and co. first to hear their proposal as the hours ticked down towards his meeting with Mogg.

“So, they come and pick me up, and they bring me to this rehearsal room. I started asking these guys 'What are your songs like', and all that stuff. 'Well, we don't have any songs yet.' I said, 'What's your direction?' 'We don't have a direction yet... But you got the gig!' I said, 'Well, let me think about it. I gotta go see somebody.'”

“I went to Phil Mogg's house, and he was super cool, but he didn't really have his stuff together as much as the other camp did. So, I called them [Alcatrazz] from Phil's house and said, 'Okay, I'll do your thing, but [a] couple of conditions: I write the songs, and we get a new drummer.' We ended up with the guy from Alice Cooper [Jannaro 'Jan' Uvena], but that's how that happened.”

The guitarist would play a key role in the band’s debut LP, “No Parole from Rock 'n' Roll”, released in October ‘83, but would soon forge his own path as a solo artist, with Steve Vai picked to replace him.

With 1984’s “Rising Force” and “Marching Out” one year later, the ever-independent Malmsteen no longer needed to listen to offers from other bands. He was a star in his own right. Did he harbor any regrets about turning down the chance to join a band he held in such high regard?

“I mean, it would have been awesome to be in UFO,” he admits, “but that would mean I would have to do a lot of their classics and stuff like that, which is good, but I was more into the fresh start thing.”

Bonnet held up his part of the bargain; Malmsteen has writing credits on each of the record’s 10 tracks. That’s something that would have been highly unlikely had he joined UFO. Japanese shredder Tommy McClendon ultimately got the nod instead, but was replaced by Laurence Archer after two albums,

It's not the first time a big name guitarist has turned down a chance to join a legendary band, with Jeff Beck famously spurning a spot in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers as he “didn't want to be mimicking Chicago blues musicians forever”. In hindsight, he accepted it may have been a better gig than the Yardbirds, with whom he would share a brief guitar partnership with Jimmy Page.

Dave Navarro, meanwhile, turned down the chance to team up with Slash in Guns N' Roses, believing he was too “left-of-center” for the band, but soon accepted the Red Hot Chili Peppers' advances as they sought a replacement for John Frusciante.

Malmsteen turned heads last year when he announced he was selling one of his most used Stratocasters, and was throwing in a free Ferrari as part of the deal.

The rise of grunge in the early 1990s killed the popularity of guitar virtuosity and technical wankery. Even so, it didn’t stop Joe Satriani from launching his annual G3 tour in 1996 with Steve Vai and Eric Johnson. Over the next decade, the shredfest became celebrated for presenting ever-changing lineups that featured some of the day’s most technically proficient players, like John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen and Robert Fripp.

But as Satriani tells Classic Rock, accommodating the players’ varying musical styles and idiosyncratic requests could be a chore at times. Take Fripp, who insisted on being an unlisted show opener and performing out of sight as attendees entered the venue during G3’s 2004 run.

“You have two extremes,” Satriani tells Classic Rock. “Like, Robert Fripp, who said, ‘No lights on me, I want to sit down and I want to be behind everybody.’ So it was sort of an ‘un-demand’, y’know?”

And then there’s Fripp’s polar opposite, the irrepressible Yngwie Malmsteen, who appeared on the 2003 tour, where he, Satch and Vai jammed on Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing."

“I mean, if you invite him, you have to just say, 'I know what I’m inviting,' ” Satch concedes. “To Yngwie’s credit, he always plays so great and always puts on the Yngwie Malmsteen show.

“The only problem that I would have is that sometimes he wouldn’t pay attention to other things happening onstage when his bit was done, because he’s just not used to not being the focus of the show. I’d say, ‘When Steve [Vai] is soloing, don’t throw your guitar up in the air right next to him, because he’s got his eyes closed. I don’t want him to get hit in the head.’”

Satch says launching G3 proved problematic simply because no one had ever done something like it before. Some guitarists’ managers saw it as a competition rather than a celebratory jaunt.

“The vibe back then was to keep the gunslinger guitar players away from each other,” he explains. “The record companies, the management — everyone was like, ‘Don’t stand next to that guy, because he’s your competitor.’

“So we had nice little arguments with them, saying, ‘This is different.’ This was something I felt the audience really wanted to see, because I wanted to see it. When I was 14, if I had a chance to see Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck together on the same stage, I’d think that was the greatest thing ever. I wouldn’t be thinking like a promoter, I’d be thinking like a fan.“

Considering that grunge essentially killed the whammy-bar wrangling, double-tapping guitar acrobatics that G3 would go on to celebrate, Satch he has no animosity. “I didn’t pay any attention to that, I guess,” he says, noting that his 1992 album, The Extremist, “came out as my love letter to the classic rock era, so it was a throwback record anyway. But when I emerged from the studio I realized, ‘Oh, it’s all Nirvana and Soundgarden.’ ”

And while many technically proficient guitarists love to slag Kurt Cobain’s rudimentary axe-handling skills, Satriani has nothing but praise for the way Nirvana’s frontman used his talents in service of his songs.

“He was a great guitar player,” Satch says. “You go back and look at Nirvana clips, and you realize this guy is playing everything he’s supposed to play. He’s not looking at what he’s playing, so obviously he really knows the instrument. And he’s playing with one of the greatest drummers of all time [Dave Grohl], so that wouldn’t have worked if he was not a good guitarist.”

Satch's appreciation for Cobain shouldn't come as a surprise to those who know him. After all, he, Vai and Guthrie Govan picked Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as one of their show-closing jams on the 2016 G3 tour.

Satriani is coming off a busy year that saw him revive G3 with Vai and Johnson for a limited run of shows, perform Van Halen–era songs with Sammy Hagar on his Best of all Worlds tour, and tour with Vai. The new year looks like it will be just as busy. Last month he and Vai announced they’ll hit the road in June as the SatchVai Band for the Surfing with the Hydra tour. The road stint will be the first time in their nearly 50-year musical careers that the two electric guitar virtuosos have performed as band members. Their tour begins June 13, 2025 in Europe, with more dates to be announced.

In addition, Satch and Vai have been writing new music together, which means a SatchVai Band album can’t be far behind. Stay tuned.

Dweezil Zappa has come to the defense of finger-blurring shredders, believing they’ve earned the right to set alight their fretboards.

In a new interview with Masters of Shred, Zappa has hailed the time, dedication, and talent players must exercise to pull off Ywngie Malmsteen-sized fretboard feats.

"The attention to detail of what it takes to actually be able to do those things, whether somebody likes the music or not, you can't deny that somebody has built incredible talent,” he says [transcribed by Ultimate Guitar]. “You can't just be a guy that can play Yngwie Malmsteen stuff. You have to do that for, like, 15 years to be able to get to the point where you could play one of his songs.”

For a man who grew up obsessing over Eddie Van Halen guitar work — and then had Ed visit his house (“It was like having your own toy Eddie Van Halen,” he remembers) — Dweezil knows that paying attention to detail is an important skill to develop.

“The ones that like the solo style of guitar,” he says, “they are detail-oriented, and they're willing to put the time in to actually acquire the skill. If you have it in your head that you can visualize it and you say, 'I'm going to do this,' whatever it is, it's great when somebody just says, 'Olay, I'm going to go fully into this.'”

Indeed, for some, shred for shred’s sake does the reputation of lead guitar no good. Dweezil is far less concerned about how it may be perceived.

“Some people look at it like, 'Oh, that's lame. Who cares about what that skill is.' But you've got to put the time in to do it. There's going to be somebody that likes what that thing is. It might not always be the thing that makes you have a comfortable financial lifestyle, but if you go full forward into the thing that you love, I'm all for it.”

Talking to Rick Beato about the fateful night his guitar hero appeared at his front door, Dweezil explained how crucial Eddie Van Halen’s atypical techniques — and that all-important attention to detail — were to creating his iconic sound.

This included how Eddie would flick his tapping finger upward, rather than with the usual downward motion that most players prefer.

After starting his guitar playing days as a pupil of Eddie’s, Dweezil later found himself teaching the late virtuoso how to play some of his father, Frank’s, most difficult riffs.

“In that moment, it was a total role reversal,” he reflects, “because as a 12-year-old, I was saying, ‘Play "Eruption," play "Mean Street," ’ thinking I could never play that. So I had this complete oddball experience. It was like the Jedi mind trick or something. It was very strange.”

Speaking to GP at the start of the year, Dweezil discussed his father's idiosyncratic lead style, saying that Frank “was a drummer who became a guitar player, so the rhythmic element within his soloing is ridiculously strong.

“He didn’t necessarily have the chops to where every single note was executed perfectly, but the charm of his playing is that he’s going for things that he might not be able execute.”

Dweezil Zappa released his brand-new signature Shabat guitar earlier this year, and it’s a quirky-looking electric guitar with a host of tricks up its sleeve.

MXR’s Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive pedal may be the company’s latest addition to its stomp box lineup. But as Ynwgie tells Guitar Player, the effect unit was some 60 years in the making. And it all started with the Swedish guitarist’s search for a signature tone.

“When I started out in Sweden, there was one TV channel from six to 10 p.m.,” he explains. “There was no information. There were no magazines. I didn’t know what guys like Hendrix or Blackmore were doing. I saw pictures where they had a Marshall. That was it. That’s all I knew. And Marshall made an amplifier called the Master Volume, and before then, they made the Plexi, with four inputs but no master volume, and there wasn’t much distortion.

“I wanted a Marshall, but it was very expensive. But suddenly, those Master Volume’s became obsolete. Nobody wanted them, and they piled up in stores, collecting dust. I’d buy them for, like, 30 bucks a piece, so I’d have more Marshalls than anybody.”

But as Yngwie quickly learned, all the Marshall amps in the world weren’t enough to create his elusive desired tone.

“From the very beginning, I had something in my head," he says. "I had a sound. When I was 13, I had this bright idea that I wanted to take the precise and fluid notes of a violin and do that on guitar. I wanted huge octave shifts without moving my hand, you know? That’s what I was going for.

“But whenever I would plug into, say, a more modern amp with high gain, to me that’s high gain, but it’s not a complete sound. The notes were too separated."

He soon realized the missing ingredient: an overdrive pedal. With that in his rig, Yngwie would go on to become a guitar hero virtually overnight thanks to a feature in the February 1983 issue of Guitar Player.

But finding the right one was a matter of trial and, mostly, error.

“I tried everything, and one day I found the DOD [Overdrive Preamp] 250. I bought it and put it between my amp and the Stratocaster, and I got the sound,” he says. “It’s the fucking sound that I have now. I never changed it.”

What did change over the years was the means by which Yngwie achieved his desired tone. In 2015, Fender gave the Strat-wielding guitarist his own signature stomp box: the Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive. “It was very good, but they decided they would stop making it because there was no market,” Yngwie explains.

“That's when I started talking to MXR. We went back and forth, and we made the perfect one. The noise floor is the lowest, and the gain stage is the highest that you can get. It’s not a distortion pedal; it’s what you put into the guitar. The guitar signal comes into it and gets a boost into the preamp of the Marshall. The Marshall reacts to it in a way that compresses and distorts the signal, so it’s more like a smooth violin guitar sound.”

So be aware that if you’re looking for that fluid, overdriven Yngwie Malmsteen tone, you’ll need more than a Strat and a Marshall tube amp. “You can’t just take a Strat and plug it into a Marshall and have the sound,” Yngwie says. “You have to have this. I’ve always had a version of it since day one, which was what? Sixty fucking years ago?”

If $175,000 for Yngwie Malmsteen’s scalloped #4 Fender Stratocaster seems a little steep, does a free Ferrari change things?

That’s the wild deal that Miami-based vintage car and guitar store Walt Grace Vintage is offering one individual with deep pockets and a need for speed.

It’s calling it a “once-in-a-lifetime chance,” with a 1983 Ferrari 308 GTS Quattrovalvole, also formerly owned by the Swedish arpeggio maestro, coming as a deal sweetener. “Own not only a piece of music history,” the store adds, “but also a slice of automotive greatness in an epic bundle.”

The neoclassical shredder, who just released a signature MXR overdrive pedal, has had an illustrious career, and his #4 Strat has been along for the ride as one of his main instruments.

The alder-bodied guitar has a modern C-profile neck. Its maple fretboard, in keeping with Malmsteen's preferences, consists of 21 scalloped medium jumbo frets.

Malmsteen’s signature Seymour Duncan YJM Fury Strat pickups, a six-saddle American Vintage Synchronized Tremolo complete with a whammy bar, and the usual setup of Strat controls sit atop its Vintage White gloss finish.

It’s a guitar with the weight of history attached to it. As its sellers explain, the guitar has been in studios and on stages with the guitarist countless times as Malmsteen has relentlessly forged a reputation as one of the best guitarists on the planet.

“This guitar is a significant piece of rock history, directly connected to one of the greatest guitarists of all time,” a representative of Walt Grace Vintage underlines.

“It's known for shaping his unmistakable neoclassical sound, has seen stages around the world, and holds the magic of Malmsteen’s fast-paced, virtuosic playing.”

But the guitar isn’t the only star in the bundle. The Ferrari, packing a roaring 3.8 liter V8 engine under its hood, and sporting a swish tan leather interior, has had its fair share of fame, too.

When Malmsteen hasn't been putting its pedal to the metal, the car has been a Hollywood regular, starring in movies including Magnum P.I., National Lampoon's Vacation, and Beverly Hills Cop.

Those interested in this oddball bundle may need to act quickly, the seller suggests it won’t be around for long.

Head to Walt Grace Vintage's Reverb store for more details.

MXR is continuing its recent run of signature and innovative pedal releases with a custom overdrive pedal for neoclassical shred master Yngwie Malmsteen.

The overdrive pedal, designed to fuse Malmsteen’s “neoclassical prowess with the raw energy of rock n’ roll,” follows hot on the heels of the delay-blighted MXR Randy Rhoads Distortion+, its spacey Layers pedal, and Joshua Tree-channeling Ambient Echo delay.

A signature circuit has been developed with the help of Malmsteen to deliver clarity, expressive dynamics, and rich harmonics. As MXR says, this makes for a pedal “perfectly tailored for his light-speed arpeggios, expressive vibrato, and big, bold riffs,” but there should be plenty of scope to use this pedal outside of finger-burning exercises, too.

It offers a simple two-knob control setup, with its Level and Gain left extremely sensitive to the most minor of adjustments. “Every adjustment you make,” MXR assures us, “will have a profound impact.”

Naturally, with Malmsteen famed for his ‘more is more’ mantra, MXR recommends cranking both dials for the pedal’s most authentic Yngwie channeling.

“This pedal is the culmination of over 45 years developing a sound that’s perfect in every possible way,” says Malmsteen, adding that players should “prepare to be amazed,” by what this pedal can do.

MXR is no stranger to simple but effective pedals when it comes to minimalist controls – with its ever-adored Phase 90 phaser the most obvious example.

Indeed, minimal knob fiddling puts greater emphasis on the pedal’s dynamic control, so it could represent one of the most responsive overdrive pedals around if the collaboration’s brief has been properly met, potentially making it a valuable asset for players of a huge variety of styles.

For those looking for a little Malmsteen flair for their pedalboard, the MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive will come as an exciting prospect. It’s set to be available for $129. A yellow-finished version is available from Sweetwater.

Head to MXR for the full story.

The following story was originally published in Guitar Player in 2014.

With so many astounding guitarists featured in the Mike Varney Spotlight column over the years, it would seem impossible to single out one player as being above and beyond the rest. Not impossible, however, when you check out the February 1983 issue. 

That is, of course, the issue that introduced Paul Gilbert to the guitar universe, but it was the guy on the opposite page that would become Varney’s most influential discovery. Citing Ulrich Roth, Allan Holdsworth, Ritchie Blackmore, and Al Di Meola as influences, a young Yngwie Malmsteen leapt off the page. It wouldn’t be long before every guitarist in the world knew his name and millions tried to play like him. 

“I was on a mission to find the next big guitar hero,” says Varney. “When I heard Yngwie, I knew that he was the guy I was looking for. It wasn’t just the notes in his playing, but the energy and the attitude behind them. He’s gone on to make an incredible mark on the guitar community, and he’s one of the most imitated guitarists of all time.”

“I had done everything I could in Sweden,” says Malmsteen. “I was being produced by a real record producer from CBS and the label was paying for the sessions. I was playing some big gigs and I had a following and everything, but that was it. I had gone as far as I could. 

“Guitar Player was like my Bible and I would buy it every time I saw an issue. I saw this Spotlight thing and I thought, ‘What the hell do I have to lose?’ So I sent out a tape. I never expected anything – I really didn’t – and when I started getting phone calls it was pretty crazy.

“Of course, when I came to America, things got even crazier. What blew my mind the most was how people would freak out about every little thing I was doing when I played. When I went to Japan they freaked out even more. They wanted to analyze everything. They asked me how I hold the pick. I said, ‘I don’t know how I’m holding the pick. I’m just listening to what it sounds like, and it sounds good like this [laughs].’

“It’s wild to look back on it now. Things were never the same again after that issue came out, and it all happened so fast. Being in the Spotlight column undoubtedly made the biggest impact on my career.”

Back in January 1990, Guitar Player opened the new decade with a new type of guitar hero on the cover. In fact, said writer and Guitar Player Editor Joe Gore, Johnny Marr had done everything he could to avoid becoming a guitar hero: he avoided guitar solos whenever possible, put songs before showmanship, was subtle in his innovations (not for him posing with a four-necked guitar), violated pop music conventions whenever possible and denounced guitar heroism loudly and frequently.

At the time of this interview, Marr was 25 years old with more than a dozen successful albums to his credit. Marr was the musical director of The Smiths, the most critically acclaimed English band of the 80s. In England, the quartet generated controversy, 17 hit singles, and an endless parade of imitators. In the U.S. the band became a college/underground radio staple and developed a fanatical cult following (a Spin magazine readers poll named the band's The Queen Is Dead the Best Album Of All Time, edging out Sgt. Pepper).

The Smiths' records juxtaposed Marr's vibrant, tuneful pop arrangements with Morrissey's mournful, love-it-or-hate-it voice and witty, politically charged lyrics. Morrissey and Marr wore their record collections on their sleeves, and their influences – Motown, early Stones, and American punk prominent among them – were readily apparent. At the same time, they attacked the sexist, escapist conventions of pop music.

Despite their traditionalist streak, the Smiths developed an utterly original group sound, based largely on Marr's elaborate tapestries of overdubbed guitars. His oddball chord sequences and jarring major/minor clashes were leavened by a Beatles-esque sense of melody and an Olympic-sized palette of guitar tones. Marr's playing embraced the rock primitivism of the 60s, the funky groove of the 70s, and the bright, open-string chimey-ness of the 80s. He may have played a Rickenbacker, but there wasn't a Byrd in sight – it was a whole new angle on jingle-jangle.

In August ‘87, Marr resigned, citing musical and personal reasons and went on to play with Talking Heads, the Pretenders, Bryan Ferry, Paul McCartney, and became a full-time member of The The. Credits since then include Electronic, his band with New Order’s Bernard Sumner, Modest Mouse, The Cribs, Billy Bragg, the Pet Shop Boys, Kirsty MacColl, Beck, Oasis, Pearl Jam and many more. 

No matter what the project, Marr's guitars support the song, not a bloated shred-head ego. Too many "guitar heroes" bludgeon you with flash, but leave you hungry for music. On a Johnny Marr record, the song speaks first, while repeated listenings reveal the richness of the accompaniment.

This month he released a book, Marr's Guitars that chronicles his obsession with guitars and guitar playing. "Guitars have been the obsession of my life," says Marr, "They’ve been a mission and sometimes a lifeline." Back in 1990, he personified a new breed of guitar player…
 

You're not afraid to play simply, if it suits the song.

I've always believed that any instrumentalist is basically just an accompanist to the singer and the words. That's born out of being a fan of records before I was a fan of guitar players. I'm interested in melody, lyrics, and the overall song. I don't like to waste notes, not even one. Who was it that said, "The reason why all those guitar players play so many notes is because they can't find the right one"? I like to put the right note in the right place, and my influences have always been those kinds of players. Keith Richards comes to mind, and I really Like Nils Lofgren's soloing, because he's so melodic. I love John Lennon's rhythm playing, and George Harrison was an incredible guitarist.

There's a lot of guitar culture that I don't like at all. I find the traditional idea of the guitar hero to be really irrelevant to the 1990s. I don't think that young people are that impressed with some guy brandishing Spandex trousers and a hideously shaped guitar, playing that kind of masturbatory, egotistical noise. Being a soloist who wants to just display virtuosity is a dated philosophy, and I don't think there's any room for it in pop music. It's the last stand of late-60s/early-70s rockism, and it should have gone a long time ago.

Judging by the letters we receive, much of our readership is still obsessed with the mythology of the guitar hero.

I get Guitar Player, Guitar World and Guitarist every month, but I just read the equipment and LP reviews. I find most of the interviews absurd, and so anally retentive that they're meaningless. I don't know about America, but here [in the UK], no one has any respect for someone who can play a million notes per minute but can't put together a decent tune that someone can sing to or feel some sort of emotion from. I have a healthy respect for guitarists like Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen, disciplined players who really know what they're doing – if you're going to be a virtuoso, you can't be hit-and-miss. But I think people like Yngwie Malmsteen should be forgotten as soon as possible, I really do.

It's got very little to do with music, and the "I'm the fastest gun in town" idea is almost like homosexual panic. Nothing against gays, but when players perpetrate this incredibly sexist image of being so macho, I find it suspicious. Plus, I can't do all that stuff, so that's why I say it's stupid [laughs].

You've often sung the praises of the three-minute pop song, but [The The’s] Mind Bomb features longer songs with expansive arrangements that take some time to unfold.

On Mind Bomb, I was getting more into atmospherics and noises, but melodic noises, not just aimless doodling. And I wanted to get into open, wide arrangements with fewer chord changes.

You've said that one should be able to visualize a song with only a voice and an acoustic guitar. But that hardly applies to an atmospheric soundscape like The The's Good Morning, Beautiful. 

True, but I still think that's a good guideline for a writer to follow. Before attempting any track, I have the overall picture in my head. Even if it doesn't work on an acoustic guitar, at least I could sing all the parts into a Walkman. It's nice to have accidents as a guitar player, but as a writer, I like to know exactly what I'm doing.

But my philosophy has changed slightly. I've been making records for eight years, and I wouldn't like to anchor myself down to an attitude I had when I was nineteen.

How accurate are your visualizations of the finished song? Is it trial and error?

To be honest, the parts that I think will work almost always do. But in the process of gluing one part over another, new parts spring to life. So there is a fair amount of trial and error. I'm into experimentation, but that only feels good once you know you've got a really good song cooking. I don't believe in doodling around, waiting for inspiration to drop through the ceiling.

If I'm not hearing anything, I'll go for a walk for 15 minutes. Actually, I come up with my best melodies away from the guitar, like when I'm in a taxi, or making tea in the studio, hearing the track from down the corridor. The ones I sing before I play them are always my favorites.

You're experimenting more with processed sounds.

The Smiths were quite a purist group, and I was a great believer in traditionalism. Just plugging a Gibson ES-335 into my trusty Fender Bassman or Twin Reverb was romantic. But now I understand that when technology is used by someone with taste, you can have tasteful results.

Whatever makes for a more interesting end result, I'lI use. For example, I've been using the Roland GR-50 guitar synth, and I'm really impressed with that. If technology allows you to come up with an absolute killer part, then it can only be a good thing.

Is there any guitar synth on Mind Bomb?

No, but I find it really inventive, especially if I'm just writing in a hotel on a four-track. I sometimes use the Casio MIDI guitar for that – the onboard sounds are cheesy, but they're good for demo purposes. It's corny to say, but if Hendrix had been around, he would have exploited today's technology for all it was worth, as he did when he was alive, as did The Beatles. Just because they used 8-track in their time doesn't mean that that's what you use nowadays if you want to be as good as The Beatles. But I've still got a healthy respect for traditional guitar playing and a traditional guitar setup.

You're also incorporating more bizarre, unpitched ideas in your playing.

I'm trying to be open to any ideas, so long as they're fairly melodic and they relate to what the singer is singing. I'll try any trick. With The Smiths, I'd take this really loud Telecaster of mine, lay it on top of a Fender Twin Reverb with the vibrato on, and tune it to an open chord. Then I'd drop a knife with a metal handle on it, hitting random strings. I used that on Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before [from Strangeways, Here We Come] for the big "doi-ngs" at the start. And I used it on This Charming Man [from The Smiths], buried beneath about 15 tracks of guitar.

Those dense, overdubbed textures are one of your specialties.

Once I've put a track down, I put on a pair of cans and listen to the track really, really loud. I listen for the things between chord changes, the things that you almost play accidentally moving from one chord to another, and I try to fill in those gaps. I try to glue together those harmonic and melodic overtones, and state the things that you imagine you're hearing. And if there's a sad melody there, I'll find it, even if it's in a major key. I really like melancholic melodies.

Yeah, even though most Smiths tunes are in major keys, the vocal and instrumental melodies often emphasize the interval between 3 and 5, the minor 3rd within the major chord. It's like a sigh.

That's right. And moving up in semitones is really good, too. I've never liked jolly music full-stop, unless it's someone like the Fatback Band.

Even when you were playing a lot of chimey, open-string chords on a Rickenbacker, your playing had a melancholy feel. You avoided all the jingle-jangle cliches.

Well, I've been open to tons and tons of influences. My parents are avid country music fans, and I got into music at an early age. My father played accordion, and he taught me harmonica. Because we were an Irish family, we had parties all the time. I had an uncle who played guitar and sang hits of the day, like Walk Right Back by the Everly Brothers, and I thought that was really cool. 

By the time I was 10 or 11, I started to buy T-Rex records they were the first group I thought of as "mine." Jeepster was the first record I bought. The main riff, which was a complete steal from Howlin' Wolf, got me into playing guitar. At 13 or 14, | started playing more seriously, and I backtracked into Motown. I'd work out the chords, but I'd try to cover the strings, piano, and everything with my right hand, trying to play the whole record on six strings. That's one reason why I'm so chordally-oriented, and why key changes and the strategy of arrangement are really important to me. I was heavily into Smokey Robinson and [Motown songwriters] Holland/Dozier/Holland, because there was only Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple around.

Then I moved from the poor side of Manchester to the most notorious part of the Southside, Wythenshawe, which was full of musicians. It was normal for someone to have a guitar there – on the poor side, if you wanted one, you had to steal it. Billy Duffy, who now plays with The Cult, taught me a few chords, and someone else turned me on to Pentangle and Fairport Convention with Richard Thompson. I started to get into guitar players as such, and when I got into Nils Lofgren, there was no turning back. He had a lot of cool and a lot of flash, but he had respect for the song and melody. Plus he's one of the best white singers l've heard – I could talk about him for years. It was because of him that I started playing with a thumbpick. And I got into the one-note solo from Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl, which I thought was incredible.

Then when I was 13 or 14 – hey, presto! – all the kids at school were getting into punk rock. I was starting to develop a healthy interest in songwriting and good melodies, and then this movement came along. I knew it was pretty cool, but I was too young to appreciate it, because I couldn't get into the clubs and spit on the groups. I was caught between two things.

So you were saddled with some unfashionable influences.

That's exactly what happened. But I had my own thing, and that held me in good stead in the future. It was not very cool to be into the Supremes when you're supposed to be into The Jam. But I did get into the American new wave scene, Patti Smith in particular. When I heard Horses, that changed me quite a lot. Then I got into Television's Marquee Moon and Talking Heads '77. After Patti Smith, I thought, "Great, I can play big, loud chords on a Les Paul through a Fender Twin Reverb, instead of sitting around with an acoustic guitar." I could pick like Bert Jansch, but I wanted to look like Ivan Kraal from the Patti Smith Group. From then on, I didn't look back.

Unlike some darker-sounding post-punk bands, The Smiths stuff had very pretty surfaces, with lots of major 7th and 6th chords.

Reel Around The Fountain was my interpretation of James Taylor's version of Handy Man. I was trying to do a classic melodic pop tune, and it had the worst kind of surface prettiness to it. But at the same time, Joy Division was influencing everybody in England.

That dark element- it wasn't that I wanted to be like them, but they brought out something in the darkness of the overall track. In a sense, Bernard Sumner [of Joy Division, later to become New Order] was one the most influential guitarists and writers of the 80s. There would never have been a U2 or a Cure if it hadn't been for Joy Division.

So where does the jingle-jangle come from?

The Byrds is an obvious answer, and I did like them, but not as much as people make out.

I don't hear a lot of Roger McGuinn in your playing. You never use those open-position add9th-sus4 voicings.

That's good, for a change. Actually, a lot of it comes from Neil Young and Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse, but as if they were in a pop group. And it was George Harrison who influenced me to get a Rickenbacker. Ticket To Ride – what a brilliant song! But most of all, the jingle-jangle came from James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders. He was the last important influence on my playing before I went out on my own. The first time I played Kid with the Pretenders, I couldn't believe it. I've used that solo to warm up with every day for years.

Unlike a lot of other jingle-janglers, you didn't rub the listener's nose in your guitars. There's was a lot of depth and mystery to your textures.

Again, that comes from being influenced by groups and records, and not guitar players. For example, [producer] Phil Spector was really important to me, and I like the idea of records, even those with plenty of space, that sound "symphonic." I like the idea of all the players merging into one atmosphere. I tend to hear the record as it will be produced as I'm writing the song, and I hear how the guitars will link together. The Rolling Stones were a big influence in the way the two guitars played off each other. 

And Roxy Music was very important to The Smiths. They always had fantastic intros and outros, and on the eleventh hearing you'd pick out something you'd never heard before. But I must give credit to John Porter, who produced a lot of The Smiths' records. He worked with Roxy Music in the 70s, and he taught me a hell of a lot about guitars. He figured that if everyone spends two days getting drum sounds, why not spend the time on the guitar sounds if you're a guitar group? We spent a lot of time on our sounds, and I still do.

You often tune your entire guitar up a whole step, to F#. Why did you start doing that?

When Morrissey and I started writing, my ideas just sounded too low when we started working on them with the voice. But [Smiths bassist] Andy Rourke didn't play in F#, so all the guitar parts sounded really toppy on the first album, while the vocals were in a low register. It made for an odd sound that really worked. I also use a lot of regular boring open tunings like G, D, and A, and I use Nashville tuning all the time. I've got an Epiphone Coronet with one pickup, and I string it with the high stings from a 12-string set.

It's a really zingy, trebly guitar. I used that on a lot of things that people think are 12-string, like the end of The Headmaster Ritual. I also used it on the studio version of The Draize Train [the B-side of the Panic single], along with two Rickenbackers. I was working with Alan Rogan, the famed English guitar technician. He said, "Well, if you want a Pete Townshend sound, I'II bring down two of Pete's guitars." I don't know whether Pete knows about that!

Did you use thumbpicks with The Smiths?

I played with a flatpick because I thought we needed a Ramones element. But since then, I've gone back to the thumbpick. I wanted something more fluid, and when you have all five right-hand fingers going, your fingers go to progressions you don't even know you're doing. I don't use right-hand nails – I'm a horrible nail-biter. But my fingertips are really hard.

Do you have trouble getting a light strum feel with the heavy plastic of the thumbpick?

I find that's one of the most difficult things. But I try to zing it with my fingers, like an upward flamenco-style stroke. I often hold the thumbpick just like a regular pick, just to get that bright attack. My thumb's quite fast. I use fingers and thumbs for soloing, coming up with parts, or for funky things where l'm sort of slapping. That's what I do on the funky line in Violence Of Truth [on Mind Bomb].

Which records captured the Smiths at their peak?

The Queen Is Dead is certainly the best LP we made, the most focused from start to finish. It was a dark point in my life, but creatively, it made for something really brilliant. I try to take care of myself and live in the real world, but some of my best work has been produced when I wasn't in the real world. Pop music isn't worth killing yourself for, but when you do something extra special, it's almost worth it. Singles-wise, my favorite is How Soon Is Now.

Were you behind The Smiths' eventual move towards more orchestrated, "produced" sounds? Your approach was quite like The Beatles at times.

Musically, the production was my responsibility. But to be fair, it was a 50/50 thing between Morrissey and me. We were completely in sync about which way we should go for each record. But we started to lose that near the end of the last LP, which was another signal to me that we should stop. The White Album [The Beatles] was the strongest influence on us towards the end, things like Cry Baby Cry and I'm So Tired.

Were The Smiths misrepresented to American listeners, who knew the band through their albums rather than their singles?

I'd say so, because singles were one of the most important things that brought us together, a love of the classic 7" pop format. Those were the records I grew up with. A huge facet of what we were about was missed out on, because singles culture is so ineffectual in America. But I thought Louder Than Bombs, the singles compilation, was great.

What did you think of the live album, Rank?

Guitar-wise, I'm not particularly proud of it, partly because I used to be in such panic before I played onstage that I either froze up, or I got so drunk that I was sloppy. That was a combination of natural stage fright and being in the ridiculous position in England of being so scrutinized. I never played as well on tour.

Did you see budding alcoholism as a warning sign about your career with the band?

Yeah, I did, and to be honest, it was more than "budding." I find the "guitar player does tour, is driven to drink" idea very corny, but it could have been a lot worse. It sounds incredibly Guns N' Roses, but The Smiths went through every conceivable rock and roll tragedy: drug busts, police harassment, controversy. We had everything but a death, thank God. That was avoided by us splitting up.

You were luckier than some.

We were smarter than some. Some groups actually start believing they're the Rolling Stones, and that's how they do themselves in.

What prompted the final split?

It was mostly a personal thing. We were working at such a breakneck pace – 50-odd tracks in four years – that I thought I was going to end up repeating myself.

Also, I was frustrated with what people expected me to come up with. By creating your own rules the influences, methods of songwriting, and so on that you allow yourself to use, you end up boxing yourself into a corner of musical politics. And if you step out of that corner, it's immediately called "sell-out." Some "fans" – for want of a better word –  just wanted me to jingle-jangle on my Rickenbacker till I died. But if I have to forsake fame, fortune, and popularity for the experience of being able to play exactly what I want when I want, I'd do it again.

But in the beginning, it was good to be in a group that stood for and against certain things. We were against synthesizers, the Conservative government, groups with names like Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark, the English monarchy, cock-rock guitar solos, and the American music scene at the time. We stood for the Englishness of the Kinks, T-Rex, and Roxy Music, the arty quirks that kept those groups from being huge in the U.S. 

We were into the Rolling Stones, the MC5, the Patti Smith Group, Oscar Wilde, [play-wright] Shelagh Delaney, and certain actors. Some things were really important to us, and we made no secret of our obsessions. Morrissey and I wanted to be a modern-day Leiber and Stoller, writing bubblegum backing tracks with intense lyrics. We weren't minimalistic, but we wanted to sound very home-grown, not like a polished major-label group. I'm very proud of everything we did, musically, lyrically, and politically. It was a really great time, but only a fool doesn't know when it's time to stop.

Were you widely scouted when the news of the breakup hit the street?

Lots, and I was quite flattered. But I was so lacking in confidence when I left The Smiths that I was afraid. To be honest, I thought I'd flushed my career down the toilet, but I was gonna have a good time, anyway. But it worked out well. I'm quite happy to keep on turning things down, because the people I'm involved with – The The, Kirsty MacColl and Bernard [Sumner] – are my favorites. I'm very proud of the Kirsty MacColl record. I wrote two of the songs and played on nine tracks. I got a chance to play opposite Robbie Mcintosh and Dave Gilmour.

Why did you feel you weren't the right guitarist for The Pretenders?

It was mainly a question of timing. Chrissie wanted to take a break to write the LP she's working on now, and I was fired up to tour or make a record. The tracks I cut with The Pretenders I regard as a complete success. They were first take, with live vocals and no punch-ins or re-recording. Chrissie is so good that she can inspire a group with her personality and her voice to play the best they've ever played – she's that good as a front person.

I feel very good to have played with Chrissie, but the most important thing was our personal relationship. She helped me through a lot of crap with The Smiths' split, and I'm forever indebted to her.

Did you consciously put aside the Rickenbacker after the Smiths era?

Yeah, I was getting a little tired of the things I was coming up with on it. About '86, I got really into the Les Paul and rediscovered Peter Green. I tried to play less chordally, a little more solo-notey. But the solo on Paint A Vulgar Picture [Strangeways] was done on a Strat.

How did it feel to play a regular single-note solo like that after becoming known as the man who never soloed?

I was really pleased that the first solo as such on a Smiths record was one you could sing. Since then, I've done more wild, wacky fast things; that's going to be more of a feature of my new stuff. I like improvisation in the right place, but I find most solos corny. That "now I'm gonna solo my ass off" attitude is the equivalent of someone just being a loudmouth and talking rubbish. I prefer the idea of a relentless riff that goes around and around, like the line on The Violence Of Truth [Mind Bomb].

So what would you call the non-solo guitar passages on tunes like The Queen Is Dead or Shoplifters Of The World Unite? They deliver the charge you'd expect from a solo, but you don't actually solo.

I think of them as guitar breaks. I like the one in Shoplifters – that was the first time I used harmonized layering. People have said it sounds like Brian May, but I was thinking of stacked Roy Buchanans. For the frenzied wah-wah section on The Queen Is Dead, I was thinking 60s Detroit, like the MC5 and the Stooges.

Nowadays, you seem to be using more dry, un-jangly, funk-type riffs than you did with the Smiths.

I like those overstated guitar parts, like the one on the Fatback Band's Yum, Yum, Gimme Some, which gives you all the rhythmic bits that your body wants to feel. A classic for me is Nile Rodgers' guitar part on Chic's I Want Your Love. All that is born out of an early love for Bo Diddley. That beat is the root of all dance music. When I do sessions and I can't find a way into the track, I look for the Bo Diddley, whether it's half-time or double-time.

That figure runs through all African-derived music.

That's right, and if it doesn't run through it specifically, it does subliminally. Bo Diddley took the bits that you wanted, and hooked them all together in an overstated way. One of the things that attracted me to Bo Diddley early on was my parents' copy of Elvis Presley's Marie's The Name, which has that beat. The Talking Heads called me in specifically because the song Ruby Dear had a Bo Diddley groove – that's incredibly flattering.

You often create odd clashes by superimposing the major and minor modes.

I find a blue note whenever I can. I try to find the poignancy in any kind of lick. Not to get too poetic here, but I find a distinct lack of poignancy in most guitar playing I hear. It's as if people feel that by virtue of being a guitar player, they have to have this swashbuckling, gung-ho approach to music, an overblown, vulgar approach. I'd prefer a few notes played in the right place on one string. For example, I liked the melody at the end of Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before, but it just felt a little too accomplished. I wanted it to sound like a punk player who couldn't play, so I fingered it on one string, right up and down the neck. I could have played it with harmonics or my teeth, or something clever, but the poignancy would have gone out of the melody.

You haven't had any formal theoretical training, yet your harmonic ideas are quite sophisticated.

The older I get, the more I realize that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I try to avoid an overly theoretical approach at all costs. I like putting in parts that I don't understand, parts that just sound good by ear. On the Talking Heads' Cool Water [Naked], for example, I tuned a Gibson ES-335 12-string to an atonal drone against the track at David Byrne's encouragement. I didn't know what the tuning was, so I was playing all kinds of shapes that I never would have gotten into. We miked it acoustically, without an amp. 

I try to avoid thinking about scales, keys, and anything like that. I really like the idea of not knowing what I'm doing. Ultimately, I end up with something more original, a little more from the heart than the head. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but it's convenient for me because I'm quite a lazy person [laughs]. But that's one of the things I'm looking forward to about getting old and grey – I'm going to learn what I'm actually doing. But I think it would be the kiss of death to my songwriting if I did that right now.

At times, your style is reminiscent of African highlife guitar – playing those runs in parallel thirds, for example.

It's an instinctive love of a melody that people find undeniably cute. Another example is The Boy With The Thorn In His Side [The Queen Is Dead]. That was the first time I used a Strat on a record. I got it because I wanted a twangy Hank Marvin sound, but it ended up sounding quite highlify.

And then there was that submerged rockabilly strain.

That comes from a love of Chuck Berry's You Can't Catch Me. I've been trying to capture that same swing I'd better be careful because he'll probably sue me if he reads this. The way he sang against the bass and drums sounded so great to me as a kid. That, plus the soul swing of What'd I Say by Ray Charles. The Stones' 19th Nervous Breakdown is another one. It's a wicked groove - It really kicks. That's where my “rockabillv" influence comes from. Plus, obviously, the Elvis Presley Sun Sessions. Scotty Moore's playing on that is amazing.

You've got a light touch with the whammy bar, when you use it.

I have an up-and-down relationship with the whammy bar. I've been getting into really interesting things with feedback, and I like to use the whammy bar with that. I'm really into false harmonics, like steel players and Nils Lofgren play with thumb-picks. You know, where you touch the string an octave higher than the note you're playing with the left hand? I like to pick a note with the volume turned down, and then swell it right up.

Do you have any tips for generating feedback?

I've started to realize the importance of where my cabinets are placed in relation to where I'm standing. And when I get to a venue that has a wooden stage, I say, "Yeah, great!" especially if it's hollow. But if it's a rubber-covered stage or – God forbid! – carpet, then I'm in trouble. I nearly always keep my little finger on the volume pot, so if I hear the glimmer of something really interesting, I turn the volume right up; if it's not happening, I turn it down and try to find another note. I don't use a volume pedal – it's all volume knob. That's inspired by Roy Buchanan, Nils Lofgren and Jeff Beck.

You're using a lot of wah-wah these days.

I find that I approach it like a tone pot. The "whacka-whacka" sound was already done in the best possible way on Theme From Shaft, and then there's Hendrix, of course. Now, I find myself keeping my foot on it all the time, just letting it out slowly without thinking about it too much. Also, you can leave it on, opened slightly, without even touching it – that gives you a completely different tonal range. The Shoplifters break was the first time that I really discovered that. And if the filter is open in just the right place, you can get a harmonic to sing like a bird.

Is the music you're making with Bernard Sumner heavily sequenced?

Yes. I really like dance music, especially in the classic sense of the Fatback Band, the Ohio Players, and stuff like that. If it's a good song, I'll play alongside machines any day. I'm looking forward to coming to grips with sticking guitars on electro music. Also, it confuses people about what I'm doing, which I'm quite into. I don't believe in painting myself into a corner anymore, and I'm open to any kind of technique. [The Bernard Sumner album became the Electronic album, released in 1991.]

Originally published in Guitar Player, January 1990. Johnny Mar's book, Marr's Guitars, is out now.

Before he became better known as guitarist for hard rock giants Def Leppard — even before his "five minutes" with Whitesnake — Vivian Campbell exploded on the scene in the early 80s as part of Ronnie James Dio's solo band. His involvement with Dio spawned three successful full-length releases – but the relationship quickly deteriorated, sparking speculation and debates to this day on what really went down behind the scenes.

In a recent interview with Guitar Interactive magazine, Campbell shed some light on his involvement with Dio at that time and, in particular, Stars — the 1985 charity single for famine relief released under the Hear 'n Aid banner.

A plea for unity in the fight against world hunger, the fundraising project featured 40 artists from the metal community, including members of Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Blue Öyster Cult, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister and even Spinal Tap — along with hundreds of other volunteers. 

The idea for the single first came to them during the recording the Sacred Heart album, says Campbell. The band's previous albums, Holy Diver and The Last In Line, had been recorded as a band, and there was a "really good vibe". 

"Back then, nobody went home early," he says. 

By Sacred Heart, things had changed. "It was a really dark time for Ronnie and for the band," says Campbell. "Nobody wanted to be around Ronnie. Ronnie and Wendy [Dio's wife and manager] had split up. They weren't getting divorced, but they were living separate lives, and Ronnie's mood was really, really dark." 

The atmosphere spilled into the making of the album. "When we were doing Sacred Heart, nobody wanted to hang around. We cut the tracks and it was, like, 'Oh, okay. I'm gonna go. You done with me?' It was because of that energy, that vibe that was coming from Ronnie at that time. It was really difficult to make. I'm not saying it's a bad record, but it was difficult for Vinny [Appice, drums], Jimmy [Bain, bass], myself, and obviously for Ronnie to make it."

Around that time, the US Live Aid song, We Are The World was released. "Jimmy and I happened to do an interview for a station called KLOS in Los Angeles, and the DJ asked us, 'How come nobody from the hard rock world was invited to participate in that?' And we thought, 'You know, you're absolutely right!' 

"This was an era when hard rock was really sort of shunned. It never got nominated for a Grammy or anything. There was no real industry recognition, even though it was a very, very popular cultural force and sold in multi-millions. So we were joking about this, and it was Jimmy who said right off the bat, 'Yeah, we should do one. We should call it Hear 'n Aid.' We were all, like, 'Hahaha' – we fell off our stools." 

Later, it didn't seem like such a crazy idea. Campbell and Bain wrote the song and reached out to Dio. "We didn't write the lyrics," says Viv. "We thought, 'We're not gonna get this off the ground without Ronnie. We need some clout. We need the name.' So we went in the studio the next day [and] Ronnie's in a real dark spot. We say, 'Ronnie, what about this?' He immediately shuts it down. No interest. So, we keep pushing it on him for a couple of weeks, and then eventually he came back to us and said, 'You know what? Yeah. I'll get on board with this.' So he wrote the words for it."

So with a complete song and Dio on board, they set about recruiting the best players and biggest names the world of rock had to offer, Campbell sitting with his publicist and going through her Rolodex, phoning people.

"I'd literally be cold-calling people that I didn't know... I was trying to explain, 'We're making this charity record and we'll cover expenses. We'll get some sponsorship.' So that was my life for weeks, every day, getting on the phone and calling people. 'Hi, Neal Schon. Love your Journey stuff. Is there any chance you could…?'

"It was the same old thing — nobody wants to commit until other big names are involved, but I was able to throw Ronnie's name there. I said, 'Well, Ronnie's doing it.' 'Oh, okay.'"

"I remember the day we were doing it at A&M, with a film crew in there, and the guys from Spinal Tap even showed up. That made it great because it brought much-needed humor to the whole situation. And all these great guitar players. We had Yngwie there, and Neal Schon — guys who were blazing guitar. I just remember I was so busy making sure that everyone had a limo ride, had a flight, had a hotel room, had something to eat. And then, at the end of the day, it's, like, 'Okay, now you've gotta play guitar.' It was something I'd never done before, but I spent weeks and weeks doing it. It all came together, and it was just bonkers that it did."

Due to contract differences with the labels, Stars and its accompanying album weren't released until New Year's Day, 1986, and only available on vinyl and cassette. In recent years, Wendy Dio has said that she is continuing her efforts to correct that.

Wendy previously revealed that one of the reasons the Hear 'n Aid reissue was taking so long to come out was the "legal stuff" that needed to be taken care of. "You can always get the bands to do something, but it's the legal licensing of talking with the record labels they're on and the management and so on, to get something off the ground," she said. "So we're hoping to do that."

In terms of versatility, few guitarists have anything on Alex Skolnick. When he’s not slaying audiences with blitzing riffs and solos with thrash-metal titans Testament, he’s blending bebop and rock with his own jazz group, the Alex Skolnick Trio.

Clearly, he’s learned a thing or two about what to play and when, but as Skolnick points out, his evolution on the electric guitar is ongoing. “I’ve constantly got my ear out for good tips, and I’m always trying to improve my playing,” he reveals. “I notice that about my favorite players — they don’t stop. Even when they get into their 60s and 70s, they’re as passionate about learning as they were when they started.”

One might assume Skolnick’s level of proficiency requires maximum thought at all times, but somewhat surprisingly, he notes that he’s aspiring to reach a place where he doesn’t have to think at all. “That’s kind of a crazy goal I have — to be able to play a piece of music as easily as I would use a fork. I want it to be as automatic as that,” he says. “There are things I play that are effortless, but it’s certainly not everything. There’s a level of musicianship I have in my head. We’ll see if I get there.”

If you’re looking to take your playing somewhere new, get started by checking out Skolnick’s top five tips.

1. BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF

“This is very hard for many people to wrap their heads around. To be able to improve as a guitarist, you need to be honest with yourself about what you’ve got under your fingertips. Let’s face it: We all want to be great guitarists and play at a high level. There’s the aspirational side of it, but the reality can be something different. You must learn to accept where you are currently to be able to focus on the things you need to work on, and that takes humility and maturity — two traits not always common to guitarists.

“How many times have you seen a friend say, ‘I can do that’ after they hear some insane guitar solo? Well, maybe they can’t do that yet, and that’s okay. But they’ll never be able to do it if they’re not honest about the work they need to put in.

“You might be the best guitarist in your household, or maybe you’re the best on your block. But go to a big city, and guess what? You won’t be the best. There are tons of people better than you. That’s okay, too. Accept it and put in the time to practice.”

2. ENJOY THE PROCESS OF WORKING TO IMPROVE

“Years ago, when I was just starting to play, I came across this giant guitar instructional book that had far too much information for me to process at the time. There was every imaginable scale, mode, fingering and chord in this thing. I had no idea what to do with it. I thought, Oh, my God. I have to absorb all this stuff? It seemed impossible.

“Then I heard Day Tripper by the Beatles. It had that cool riff that sounded like surf guitar, and I thought, I think I can play that. I picked up the guitar and played it really close to the bridge of the guitar so I got that twangy sound. I had fun with it, and I felt inspired. Then I played The James Bond Theme, with the same kind of surf guitar sound. I had a great time just playing music. It made me feel good about myself and the progress I was making. And as a result, the idea of taking a look at that instructional book didn’t seem so overwhelming to me. Those little steps made the big steps seem reachable.”

3. DON’T TRY TO BE SOMEBODY YOU’RE NOT

“It’s easy to be swayed by the crowd. Sometimes a guitarist comes along that everybody seems to talk about, and you might be tempted to copy that player. It’s one thing to appreciate a guitarist, but if they have such a unique style, maybe it’s best to steer clear of adopting it.

“I remember when I was taking lessons from Joe Satriani. At the time, everybody was going crazy about Yngwie Malmsteen, and I liked what he was doing, too. Joe kind of told me, ‘That’s fine, but don’t get too into him. Don’t try to sound like him, because in a few years there will be somebody else who’s the hot guy.’ Which is funny, because a few years later Joe was the guy everybody was talking about. People were learning everything on Surfing With The Alien, but I tried to keep my distance, because I remembered what Joe had told me. It was kind of funny, really. Joe was a great teacher and a huge influence on me, but I knew I shouldn’t try to sound like him. He was doing his thing, but it wasn’t supposed to be my thing.”

4. DON’T LET NEGATIVITY BRING YOU DOWN

“It’s easy to get depressed about your musicianship. As I said about going to other cities and hearing great players, you might go, ‘Oh, man, I thought I was good, but I suck!’ You don’t even have to go to a big city; all you have to do is scroll on your phone and you’ll hear amazing guitarists. But it’s important to stay positive. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s one thing to be realistic, but that doesn’t have to turn into negativity.

“Negativity takes on many forms. I know plenty of amazing players who don’t get
press or awards. They could easily focus on what they don’t have, but they don’t because it won’t get them anywhere. They’re out there doing it. They love playing music, and that’s what really matters.

“I’m a weird mutant. I love metal, but I identify as jazz. I’ve gotten recognition, but
I see fans online say things like, ‘Why don’t people talk about Alex Skolnick more?’
I never think of it that way. I’m actually pretty happy about the recognition I’ve received. To me, it’s about what happens when I play and what I offer to the world. Sammy Hagar has seven Ferraris — I don’t have one Ferrari. If I wanted one, I could go into some other business and get one. But I enjoy what I do. I wouldn’t change anything.”

5. PRACTICE MATERIAL YOU HAVEN’T MASTERED, PERFORM MATERIAL YOU HAVE MASTERED, AND RECOGNIZE THE DIFFERENCE

“This is kind of a summary of a lot of what I’ve talked about. It’s about accepting where you are on the guitar while understanding where you still want to be. It’s important to take some chances live, but the stuff you play in front of people shouldn’t take too much thought. The parts you play should be fully absorbed and feel fairly automatic. That way, you can have a great time interacting with the band and the audience. It should be a celebration of how far you’ve come. There’s material that fits that comfort level.

“On the other hand, there’s material that doesn’t fall into that category — ideas you’re working on and things you aspire to. This is the stuff you should keep private for the time being. Keep practicing it and working on it. One day you’ll be able to present it to people.

“This might sound kind of obvious, but believe me, it’s something I do in my own life. There are things that I play live that I just don’t need to practice anymore — I’ve got them down. However, there are things that you haven’t heard me play yet because I’m working on them. That stuff is all delegated to practice time. The key thing is, I want to have great performances onstage and productive practice sessions, and the two aren’t the same. So don’t get them mixed up. If it’s not ready for prime time, save it until the time is right, and then all of your practice will feel worth it.”

Musicians often fall into ruts when relying exclusively on Western scales and sounds.

But there’s a great big world out there, full of music from other countries and cultures that can be easily added to your repertoire.

Scales from around the world can add an intriguing twist to your playing. You can hear many of these tonalities in the ax work of players like John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Marty Friedman and Yngwie Malmsteen. 

This lesson will serve as a guided musical tour of select world sounds.

Harmonic Minor (1-2-b3-4-5-b6-7)

Pioneered in the '70s by Michael Schenker, Ritchie Blackmore and Ulrich Roth, neoclassical metal rose to the rock forefront in the mid '80s when chopsmeister Yngwie Malmsteen stepped onto the scene. 

The Bach rocker’s scale of choice was harmonic minor, played in Figure 1 in the key of G# minor (G#-A#-B-C#-D#-E-G). 

Anchor your hand in 7th position for the duration of the figure, and use alternate picking (down, up, down, etc.) throughout.

Japanese (1-b2-4-5-b6)

Lacking a 3rd or 7th, and therefore tonally ambiguous, the versatile Japanese scale works well in a variety of situations, including major- and minor-key progressions, as well as Phrygian-based contexts. 

Figure 2 is based on the E Japanese scale (E-F-A-B-C). Take a rubato approach here – that is, let the tempo fluctuate, altering your phrasing in a way that feels right to you.

Chinese (1-2-3-5-6)

Many of you are already familiar with the Chinese scale. You just know it by its Western name: major Pentatonic. 

In the Western world, this sound is heard perhaps most famously in the work of the Allman Brothers. 

Figure 3, on the other hand, has a distinctly non-Western sound, courtesy of the timbre (sound quality) of its notes and how they’re phrased.

Derived from the B Chinese scale (B-C#-D#-F#-G#), this ethereal line uses harp harmonics to evoke the sound of the zither, a traditional stringed instrument. 

To execute each harmonic, lightly rest your pick hand’s 1st finger on the octave of the pre-fretted note (i.e. 12 frets higher), and pluck the string with your pick-hand’s thumb.

Phrygian Dominant (1-b2-3-4-5-b6-b7)

The fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale, Phrygian dominant provides the exotic ambience heard in Al Di Meola’s “Egyptian Danza” and Iron Maiden’s “Powerslave.” 

The G-rooted (G-Ab-B-C-D-Eb-F) lick in Figure 4 combines slurred note groupings with static open-string drones to create a distinctly Egyptian sound. 

Make sure you pay close attention to the fret-hand shifts here. Measure 1 is played in 3rd position, while measure 2 dips into 1st position.

Gypsy (1-b2-3-4-5-b6-7)

The Gypsy scale differs from the Phrygian dominant by using a major rather than a minor 7th for additional color. 

Both the Phrygian dominant and the Gypsy scale provide excellent soloing options over chord progressions containing major chords a half step apart. 

For example, try playing the E Gypsy scale over an E-F vamp. The E-rooted (E-F-G#-A-B-C-D#) riff in Figure 5 calls to mind Rainbow’s “Gates of Babylon." 

Be sure to palm-mute the 6th string throughout, so that the above melodic line really comes across.

Hungarian Minor (1-2-b3-#4-5-b6-7)

If you’ve been searching for a cool scale to play over a minor(maj7) chord, then the Hungarian minor scale is just what you need. 

The majority of the A Hungarian minor (A-B-C-D#-E-F-G#) passage in Figure 6 is rooted in 7th position, with the exception of the closing chromatic phrase, which sits in 11th position. 

In learning this figure, you might want to first isolate the 16th-note slur on beat 3 of bar 4. 

To get this legato turn to sound as smoothly as possible, use your 2nd, 3rd and 1st fingers, respectively, on frets 12, 13 and 11.

Persian (1-b2-3-4-b5-b6-7)

We’ll close things out with the E Persian scale (E-F-G#-A-Bb-C-D3), which gets its dark Middle Eastern vibe from its b5, or tritone, interval. 

Because it contains both a major 3rd and a major 7th, the Persian scale serves as an interesting option for Lydian-based chords (maj7#11). But it can also be used as a basis for sinister metal riffs like the one in Figure 7. 

For the last two beats of bar 2, use your fret hand’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers in consecutive order.

In many ways, Yngwie Malmsteen set the bar by which shred guitarists measure themselves. 

Whether it’s his command of exotic scales, extended scale runs, alternate picked phrases, or blinding sweep-picked arpeggios, Malmsteen’s Swedish shred magic is worthy of study for any guitarist interested in improving their speed and technique.

This lesson will investigate an area of Malmsteen’s fretboard mastery involving the use of quick position shifts and sudden movements along the strings. 

These shifting ideas and licks allow Malmsteen to move between positions with ease and change the direction of a lick or phrase in an instant. These shifts will help you create plenty of new licks and phrases and will sharpen several areas of your playing, including your overall speed, fingering agility, dexterity and alternate-picking technique.

Example 1 features a tricky descending A harmonic minor sequence that will be the basis for this entire lesson.

As you play through this example, be sure that you follow the fingering pattern closely and use strict alternate picking throughout.

The next example is a reversed version of this idea, and as you play through Example 2, notice that the reversal creates an entirely new challenge for the fretting hand. 

This ascending sequence of notes incorporates several fingering shifts that can be tricky at first, so be sure to give yourself time getting used to them, and – as before – be sure to follow the fingering closely.

Example 3 features a mixture of these two ideas, and it delivers an authentic Yngwie scale sequence as these descending and ascending concepts are combined.

Now that you have a feel for shifting between two positions of A harmonic minor, let’s extend this idea by shifting to a third position using a descending sequence of notes. 

As you can see and hear in Example 4, the inclusion of the higher position opens the sound of this phrase, and will help you create a wide range of interesting licks.

Example 5 reverses this idea, this time focusing on an ascending sequence of the same scale. 

Be sure to start slowly until you have the fingering and movements under control, and then you can start to ratchet it up toward Yngwie-approved speeds.

Now let’s try using these sequences together. Example 6 brings an interesting combination of movement to this exercise. 

This idea will give your fretting hand a real workout and might feel a little strange when you attempt the fingering movements for the first time. 

Once you have the basic feel for the process, you can inch the tempo up a few BPM each week until you are blazing through it with ease.

The next area we’ll develop will focus on Malmsteen’s string-shifting ability, and Example 7 features a great introduction to performing string shifts. 

Begin with the descending version of this exercise as you build your ability moving between positions and shifting between the B and high E strings.

Now that you have the descending lick under your fingers, try the ascending version of this exercise in Example 8. 

The final example in this lesson, Example 9, is the most challenging, and features a combination of string shifting and ascending and descending sequences. 

Be sure to follow the fingerings carefully and accurately. This is the best way to navigate some of the awkward shifts that it contains.

Once upon a time, your favorite guitar virtuosos were novices, honing their chops and struggling through the same challenges and problems every beginning guitarist goes through.

Well, what if they could tell you what roadblocks they encountered and how they got around them?

Better still, what if they could provide you with their very own exercises designed to build chops in that particular area?

It would be awesome. And that’s exactly what this lesson is all about.

Here, Steve Vai, Mark Tremonti, Joe Bonamassa, Mike Stern, Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Alex Skolnick, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson share stories about their own efforts to build their chops and provide you with short exercises that will help you develop relevant techniques.

So grab your guitar and get ready to build your chops with the best players in the business.

STEVE VAI

"I would get extremely disciplinarian with myself when it came to building chops. When I would sit down to practice a lick, like the one here, I’d tell myself, 'Until you can play this lick properly, you will not get up, eat, go to sleep.' 

"That’s a pretty intense thing for a 14-year-old boy to do – it’s a reflection of a psychological imperfection, actually, or a crack in the cosmic eggshell. I was very intense about it. 

"I don’t need to sit and practice for 10 hours a day anymore, but I do try to be as proficient as possible."

MARK TREMONTI

"The exercise that helped my alternate picking the most was one I got from the first Paul Gilbert video, Intense Rock. That helped me to get that upstroke across strings really tight, so I could flow through three-notes-per-string scale patterns ascending. 

"Problem is, I became twice as good ascending scales as I was descending, so I then had to work in both directions to get my upstrokes and downstrokes equal. 

"It’s important that you practice it in both directions."

JOE BONAMASSA

"As a singer, you warm up and then warm down, and I like to think of the guitar in the same way. And if you’re playing four-hour gigs, like I do, you often wake up the next day with cramped-up hands and fingers. 

"So, to get the cobwebs out, I like to use what I call the 'Andy Summers Exercise.' I play a three-string sus2 shape moving up the neck, hitting all the natural roots in the key of C, and then repeat it on the accidental roots – the sharps and flats. I also do it with the roots on the 5th string. 

"Doing the exercise in this manner, rather than just chromatically, makes you pay attention a bit more, and keeps you from just mindlessly noodling."

MIKE STERN

"When I was 22 in 1975, I was doing gigs with Blood, Sweat & Tears where we were playing really fast tunes, and I was trying to play more like Jim Hall and float over the time. But then Jaco Pastorius said to me, 'Man you’re going really slow and trying to hear everything you play, which is great, but at this point you’re ready to ‘hit up against the time’' – or play eighth and 16th notes right with the time.

"So I went back and practiced playing a tune like, say, “Donna Lee,” with a metronome, and each day I’d click up the metronome a bit. Another thing I did was take classical pieces and, as an exercise, play them way faster than they’re supposed to be played.

"This one here, in G minor, is from Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Violin, and there’s no set fingering. I know a lot of cats who worked out of this book – John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Steve Vai. The thing is, if you’re gonna work on your chops, don’t just do a scalar exercise. Technique by itself is kind of useless, but when you include it with musical ideas, it makes sense.

"And remember, with chops all you can do is develop your potential. But what’s beautiful about music is that someone’s style or voice is defined as much by what they can’t do as what they can do. Some people can’t play fast, so they play more melodically. 

"I dig melodic playing, but I also dig the excitement in John Coltrane’s or Michael Brecker’s playing – it’s an obvious thing that people can relate to. West Montgomery, even, liked to work on his speed. He felt that it added variety to his phrasing. And it did."

YNGWIE MALMSTEEN

"Years ago, I recorded a band rehearsal on a slow tape machine, and when I listened to it the next day [on a machine at proper speed], I went, 'Man! That’s fast!' I didn’t realize that something was wrong with the machine. 

"After that, I started playing everything a lot faster. Like, if there was something I was originally playing legato, I’d want to be able to play it was alternate picking as well, completely coordinated and clean."

PAUL GILBERT

"I played for about eight years without having any significant picking technique. It was all hammer-ons and pull-offs. For me, what it took was learning to use the metronome – slowing a repeating lick down to where I could do it perfectly, then gradually speeding it up. I learned a really simple six-note picking lick on one string, and within a couple weeks I could play it really fast.

"But the hardest thing about fast picking is to go from string to string, so to improve at crossing the strings I practiced this one here, which gets progressively trickier with each section."

ALEX SKOLNICK

"The biggest thing that’s helped me has been learning licks off records, as opposed to playing exercises from books. And over the years, I’ve developed quite a few licks into exercises.

"One of the first was from Al Di Meola’s “Race with the Devil on Spanish Highway,” from Elegant Gypsy – the fast lick that everybody plays. It was very challenging, so I divided it into sections. 

"The first descends in a quintuplet pattern [A G F# E D]; the next one is a four-note group [F# E D C#]. To expand the exercise, you can move the entire pattern up to the next note, B, and use the same rhythm pattern. Keep going up the scale, playing either the quintuplet alone or whole lick, and move it up and down as well as across the fretboard."

JOE SATRIANI

"When you’re hammering on and pulling off, it’s all about accuracy, not brute force – you really have to pay attention to the way your fingers are moving. For instance, when I put my finger down on a string, do I feel that I have put it in the most efficient spot possible? Should the string be a little more in the center of my fingertip, or a little off to its side?

"I used to find the perfect spot to hammer on and pull off – both on my finger and on the fretboard – and then focus all my energy on the movement required to get there. 

"Doing that freed me up to really start whipping my fingers around in a musical rhythm."

ERIC JOHNSON

"The most important thing I’ve done for my chops is that I’ve always worked on my picking and fretting at the same time, so that whatever I play, it’s really clean. 

"You can work on this with whatever you’re playing – it’s just a process of fretting a note right, picking the string right, and muting in all the right places. 

"The key is to make sure you’re in sync, and if you are, the result is a nice, pure sound that really projects."

I first became aware of the harmonic minor scale back in high school, originally as an abstract entity I learned in music theory class, in which the seventh note of the natural minor scale was raised a half step.

I later discovered that it was the “secret scale” that a certain young hot-shot, Strat-wielding shredder from Sweden named Yngwie Malmsteen was using to achieve his uber-dramatic “neoclassical metal” sound.

Still, from a practical standpoint, I had no idea how to apply these two ostensibly related pieces of information to my own guitar playing.

I did, however, manage to cop a ham-fisted version of what a friend of mine called the “Spanish scale,” an exotic-sounding series of notes that worked well when played over two major chords a half-step apart from each other in a back-and-forth vamp.

I concluded that this scale, or at least some form of it, was probably what Iron Maiden were playing in their song “Powerslave.”

It wasn’t until well into my studies in college as a music major that the implicit logic of the harmonic minor scale and its raised seventh degree finally revealed itself. Lo and behold, I made the connection that the “Spanish scale” I had learned was actually just the harmonic minor scale’s fifth mode, meaning that scale starting from its fifth note, or degree, with that note heard as a new tonal center.

In this lesson, I’d like to present the theoretical basis of this relationship and reveal how the harmonic minor scale can spawn a set of seven relative modes in the same way that the major scale does.

But before delving into the harmonic minor scale and its modes, and looking at practical applications of them, let’s first examine the scale of which it is a variant, natural minor.

Ex. 1 shows the E natural minor scale (E F# G A B C D), also known as the E Aeolian mode, which is made up of the same seven notes as the G major scale (G A B C D E F# ), but starting on its sixth degree, which makes it that scale’s sixth mode.

Ex. 2 illustrates the set of seven diatonic triads (three-note chords) that are generated from the E natural minor scale by harmonizing it in diatonic (scale-based) thirds and fifths on three adjacent strings.

These are the same seven triads that live within the G major scale, except here we’re starting on the note E and reckoning that as our new root, or tonal center.

Using these chords, we can jam out on the Aeolian progression Em-C-D-Em (theoretically spelled i-bVI-bVII-i) found in many classic metal and rock songs.

The one thing we can’t do, however, is have a traditional V-i resolution (B to Em in this case). Along with its major counterpart, V-I, this is the most essential chord change in music and an integral part of the harmonic language of most styles.

You’ll notice that the v chord (in formal music theory, a lowercase Roman numeral is used to indicate a minor-type chord) generated by the E natural minor scale is Bm, not B. Played before the i, Em, it gives us a rather weak-sounding harmonic resolution, as shown in Ex. 3.

This is because the Bm lacks a leading tone, which is a note a half step below the root of the chord or melody note to which you’re resolving.

In this case, the leading tone would be D#, which is the raised seventh scale degree that leads our ears compellingly back to the root of the Em chord.

Change the D note in the Bm chord to D#, and we now have a B chord (B D# F# ) which, when played before Em, creates a much stronger resolution.

Add to this B chord the dominant seventh tone, A, and we get a B7 chord (B D# F# A) and a much stronger and more satisfying resolution to Em, as demonstrated in Ex. 4.

And so we’ve discovered the harmonic minor scale’s whole reason for being: Its raised seventh degree (D# in this case) serves as a harmonic and melodic leading tone a half step below the tonic E note in the key of E minor, guiding our ear back to Em and allowing us to have a more definitive-sounding V-i resolution – B to Em, or B7 to Em.

Ex. 5 depicts the notes of the E harmonic minor scale (E F# G A B C D# ), which are the same as those that comprise E natural minor, except the D note is now raised to D#.

Notice how raising the seventh scale degree like this creates a wide gap of one and one half steps, or semitones, between the notes C and D#.

This wider interval is not found in the major scale and its modes, and it’s what gives the harmonic minor scale its distinctly exotic sound.

Let’s now spell out the diatonic triads of E harmonic minor (Ex. 6), followed by what are known as the scale’s diatonic seventh chords, which are the same as the triads but with another interval, the seventh, added on top of each root-third-fifth stack, again staying within the confines of the scale (Ex. 7).

Notice that two sets of voicings are presented here, the second one requiring fewer wide fret-hand stretches.

Now let’s play through the E harmonic minor scale’s seven modes and their corresponding diatonic seventh chords, each based on a different, successive scale degree. 

They are:

1. E harmonic minor (Ex. 8)

2. F# Locrian #6 (Ex. 9)

3. G Ionian-augmented (Ex. 10)

4. A Dorian #4 (Ex. 11)

5. B Phrygian-dominant (a.k.a. “Spanish Phrygian”) (Ex. 12)

6. C Lydian #2 (Ex. 13)

7. D# super-Locrian diminished (Ex. 14)

Despite their exotic-sounding names and tricky fingerings, these seven modes are nearly identical to those of the G major scale – G Ionian, A Dorian, B Phrygian, C Lydian, D Mixolydian, E Aeolian and F# Locrian – except that every D note has been raised to a D#.

The C-to-D# melodic skip forces us to contend with scale fingerings that are a bit more challenging than ordinary major and pentatonic scale shapes, with wide fret-hand stretches required.

In addition, they sometimes have first-finger slides to accommodate the playing of four notes per string, as well as three-fret jumps.

The tabbed fingerings I’ve provided here are just suggestions, so feel free to alter them to accommodate your style and personal preferences.

Also, if learning eight new scales seems daunting, just start with Ex. 15, which is the “closed” (completely fretted and thus movable) form of the root-position E harmonic minor from Ex. 8, and Ex. 12, the Phrygian-dominant mode, as these two scales/modes have by far the most practical applications in rock, jazz and world music.

THE ANDALUSIAN CADENCE

The Andalusian cadence is the name of a standard sequence of four descending chords in a minor key, specifically, i-bVI-bVII-V7. In the key of E minor, that would be Em-D-C-B7.

The first three chords are taken from the natural minor scale, and the last chord is the V7 with the raised seventh scale degree from harmonic minor.

If this all sounds a bit heady and obtuse, don’t fret. Chances are you’ve either played or heard it in a bunch of songs. It’s been around for hundreds of years and has been used in countless pop and rock songs over the past several decades, such as Del Shannon’s “Runaway,” the Stray Cats’ “Stray Cat Strut,” the Stone Roses’ “Made of Stone” and the Ventures’ “Walk, Don’t Run.”

When improvising over an Andalusian cadence, the first three chords may be approached with a natural minor or minor pentatonic scale, but adding the D# from the harmonic minor scale over the B7 chord in the last bar really helps spell out the V7-i resolution melodically.

Inspired by Slash’s soulful soloing in the Guns N’ Roses classic “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” Ex. 16 presents an eight-bar original solo line played over an Em-D-C-B7 Andalusian cadence.

It incorporates the E harmonic minor scale over the B7 chord in bars 4 and 8 and also draws upon E natural minor and E minor pentatonic (E, G, A, B, D) for the other six bars.

THE SPANISH PHRYGIAN MODE

Another common use of the harmonic minor scale involves tonicizing its fifth note.

In the case of the E harmonic minor scale, this simply means starting it from its fifth degree, B, and thinking of the corresponding B7 chord as our new, temporary key center.

As explained earlier, this is officially known as the B Phrygian-dominant mode and sometimes called B Spanish Phrygian because of its extensive use in traditional flamenco music.

It can be heard in numerous rock, jazz and traditional folk tunes recorded over the decades, including Scorpions’ “Sails of Charon” (featuring Uli Jon Roth on lead guitar), Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and John Coltrane’s “Olé.”

A common Phrygian-dominant chord vamp is to start on your major V or V7 chord (your temporary tonic) and go up a half step to a major or maj7 chord and/or down a whole step to the minor iv chord, for example, B7 to C (or Cmaj7) then B7 to Am.

Ex. 17 presents a melody played over this kind of progression, which is based entirely on the parent E harmonic minor scale.

For purposes of illustration, I’ve kept everything in seventh position for the first eight bars before traveling down the B string, using the open string as a pedal tone pitted against changing fretted notes.

Keep in mind that the position doesn’t really matter, since a modal key center is determined by the chord progression, and so all eight of our modal fretboard shapes will work over the harmonic vamp.

To drive this point home, I’ve concluded the solo with a series of descending triplets on the B string that evokes Alex Lifeson’s Phrygian-dominant lead break in the instrumental Rush masterpiece “YYZ” and demonstrates how learning the seven modes of the harmonic minor scale all over the neck (in a handful of important guitar keys) can add a whole new dimension to your playing.

***The following originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of Guitar Player***

Certain guitar solos are infused with magic. They may or may or may not be technically challenging, flashy, or otherwise virtuoso, but they have that special something that sets them apart from what came before, and they typically alert guitarists everywhere that their world has forever changed. 

What’s more, those magic solos tend to inspire legions of guitarists to attempt to unlock their technical and tonal mysteries, and permeate the six-string community’s collective unconscious, re-emerging later as direct and indirect influences on individual players’ styles. Somewhat paradoxically, however, there is no consensus on which solos have achieved this iconic status.

When we began working on this story, we came up with a lengthy list of solos to include. Our first task was to set up some guidelines. We decided to limit the list to electric rock solos, along with blues and jazz-rock fusion solos that influenced rock. We also set a limit of one solo per artist.

At that point, there were still many more than 40 solos on the list, so we had to make some hard choices. To start, guitarists who were hugely influential overall, but couldn’t be tied to an ultra-influential solo – such as Tony Iommi and George Harrison – were cut. 

We then had to narrow down our selections to just one for each artist, which was difficult for someone like Eric Clapton, whose entries at that point included “Crossroads,” his cover of Freddie King’s “Hideaway” on the Blues Breakers album, and his historic wah workout on “White Room.” Once the smoke cleared, however, we had reached consensus. 

The solos are organized chronologically – including those that fall within the same year – because we thought it would be instructive to see how they relate to each other historically. 

We hope that you like we came up with and perhaps even discover an overlooked gem or two for yourself...

1. Elmore James “Dust My Broom” (1951)

Jimi Hendrix originally called himself Jimmy James and Maurice James in homage to Elmore, and every bluesman since the ‘50s – particularly slide players – owes something to the King of the Slide Guitar. 

Played in an open-D tuning (D, A, D, F#, A, D, low to high), probably on a Kay flattop or Harmony Sovereign with a D’Armond pickup, the slide hook on this tune, and the solo based on it, reappear countless times throughout blues and rock music.

2. Les Paul “How High the Moon” (1951)

The super-syncopated, slap-back soaked runs, chukka-chukka doublestops with bluesy bends, plucky cascading figures, and idiosyncratic ornamentations in Paul’s two solos helped propel this standard up the charts, and further established Paul as the most creative electric guitar player of his generation. 

It was recorded with his “old Epiphone” – a.k.a. “the Clunker” and “the Breadwinner” – with custom-wound hot pickups and other major modifications.

3. Scotty Moore “That’s Alright, Mama” (1954)

Armed with his Gibson ES-295 through a ‘52 Fender Deluxe, Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black, and their bud Elvis, had no idea what a firestorm they were about to create with this early single. 

Moore’s simple, to the- point style covered the drummer-less bases quite easily with a fat tone and swinging musicality, giving this rather hillbilly ensemble some dangerous sonic heft.

His break on “That’s Alright, Mama” inspired everyone from George Harrison to Keith Richards to Jimmy Page, as well as Danny Gatton, who never missed an opportunity to throw a Moore homage in the middle of one of his famed rockabilly rave ups. 

Moore’s barking double-stops and approximation of a tic-tac bass line on “Mama” are as hooky as it gets, making this solo one of the most important ever.

4. Eddie Cochran “Sittin’ in the Balcony” (1957)

Slinging a 1955 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Hollow Body 'G'-branded guitar with a Gibson P-90 in the neck slot, Cochran, with his iconic presence and echo-drenched tones, hugely impacted early rockers – such as Lennon and McCartney, who bonded over Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” upon meeting in 1957 – and innumerable players thereafter, particularly Brian Setzer. 

The twangy solo on Cochran’s first hit, “Sittin’ In the Balcony,” crackles with the influence of his heroes Chet Atkins, Joe Maphis, and Johnny Smith.

5. Chuck Berry “Johnny B. Goode” (1958)

While some people might not consider this song’s intro a “solo,” it might be the most important rock guitar part ever recorded. 

The doublestops essentially usher in the post-Elvis rock era, and the tone and balls of this iconic part would echo in the playing of George Harrison, Keith Richards, Eddie Van Halen, and Angus Young... and that's just one tenth of one percent of the players who have copped these licks. 

Listen to it again. You’ll see.

6. Hank Marvin “Apache” (1960)

A primary influence on nearly every British guitarist of a certain age, Marvin created a dreamy, echo-y sound on this #1 U.K. hit that was achieved by playing his Stratocaster – the first in England – through a Meazzi Echomatic tape delay and a Vox AC30 tube amp. 

Marvin mostly used the bridge pickup, but picked near the neck, and palmed the vibrato arm to impart his trademark twang.

7. Freddie King “Hideaway” (1960)

Freddie (a.k.a. Freddy) King cobbled “Hideaway” out of parts lifted from tunes by Hound Dog Taylor, Jimmy McCracklin, Robert Lockwood Jr., and even Henry Mancini. 

Between the breaks where he recycled bits of “The Walk” and “Peter Gunn,” King played stinging solos that he plucked on a P-90 equipped Les Paul using a plastic thumbpick and metal fingerpick. 

Eric Clapton did his own version of the tune on John Mayall’s 1966 album, Blues Breakers, and the success of “Hideaway” made it a launch pad for a number of other King instrumentals that would further his notoriety as one of the top blues guitarists of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

8. James Burton “Hello Mary Lou” (1961)

Having turned pro as a teenager on the Louisiana Hayride, Burton was a seasoned vet by the time he became the lead player in Ricky Nelson’s band, which was featured regularly on the TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. 

Burton was a great rock and roll player, as evidenced by his Chuck Berry-style solo on “Believe What I Say,” but he also inspired legions of pickers with his explosively twangy lead break on “Hello Mary Lou.” 

Burton’s playing on Merle Haggard’s early ‘60s hits like “Mama Tried” and “Swingin’ Doors,” inspired the late, great Roy Nichols, who said, “I learned a lot from Burton, and I copied some of his licks, but I couldn’t copy him to a ‘T’.”

9. Jeff Beck “Over Under Sideways Down” (1966)

Along with the Rolling Stones, no band inspired more hard-edged guitar-wielding maniacs than the Yardbirds. Beck’s playing on their classic garage rock anthem is, like much of his playing at this time, inspired by the groovy sounds of the sitar. 

Equal parts spacey modal madness and meth-infused pentatonic fury, it still ranks as some of Beck’s most inspired playing, and that says a lot. 

And not only was Beck’s otherworldly playing inspirational to a generation of guitarists, but his punky stage demeanor and nasty sonic streak (a ‘54 Fender Esquire into a Tone Bender fuzz and AC30), served notice to everyone that a new sheriff was in town, and he was kicking ass.

10. Albert King “Born Under a Bad Sign” (1967)

If Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix lift your licks lock, stock, and barrel, your influence has been spread very far and very wide. In fact, one can make the case that Albert King was the most influential King, just by virtue of the not-so-subtle tributes by his admirers. 

King Albert’s authoritative bends and economical phrasing are required study for anyone who wants to play blues-rock guitar. On this cut, the Velvet Bulldozer lives up to his nickname, making his Gibson Flying V moan, scream, and move mountains with sweeping bends and a stinging tone that delivers all of the nuances in his playing. 

It also proves that, even though SRV and Clapton could “do” Albert, they were never really even close. 

11. Eric Clapton “Crossroads” (1968)

This one is a giant among giants. Little did Slowhand know, after he walked off the Winterland stage in San Francisco, he had created a template setting the standard for expressive, lyrical, howling blues-rock guitar. 

Armed with a ‘64 Gibson ES-335 and a couple of non-master volume 100-watt Marshall stacks, Clapton’s first break is a textbook example of how to build a solo’s intensity, while the second manages to kick it up one more notch for maximum climax. 

Not a duff note in the bunch, impeccably phrased, and with a vibrato that’s as classy as they come, Clapton could have never played another note and he’d still be one of the most influential players ever. 

12. Jimi Hendrix “All Along the Watchtower” (1968)

One can only guess what sort of “light bulb” moment Jimi experienced when he first heard this tune from Bob Dylan’s 1967 album John Wesley Harding. Maybe it was the biblical references in the lyrics, or the great melody – or perhaps just the wide-open space for improvising afforded by the four-chord progression. 

Whatever it was, the version that appeared on Hendrix’ Electric Ladyland album gave rise to one of Jimi’s most memorable solo outings. Playing soulfully and inventively using a wah and fuzz, Hendrix reinvented “All Along the Watchtower” to such a degree that it’s sometimes easy to forget who actually wrote the tune!

13. Peter Green “Black Magic Woman” (1968)

B.B. King once said of Green, “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.” After establishing himself as a masterful blues stylist in John Mayall’s band, Green quickly evolved both as a player and a songwriter with Fleetwood Mac. 

On his D minor tour-de-force “Black Magic Woman,” Green pulls off an incredibly captivating melody, and his beautiful phrasing and soulful bending on a Les Paul with “magnetically out of phase” pickups was pure gold. 

Carlos Santana made the song a huge hit on Abraxas, and Green was also influential on Irish blues rocker Gary Moore, who would own – and eventually sell – Green’s famous Gibson. 

14. Robert Fripp “21st Century Schizoid Man” (1969)

Fripp’s serpentine solo on this alarmingly virtuosic track combines a supersaturated sustained tone with atypical intervallic movement, non-bluesy bends and trills, and note choices and phrasing that had more in common with Coltrane than Clapton. 

Playing a three-pickup ‘59 Les Paul Custom through a Marshall stack and probably either a Burns Buzzaround or a Colorsound Tone Bender, he recorded the seminal progressive rock solo.

15. Jimmy Page “Heartbreaker” (1969)

Selecting the most influential Page solo led to a heated debate. 

But the squawking tone of a ‘58 Les Paul into a Marshall SLP 1969 Super Lead, maniacal cluster picking, wicked hammer-ons and pull-offs, and behind-the-nut G-string bending in the first solo on “Heartbreaker” – not to mention the smoking second solo – explain why everyone from Brian May to Steve Vai to Steve Morse have hailed it as a definitive guitar solo.

16. B.B. King “The Thrill is Gone” (1969)

With a tone sweeter and thicker than molasses, B.B. King graced this song with one of his most emotive blues solos of all time. King knew what the tune called for in context of the highly produced album Completely Well (his first with strings), and it wasn’t about showboating. 

Far from it, judging by the way he grooves so succulently behind the beat. Besides being a big hit for B.B., “The Thrill is Gone” showed guitarists the power of playing slow and cool. 

In an era when Johnny Winter was introducing blues-rock shredding, B.B. King’s huge vibrato and deep soul defined what “playing from the heart” was all about. 

17. Leslie West “Mississippi Queen” (1970)

Leslie West’s massive and massively influential tone on Climbing! – which included “Mississippi Queen” – was created by playing through a Sunn Coliseum P.A. head and four 4x12 speaker cabinets. 

“The head had four microphone inputs and a master volume control, huge transformers and gigantic KT88 tubes, and the cabinets were loaded with Eminence speakers, which never hurt your ears, even with the treble all the way up,” West told GP in 2010. 

He was playing Gibson Les Paul Juniors at the time, and used a single-cutaway 1956 Jr. with a single P-90, strung with La Bella Electric Guitar strings (with a .010 banjo string for the high E and the other strings moved down one to create a light-gauge set) on the track. 

The song reached #21 on the Billboard charts, assuring that West’s signature sound was heard across the country and around the world.

18. Duane Allman “Statesboro Blues” (1971)

By 1970 Duane Allman and Dickey Betts had forged one of the most iconic guitar sounds of all time with their harmonized melodies on songs like “Revival” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” 

But as far as slide players went, few at the time got more acclaim than Duane himself, after the 1971 release of The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East. Duane’s slick phrasing and fat, singing tone on the opening track of the double live album was inspired by hearing Taj Mahal’s rendition of the song with Jesse Ed Davis on slide. 

Sonny Landreth, who remembers seeing the Allman Brothers at the time, recalls: “That huge tone that Duane got when he played slide on a Les Paul through a Marshall was a real game changer. I don’t remember anyone else who had a sound like that back then.”

19. John McLaughlin “Meeting of the Spirits” (1971)

Although he had already done revolutionary work with Tony Williams’ Lifetime, Miles Davis, and as a solo artist, McLaughlin’s combination of molten Gibson-through-cranked-Marshall distortion, impossibly fast and complex yet ultra-precise picking, and unique phrasing on The Inner Mounting Flame shattered all existing concepts of “electric guitarist” and lit the fuse of fusion.

20. Ritchie Blackmore “Highway Star” (1972)

Actually a harmonized pair of solos, the tasty bends, rapid-fire triplets, and whammy manipulations on this Strat-into-a-Marshall-amp (via a reel-to-reel tape recorder preamp) solo make it one of Blackmore’s most memorable.

The Deep Purple guitarist’s influence on legions of rock and metal shedders from Morse to Malmsteen to Mustaine is undisputable.

21. Billy Gibbons “La Grange” (1973) 

Gibbons made his mark on this classic shuffle with two solos. 

The first, done on a ‘55 Strat, enters screaming with that classic rear pickup Fender bite, before Gibbons flips to the front pickup for a swinging double-stop workout and some liquid pentatonic runs delivered with his impeccable sense of time and swing. 

But it’s the track’s second solo that the guitarist is most famous for, and the one that every hard rock player would study, due to Gibbons’ insane pinch harmonics. With his “Pearly Gates” ‘59 Les Paul, the Reverend squawks, grunts, and chokes out so many pinch harmonics that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so damm bad ass. 

22. Brian May “Bohemian Rhapsody” (1975) 

Brian May’s touch, tone, and orchestral instincts have proven impossible to imitate, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. 

His majestic lines on this classic are quintessential May, with precise picking, impeccable phrasing, and a bold, loud sound. 

The solo’s placement in the mix was influential, informing how bands such as Boston and Styx featured their solos. You’ve got to assume Dr. May’s harmonized lines at the end of the song got Tom Scholz’s attention as well.

23. Larry Carlton “Kid Charlemagne” (1976)

Carlton was already a session legend known for his smooth-as-silk lines that were reminiscent of Wes, Pass, and Trane when he cut this Steely track. 

But when Mr. 335 combined a rock dude’s tone with a jazzer’s harmonic sensibilities, he created the standard by which every jazz rocker would be judged. 

Ask Steve Lukather, Robben Ford, or Mike Stern what impact this solo had on them. 

Alright then.

24. Carlos Santana “Europa (Earth’s Cry, Heaven’s Smile)” (1976)

Santana masterfully caresses the tune’s main melody with his trademark singing sustain and thick tone, never quite giving up the goods until the outro solo where he lets it all hang out in an outpouring of soulful yet wicked playing. 

He displays a fluid, tactile control at all times, and his tone is more open-sounding and less compressed than in recent years. 

And when he kicks the wah on, look out – he ratchets up the intensity tenfold, just when you think it can’t go any higher. Simply put, “Europa” is a study in pace, melodicism, and space – as well as good, old fashion burning!

25. Al Di Meola “Race with Devil on Spanish Highway” (1977)

Sure, there were people who could play fast before Di Meola, but nobody had made it such a central part of their deal before Big Al came along. 

Di Meola’s picking ability coupled with his sick, self-described “mutola” technique raised the bar for audacious shred and players interested in pushing the limits of picking. 

Far from being a pattern-minded monotone shredder, Di Meola’s Latin influences and his compositional sense have always made his displays of virtuosity supremely musical. 

And for all of the shred haters, Di Meola proved that the emotional impact of many notes is just as valid as a few well-placed ones. 

26. Eddie Van Halen “Eruption” (1978)

What can you say about this cadenza from hell? Cut in 1978, this has to be one of the most influential pieces of guitar playing ever. 

EVH took a Strat with a humbucker, an MXR Phase 90, and a plexi Marshall, and then played some supercharged Clapton licks that boggled just about every 6-stringer’s mind in the world. 

It was Van Halen’s two-handed tapping that truly grabbed everyone’s attention, however, and made this the most recognizable solo of the next two decades. “Eruption” made an impact on millions of rock dudes and seemingly every kid who set foot inside a Guitar Center.

27. Allan Holdsworth “In the Dead of Night” (1978)

As Bill Bruford put it, this solo was, “94 seconds of liquid passion married to a blinding technical facility that was to go down in the annals of rock guitar history. 

"All the hallmarks of his brilliant playing were there in this solo: poise, pace, melody, the Slonimsky interval jumps, the whammy bar, and all over a killer groove.”

28. Mark Knopfler “Sultans of Swing” (1978) 

When Mark Knopfler released this fingerpicked two-pickup masterpiece, he showed guitarists that you don’t need distortion or a plectrum to rock. 

With a Strat on the bridge and middle pickups, a Fender Twin Reverb and a Roland JC-120, Knopfler played two deft, bouncy solos that referenced Chet Atkins with snappy popped notes, crying bends, and clever arpeggios. 

Along the way he influenced just about every clean tone for the next 20 years. When people talk about an “out of phase” Strat tone, they’re talking about this tune.

29. Michael Schenker “Rock Bottom” (1979)

The 1970s was a great time for live records, with classics from Frampton, Lizzy, and Ted Nugent, but one of the sweetest solos to grace a double LP came from UFO’s Michael Schenker. 

The extended break on this tune has everything great about Schenker: melody, dynamics, tone for days, and burning. 

This lead would fascinate rockers all over the world, including George Lynch, Vinnie Moore, Akira Takahashi, and Kirk Hammett.

30. David Gilmour “Comfortably Numb” (1979)

Few solos can match the vibe of Gilmour’s work on this iconic piece. 

Playing a ‘79 black Stratocaster with a ‘62 neck and DiMarzios through Hiwatts and Yamaha RA-200 rotating speaker cabinets, Gilmour transformed what are essentially blues licks into a signature statement that affected the molecules in myriad musical minds. 

This is arguably his crowning achievement as a soloist.

31. Angus Young “You Shook Me All Night Long” (1980)

It serves to reason that a song that is all about getting it on should have a solo that is sexy, right? 

Damn straight. 

Young’s turn on this global hit finds him harnessing his kinetic blues tendencies into a steamy, attitude-laden solo that is actually kind of funky. 

His tasteful major pentatonic flavorings as well as his gorgeous tone – thanks to a wound up old Marshall and a Gibson SG – are the icing on the cake of his impeccable groove, intonation, and phrasing.

32. Randy Rhoads “Crazy Train” (1980)

After Van Halen, it wasn’t easy for an L.A. rocker to make a mark, but Randall Rhoads did so in a big way on his debut with Ozzy. 

Rhoads took what he had gleaned from Mick Ronson, Gary Moore, and Bach, and synthesized it into this metal tour de force. 

He wasn’t the first guy to blend classical music and rock, but he was absolutely the gateway drug for players like Zakk Wylde and Tom Morello.

33. Stevie Ray Vaughan “Pride and Joy” (1983)

The second cut on SRV’s debut album, Texas Flood, “Pride and Joy” blasted onto the airwaves courtesy of a great melody, catchy lyrics, and a gamechanging solo in which Vaughan threw down a barrage of killer licks with a gargantuan tone from his Fender/Dumble rig. 

SRV’s deft songwriting and his Albert King/Hendrix-influenced style succeeded in making what was fundamentally a classic “tay-hass” shuffle into a huge AOR hit that every classic rocker is expected to cover in perpetuity. 

Bottom line is, after SRV came along, anyone who thought they could play blues with fire and passion got a schoolin’ the size of Texas.

34. Yngwie Malmsteen “Black Star” (1984)

Mike Varney’s rep as a finder of great guitarists was already solid when he wrote about a kid from Sweden with a funny name in 1983. 

Many players’ first exposure to Malmsteen was on this shred fest. With his blinding speed, dazzling classical arpeggios, gorgeous Strat-into-Marshall tone, and larger than life vibrato, he didn’t raise the bar for rock technique – he obliterated it. 

Yngwie changed the game forever with this one, just ask any rocker who has swept an arpeggio since then.

35. George Lynch “The Hunter” (1985)

Dokken's George Lynch has inspired countless rock and metal players for nearly 30 years with his perfect blend of structured melodicism and off-the-rails fury – all in the space of a 16-bar solo. 

This solo is a perfect example, as he eases into it with memorable, understated melodic motifs that are helped along with some thick-ass tone and sick vibrato. 

Halfway through, however, Lynch begins to turn up the jets. Alternate picking, sweep picking, and legato playing become one within a single winding phrase, giving him a sound and style that are difficult to ape. 

However, Lynch did show the way for shred-obsessed guitarists on how to structure a meaningful statement in the middle of a tune and leave an everlasting mark. In fact, his solos are the only thing that don’t sound dated about Dokken.

36. Kirk Hammett “Master of Puppets” (1986)

Kirk Hammett’s influences include his teacher Joe Satriani, Michael Schenker, and Thin Lizzy. And nowhere are those influences more prominent than on this tune. 

Hammett’s whammy bar work and speed picking would inspire countless kids to notch their mids, cram their theory, and play blazing solos over chugging grooves.

37. Joe Satriani “Always with Me, Always with You” (1987)

Satriani is obviously known as a master technician, but it’s his melodic side that has left the biggest imprint on guitardom. 

This sweet ballad showcases Satch’s singing tone, skillful ornamentation, and ability to blend the tasty with the jaw dropping. 

The reach of this solo is apparent in hundreds of instrumental guitar records, country ballads, movie soundtracks, and car commercials.

38. Kurt Cobain “Come As You Are” (1991)

Although he took about as many solos and Johnny Ramone, the late Nirvana guitar anti-hero played a memorable one in this song from 1991. 

Presumably using a Boss DS-1 for dirt and an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus for the warbly modulation, Cobain simply quoted the vocal melody in a snotty, vibey way, and the kids went crazy. 

Suddenly, young players – many with a sanctimonious disdain for ‘80s-style wanking – were taking a break from strumming through songs and trying their hands at playing single-note lines.

39. Zakk Wylde “No More Tears” (1991)

Logic dictates that Zakk Wylde was doomed to failure when he got the gig with Ozzy. 

A blond kid with a Les Paul? Really? 

But then people got a taste of his huge tone, squealing harmonics, and rapid-fire pentatonics and a new star was born. 

On this tune Zakk channeled Rhoads, Billy Gibbons, and Frank Marino into a solo that was emblematic of the new generation of metalheads.

40. Dimebag Darrell “The Great Southern Trendkill” (1996)

The post-Van Halen, post-Randy Rhoads world was in dire need of a champion when Darrell Abbott came on the scene. 

He took the styles of those guys, mixed in some Ace Frehley, some Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a heapin’ helpin’ of moonshine and created the ass-kicking solo here. 

Dime made it cool to love Holdsworth, EVH, and Billy Gibbons all in the same song.

The release of Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West demonstrates the respect felt by so many axe heroes for Leslie West’s unique talents.

The breadth of artists that contributed to it – from contemporaries like Robby Krieger and Martin Barre to shred legends such as Yngwie Malmsteen and Marty Friedman – highlights the fact that a truly great artist can transcend all genres.

Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr formed a close friendship with West in his later years and was keen to be a part of the star-studded album project.

Any favorite personal memories of time spent with Leslie?

I got to play “Mississippi Queen” with him at the Beacon Theater in New York City. We jammed for something like 10 minutes before he even played the riff. It was mesmerizing.

What are the highlights of Leslie’s back catalog for you?

When you make two records as strong as Climbing! and Nantucket Sleighride, it’s hard to single out specific highlights, but for my money, not much is better than “Sittin’ on a Rainbow” and “To My Friend” [both from Climbing!].

Those two pieces of music cover the spectrum.

Why did you choose to cover “Silver Paper,” from Climbing!?

I don’t believe you could go wrong with any Mountain track, but this one has always hit home with me.

What is it about Leslie’s playing that spoke to you?

His playing is like a soulful singing voice. He never overplayed. His guitar was just an extension of his own amazing singing. Plus he has the best tone ever.

Order Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West here.

By the mid-1990s, Joe Satriani had things pretty much sewn up career-wise. Four of his six studio albums had gone either Gold or Platinum, and his touring dance card was filled for much of any given year.

But despite his spectacular success, something had started to feel a little...off. He wasn’t having the kind of fun he had imagined years before, when he was a budding guitarist dreaming about rock stardom.

“I thought there would be more camaraderie among other players than what I was experiencing,” he says. “As a teenager, I had this idea of what things would be like if I ever hit it big. There would be parties, and I’d get to hang out with my guitar friends. We’d jam and talk about music all night long – that kind of thing.

“Instead, the opposite was true: I was isolated. I would go on tour and play the same set, and then I’d go back to my hotel room and be on my own. I’d have 100 shows in front of me, and then I’d have to make another record and do it all over again.”

Satriani wanted to shake things up, but he didn’t quite know how. And then it hit him: He would create a new kind of show, one that celebrated the communal spirit of electric guitar playing that he craved.

“Nobody was really doing anything of the kind,” he says. “You had blues and reggae festivals. You’d see disco revivals and things like that. Lollapalooza had just started up. But there was nothing really that spoke to guitarists.”

It’s no coincidence that, at that time, interest in guitar was entering a slump from which it would take years to recover.

Starting in the late 1980s, rap and hip-hop had grown in popularity, and were the dominant forms of popular music as the century careened toward its conclusion. Youngsters had become more interested in the power of two turntables and a microphone than in the trenchant blast of a Les Paul cranked through a Marshall stack.

It was still too early to see the lean years that would come, when guitar heroes’ relevance would dim, but Satch’s desire for a guitarist-led event would prove timely.

“I wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with my friends and peers,” he recalls. “And so I thought, Well, nobody else is doing it, so I’ll do it.”

Satriani met with his management team and laid out his grand vision of a traveling show featuring himself and two other guitarists (hence the “G3” moniker), with each player performing an hour-long set followed by a three-way jam.

Once his managers were sold on the idea, the hard part began: convincing booking agents and concert promoters of the package’s validity. “We were breaking the rules that everybody had been taught over the years,” Satriani explains.

“Promoters around the world, and especially in the U.S., like to keep guitarists’ itineraries separated, for business reasons. They don’t want to dilute the market. But I always thought this format would be energizing, because it went against the trends. I always knew it could work.”

Since its first run in 1996, G3 has become the longest-running guitar-centric tour of its kind. All in all, Satriani has taken the show on 18 treks across the U.S., Europe, South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Along with Satch himself, the tour has featured guitarists such as John Petrucci, Robert Fripp, Steve Morse, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Steve Lukather, Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Schenker, Uli Jon Roth, Paul Gilbert, Al Di Meola, Adrian Legg, Phil Collen and the Aristocrats.

But none of it would have happened had G3’s maiden voyage not connected with audiences.

Satriani knew his first package had to pack a wallop, and his dream lineup – a triple-headline bill he shared with his close friend and one-time guitar pupil Steve Vai, along with Texas guitar star Eric Johnson – was a no-brainer.

“I really didn’t have to think about it,” he says. “I wanted to do it with them, and that was all there was to it. I knew we could all shine together onstage.” Vai and Johnson required no arm twisting.

“I said yes immediately,” Vai says. “The second Joe told me about what he wanted to do, I was in. And it superseded other plans I may have had, because the concept felt fresh. Plus, it was something that I thought was needed in the guitar community at the time. The idea was just fantastic.”

Says Johnson, “I felt the same way. It sounded like a novel idea at the time. I remember my manager said, ‘I like this. It sounds really different and cool.’”

Some 25 years on, the first G3 tour and its subsequent editions remain a singular achievement in the world of guitar. Coincidentally, all three of the tour’s founding members are currently releasing albums and planning tours. We thought it was the perfect opportunity to ask them to reminisce about their experiences together and to fantasize what another run might look like.

It was important to me to keep the spirit of guitar music alive no matter what new style of music was becoming popular. I wanted more interaction with great players, and I knew the audience wanted the same. So I took the bull by the horns.

By the late ’90s, it was evident that guitar-based music was losing popularity as rap and hip-hop became the dominant genres. Joe, did you have a premonition that the guitar was in danger of losing some of its relevance when you launched G3 in 1996, just a few years before?

JOE SATRIANI I was more focused on what I felt the fans were craving, and what I too was craving: more fun with the guitar. Having been a performing musician since I was 14 years old, I knew that styles would change and society would simply change channels, so I wasn’t phased by what was happening in the mid-to-late ’90s.

It was important to me to keep the spirit of guitar music alive no matter what new style of music was becoming popular. I wanted more interaction with great players, and I knew the audience wanted the same. So I took the bull by the horns.          

Eric, as everybody knows, Joe and Steve share a long history. When you signed up for G3, did you feel like you had to break the ice with two guys who knew each other so well?

ERIC JOHNSON Well, maybe a little bit, but they were always affable and made me feel comfortable right away. Obviously, Joe and Steve grew up together, and I wasn’t a part of that. But I was totally aware of both of them and their music. I respected them and knew what they were about. I was welcomed very warmly, and that made it very easy to be a part of G3.

Joe and Steve, did you feel like you had to bring Eric into the fold, or were you two like, “Oh, he’ll figure it out”?

SATRIANI I knew it would be fine. I never thought that we had to coach each other. We were all of the same mind: “Isn’t this going to be amazing?” Then at the end of the night, when we start playing together, our attitude was, Let’s just wing it and see what happens! And I can’t tell you how excited I was every night to be destroyed by these two guitar players.

STEVE VAI Come on! [laughs]

SATRIANI It’s true. It was so much fun, because it’s one thing when somebody destroys you onstage like that, and you’re right next to them and you can see how they do it. It’s a life-learning experience. I loved that, and it’s something I’ve always loved about every G3. There’s nothing like it. You can’t replicate it in any other way.

VAI To answer the question you asked about having Eric: Yes, Joe and I have a friendship that goes way back, a very rich, wonderful friendship throughout our lives. We’ve been joined at the hip since I was 12. [laughs]

So to do G3, and to know that Eric was going to do it, too, I was immediately thrilled. Bringing Eric into the fold, it never felt like Joe and I were a group and there was an outsider. We were all very present in the moment. We were three accomplished, mutually respectful players really looking to raise the bar for ourselves and for the guitar.

I know for me, every time I get on a stage with really accomplished, inspired players, it’s impossible not to expand my own potential. Like Joe says, when you’re standing next to these guys, they push you and challenge you. You have to raise your bar because they’re doing it. That’s the feeling you get when it’s your turn. It’s very inspiring, and it’s nice.

Some of my favorite onstage moments were when the three of us were playing together and listening to one another. It’s a very intimate space, and nobody is Joe, Steve or Eric. It’s just this environment of listening and responding.

Joe, during those first G3 tours, did you have a sense that you were keeping the spirit of guitar virtuosity alive at a time when it was in short supply? Did that have an impact on the shows, either in your commitment to keep doing them or in who you brought along on tour?

SATRIANI The G3 stage was the one place where you could play any way you wished. There were no boundaries. You could overdo it, or you could underplay it and be subtle. You could stand still, you could sit like Robert Fripp, or you could bring your own rock and roll circus to the stage.

I encouraged my fellow players to try anything and everything every night. We would support, echo and sometimes challenge each others’ improvisational tangents. Virtuosity on the guitar comes in many forms, and there’s no reason they can’t be celebrated right next to each other.

There have been three other tours with this lineup. When you tour, does it feel like “the band is back together”? Like you’re the Three Amigos.

SATRIANI “The Three Amigos” – I like that. [laughs] I think we should launch another tour once the world opens up a bit. It would be interesting to see where we’ve been musically. We can come back and trade our secrets once again.

JOHNSON Yeah, yeah!

VAI I’m down.

JOHNSON We could wear those Mexican outfits like [Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Steve Martin] did in The Three Amigos. At least for the encore. [laughs]

Joe, when you put together other iterations, did you ever ask Steve or Eric who they wanted to come along as the third guitarist?

SATRIANI Well, it’s a complicated thing putting G3 together, because my responsibility is both creating and selling the package. It starts a year before we want to hit the road. There are a number of scenarios that we have to float to all the different promoters to get a consensus of what they will agree is worthy of the invitation, because you can only play if you’re invited. You don’t just show up.

That means that we come up with Plans A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and then we see what the reaction is. Part of the music business is pretty cruel. It’s numbers and statistics. It’s always been about ticket sales, but back then it was a lot about radio. These days, the social media thing is really a big deal. It’s the first thing promoters do: They see if you’re trending on TikTok or Instagram. They need to determine if they want to take the risk.

That’s how that starts. And, of course, there’s a fine line between sticking to your guns about what you really want to do and listening to the feedback you get from your promoters. There’s no way to know who should be the third guy in Eastern Europe versus Canada, so you’ve got to talk to the promoters to see what they think and what suggestions they might have. Sometimes they’re good ones, and sometimes you’re scratching your head going, “Really?”

It’s difficult. It’s a very long period, and we have to be extremely quiet and discreet about it until we’ve distilled all this advice and feedback. Then we put out the invitations and reach out to the players that have risen to the top of the list, and we have to see what they say. Some players don’t want to play with other guitarists.

I suppose that’s true.

SATRIANI Yeah. I think there are fearless players out there, and then there are people who are still very guarded. I think that’s the defining difference. These gentlemen here are fearless and totally confident, and they just want to make their audience happy. That’s what you want. You don’t want any other baggage coming onstage.

I imagine sometimes choosing the third guitarist feels very easy and natural, but are there instances when you’ve thought, I don’t know how this is going to work?

SATRIANI Well, one of the most interesting characters was Robert Fripp, beyond a doubt. When he joined up, he insisted that he not be listed, and he wanted to play before the show. He said, “Look, don’t turn the lights on. I’m going to sit behind all the amps, and I’m going to play music as people walk into the venue and find their seats. And don’t mention my name.” It’s what he wanted to do.

Sometimes [bassist] Stu Hamm would play with him unannounced. He’d just come out, sit right next to Robert and he’d play along, or some of the other guys would play. It was really quite beautiful. Robert is such a wonderful human being and an incredible musician. We did a couple of other tours together, just me, Steve and Robert playing blues guitar or something. It was hysterical, and he was fearless about that. He was Robert Fripp to the very end.

JOHNSON Well, I was actually thinking of Robert Fripp when Joe mentioned him, because it was like, Wow, that’s different! He was definitely coming from left field, I think. But it was beautiful and cool. People really enjoyed it, too. I thought it sounded great. A lot of people told me, “Hey, have you heard Robert play with the G3 thing?” They thought it was great.

For the encore jams, you three have played “Red House,” “Goin’ Down” and “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama.” How do you guys come up with those songs?

SATRIANI We start emailing each other about what would be a fun song. I think I put it to the guys that we should pick songs that weren’t our own but were somehow connected to us in some way. They would be songs that the audience would recognize and that would celebrate the guitar.

It wasn’t about one of the participants’ new single or something like that. We had to drop all that pretense that we were there to sell our new thing. I think the Zappa song was Steve’s suggestion. He brought that in, and it was great. It turned into one we did over and over again through the years.

VAI Joe would always reach out for suggestions, and there were many, many songs we’d toss out. Some of them would be head-scratchers, but I always relied on Joe to decipher it all, feel through it and pick what the final jam songs would be.

That went for everything – routing, position in the set, where you’re standing onstage. It was always diplomatic, but there’s a practical sensibility that needs to be exercised in all of these things. And that was Joe, because he’s got the tools.

Joe and Steve, you’ve done a number of G3s with John Petrucci as the third guitarist. Eric, I think you played on one tour with John. Is that right?

JOHNSON I did, yeah, in South America. John Petrucci’s amazing. I’m more familiar with him now, and his drummer, Mike Mangini. You know how there are certain groups that you don’t know their whole deal? Even though they’re almost a parallel track as yours, it’s not somebody you really listen to that much, but you still knew they were great.

I wasn’t familiar with John at first, but I was really blown away by him. It was kind of funny, though, because when I first met Mike Mangini, I didn’t know who he was. I asked him, “Are you down here teching for the band?”

VAI I remember that.

JOHNSON Then I heard him play, and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I should say that teching’s no different than playing. I think I embarrassed myself, because I didn’t know who he was. It was a bummer, because I was never able to get to know him; I think I made him feel awkward.

But he was such a fabulous drummer, and John was remarkable. They had a whole different thing going on, with the way they broke up time signatures and stuff. It was just amazing. I got schooled on that during the tour, not unlike the G3s that I did with Joe and Steve. It was like taking lessons every single night.

This is for all of you: How did your G3 experiences impact your feelings about the other two guys here?

SATRIANI Whoa… There have been so many moments when I would stand on the side of the stage watching Steve and Eric play, and then I’d look out at the audience and think, Do they have any idea how amazing this thing is? When are they ever going to see this again?” [Satriani’s cell phone rings] Oh, sorry about that. It’s my agent calling.

JOHNSON He’s saying, “Come on. Book a G3 tour!” [laughs]

SATRIANI And make it snappy! [mutes his phone] Like I said, there were so many moments. For me, in those private moments, standing there and watching them play, it was beyond remarkable. They truly felt the music, and that’s very inspiring. And then to see what they did to the audience, lifting them up, raising their spirits. It just makes you think, We’re doing the right thing.

JOHNSON With Joe, I was really shocked at his precision, virtuosity and sound. Every single night, he would nail everything, unlike somebody else who might be talking. [laughs] Obviously, his records are beautiful, but he plays that stuff live to a T. His touch, his fingering… truly outstanding. He would just nail it all the way.

And then there’s Steve – this organic guitar orchestra. From comedy to sadness, he packs in all these different emotions, and they go way beyond guitar sounds. That blew my mind. It was just such a hemisphere of learning for me.

How about you, Steve?

VAI With Joe and Eric, I already knew of their excellence. You know, I can be a sloppy, visceral performer. I always enjoy what I do, but there’s a little part of me that says, “You can be better. You can be more concise. You can be clearer and cleaner.”

So when I’d get onstage with these guys, that’s what I recognized. Seeing them perform, I saw the presentation of a whole piece of music that was immaculate. No disrespect to any other G3 performer, but if I go back to listen to any G3 record, I go right to Eric’s performance of “Manhattan,” which is flawless.

Every night I would watch him, and beyond being absolutely entertained by a musician at the height of his potential, I would always feel like, Steve, you’ve got to do more of that. He was inspired and performed beautifully from beginning to end.

And, of course, that’s Joe’s middle name. You know how many times I’ve seen him perform? [laughs] Every time he gives you this incredible presentation. What he offers you is beautiful. The song is respected, and it’s mastered completely.

You get as much out of it as the audience.

VAI Oh yeah. When I see these guys do what they do, I could be depressed or I could be inspired. And they always inspired me. I knew how they could perform. But what was interesting for me was putting a microscope on myself.

If anything, I’ve always been a bit of a pretentious rock star. [Joe and Eric laugh] It’s true – you guys know it. And that was exorcized out of me a bit. When you work with guys like this – because they’re humble, and they’re excellent – it’s fun and educational to get your ass kicked.

We were friends before, and we’re friends after. What more could you ask for?

Order Joe Satriani/Eric Johnson/Steve Vai: G3 Live In Concert here.

Visit the Joe Satriani website for more info on G3.

It takes considerable patience to learn how to perform sweep arpeggios with fluidity, keeping the notes separated so they don’t ring together and sound like a lazily strummed chord. Once you have the technique down, however, you can burn through massive six-string sweeps at breathtaking speeds.

But what then? Employing Yngwie-sized roller-coaster sweeps in your solos may sound impressive, but, if overused, it can grow tiresome for your listeners. In this lesson, we’ll give you some helpful tips on how to vary your application of the sweep-picking technique and broaden your phrasing palette to keep things interesting. We’ll also illustrate each step with plenty of helpful musical examples.

Rhythmic Variation

One of the many musical ruts sweep-pickers fall into is using a one-size-fits all rhythmic phrasing, with very little variation within a lick or run. This is usually a practical consideration – rhythmic interest is often disregarded in favor of speed, and it can be quite difficult to negotiate rhythmic changes mid-sweep. But changing up the rhythmic phrasing in a sweep pattern is an effective and fairly simple way to not only make your sweep patterns sound more interesting but also make you a more versatile lead player.

As is always the case when sweep-picking, the key to making the notes sound melodic, and not blurred together like a strummed chord, is to “get off” each note with the fret hand right after it is picked, so that it doesn’t ring, or “bleed,” into the next note. You needn’t let go of the string entirely, but loosen your grip on it, so that the string breaks contact with the fret and stops vibrating.

Ex. 1 is a three-part drill built around a C major arpeggio (C E G), for which the rhythm changes every four bars. We begin with even, or “straight,” eighth notes, followed by eighth-note triplets, then finish with 16th notes.

Here, the challenge lies in your ability to transition smoothly from one rhythmic subdivision to the next. Practice this exercise slowly at first and with a metronome to ensure accuracy. Also, try reversing the order of the subdivisions, starting with 16th notes, then “downshifting” to eighth-note triplets, then straight eighths.

Seventh-Chord Arpeggios

Many sweep-happy rock and metal electric guitar players use the technique primarily with triadic (root-third-fifth) arpeggios, such as straight major and minor, stacked in octaves. But in fact, sweep-picking was pioneered back in the 1950s by jazz guitar greats like Les Paul, Tal Farlow, Johnny Smith and Barney Kessel, who used the technique with four-note seventh-chord arpeggios, such as major seven, minor seven and dominant seven, played within one octave.

You can hear these masters sweep arpeggios on songs like Les Paul and Mary Ford’s “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise,” Tal Farlow’s “Taking a Chance on Love” and Barney Kessel’s “Here’s that Rainy Day.”

Generally, their approach to sweeping was to employ the technique sparingly, playing smaller yet denser single-octave seventh-chord arpeggios, which consist of a root, third, fifth and seventh, and sweeping across just three or four strings, rather than the two-or three-octave triadic stacks typical of modern rock and metal sweeps.

Ex. 2 demonstrates how sweep-picking may be used with a Cmaj7 arpeggio (C E G B) in just one octave. After downstroke-sweeping across the top three strings, pick the high B note with an upstroke and slide your fret-hand pinkie from the seventh fret up to the eighth and back, to create a legato articulation. Then, begin an upstroke sweep as you descend the arpeggio toward the root, starting on the G note at the third fret.

Now let’s look at some common seventh-chord sweep patterns, using the set of diatonic arpeggios based on the C major scale: Cmaj7-Dm7-Em7-Fmaj7-G7-Am7-Bm7 5. Ex. 3a is performed entirely on the top three strings and has you beginning with a downstroke sweep on the G string. Once you sweep through to the high E string, pick the seventh of the chord, the high B note, with an upstroke and slide your pinkie up to the C root note and back, then perform an upstroke sweep from the high E string to the G string, just as we did in the previous example, but in a different melodic context.

This same one-bar phrasing structure and pick-hand sequence is then applied to all the remaining arpeggios in the example, sliding up the neck to the next arpeggio shape and altering the fret-hand fingerings as needed, to accommodate the different arpeggios qualities – major seven, minor seven, dominant seven and minor seven flat-five.

Ex. 3b is performed entirely on the A, D and G strings and has us beginning with a downstroke and hammer-on from the low C root note up to the third, E, then continuing the downstroke sweep across the next two strings. You then pick the octave C root note with an upstroke, pull off back to the seventh of the arpeggio, B, and continue the upstroke sweep back across the D and A strings. This same sequence is then applied to all the remaining diatonic seventh-chord arpeggios in the key of C, again moving up the fretboard while staying on the same string group.

Switching to the key of G, our next two examples illustrate similar approaches applied to an arpeggiated chord scale using the G major scale’s diatonic seventh chords, first across the top four strings, then across the bottom three. In Ex. 4a, we begin with a downstroke sweep across a root-position Gmaj7 arpeggio (G B D F ) from the D string to the high E, then pick the octave G root note with an upstroke, pull off back to the seventh, F , and continue the upstroke sweep across the B, G and D strings back down to the G root.

As before, the same approach is then applied to the subsequent diatonic seventh-chord arpeggios, with a slide up to the next form and a slight alteration for the three minor sevens (Am7, Bm7 and Em7), for which we’re playing the seventh of the arpeggio on the B string instead of the high E, which affects the fret-hand fingering and sweeping structure. Pay careful attention to both the fingering and picking prompts indicated for these minor seven arpeggios, and notice in each case that, on the descent (across beats three and four), we’re doing two quick, consecutive upstrokes in a row on the B string. Alternatively, you could dispense with the second upstroke and just pull off to the note on beat four in each of these bars.

Ex. 4b is nearly identical to Ex. 3b, the only difference being that every note is played on the next lower string, a perfect fourth below. All of these arpeggio types are foundational and will come into play in the later exercises, so get to know them well!

Stacking Seventh-Chord Arpeggios

Now that you’re acquainted with the one-octave seventh-chord arpeggios shown thus far, here are some interesting ways to use them together – and make them sound like giant 10-note sweeps!

First, take a look at the four Dm7 (D F A C) arpeggio patterns shown in Ex. 5a. The first two are root-position forms (the root note being the lowest note), each of which is played in a different octave and ascends from the D root to the minor, or “flatted,” third, F, the fifth, A, and the minor, or “flatted,” seventh, C before ending on the octave D root.

In each ascending shape, begin the arpeggio with a hammer-on. After down-picking the first note, rest your pick on the next string as you perform the hammer-on and continue the downstroke sweep across the next two strings.

The two descending patterns in bar 2 work the opposite way, each starting with an upstroke followed by a pull-off and a continuation of the upstroke sweep across the next two lower strings. These arpeggios are considered second-inversion forms, as the fifth, A, is the lowest note. (They also begin on the fifth, which is highest note, too.)

Once you have these four isolated one-octave patterns down, check out the longer two-octave runs in Ex. 5b, wherein each pair of related one-octave Dm7 arpeggios is connected via a position shift, which is facilitated by a legato (unpicked) finger slide that’s used in combination with a hammer-on on the way up and a pull-off on the way down.

Since each one-octave form is in a different position, you’ll slide from one shape into the next, all the while maintaining the integrity of the sweep by only picking down through the ascending arpeggio and up through the descending arpeggio, as indicated.

Superimpositions

In rock and metal, sweep-picking patterns are typically used in a rather fundamental, straightforward way. Playing over an Am chord? Use an ascending Am sweep, then come back down on either the same Am path or a different one.

While this type of approach is all well and good, you can enrich the harmonic color of your sweep-picked lines by superimposing a different arpeggio in the upper register that’s somehow related to the underlying tonal center. For example, instead of just playing an Am arpeggio (A C E) over and Am chord, which provides the root, minor third and fifth, you could substitute Em (E G B) to get an inherently “jazzier” sound, as the notes G and B give you, relative to an A root, the minor, or “flatted,” seventh and the ninth.

Do this by starting out with your foundational triad arpeggio in the lower register, then switch to a related one as you move up the neck, using a finger slide to seamlessly transition from the base arpeggio to the superimposed one.

Ex. 6 demonstrates this concept in the guitar-friendly key of E minor. With an Em7 chord in the accompaniment (or even just Em, or an E bass note), start sweeping through a root-position Em7 arpeggio (E G B D), then slide into an inversion of it to finish out bar 1.

On the downbeat of bar 2, however, instead of playing the high E root note at the 12th fret, as expected, we instead reach up to the 14th fret F note with the pinkie and slide up a half step, to G, and back.

Now, instead of backtracking down the same Em7 path, you play a descending Gmaj7 arpeggio (G B D F#), through to the end of the phrase, creating a cool Em9 (E G B D F ) sound. This superimposition works well because there is much overlap between the two chords/arpeggios – so much, in fact, that we’re only changing one note.

Another important consideration here, however, is the phrasing. We’re starting out playing one arpeggio and ending on a different one while still playing over the same backing chord, or tonal center, and while maintaining a seamless flow of notes.

Let’s break down the music theory behind all of this: When playing over a chord that’s diatonic to whatever key you’re in – meaning all of its notes live within the key’s related scale – you have the option of superimposing any other chord that’s also diatonic, or native, to the key. This creates interplay between the chord tones of the base chord – the root, third, fifth and seventh – and the tensions availed to you by the rest of the scale – the ninth, 11th and 13th, which are the second, fourth and sixth an octave higher. So, if you’re playing anything diatonic to the key, you will therefore be playing either a chord tone or a tension, regardless of the arpeggio you’re playing.

Let’s look at another example of this superimposing-arpeggios approach, this one in the key of G (see Ex. 7). Playing over a Gmaj7 chord, we start in second position with an ascending downstroke sweep through a Gmaj9 arpeggio, which is Gmaj7 with the ninth, A, added on top as a harmonic tension.

We then slide the pinkie up to the 10th-fret D note, putting us in seventh position, then perform a descending upstroke sweep across a Cmaj7 arpeggio (C E G B), which, with the high D note, creates a Cmaj9 (C E G B D) sound.

We then slide up with the pinkie again, this time on the D string, and perform an ascending downstroke sweep through an Em arpeggio to finish the phrase. Notice how each superimposition momentarily creates and resolves harmonic tension. This is because the C and E notes are tensions, relative to the underlying Gmaj7 chord, and the rest are “agreeable” chord tones.

Most of our examples thus far have started on a downstroke sweep, so let’s change things up a bit. Ex. 8 is in the key of C and is played over a Cmaj7 chord overall, with other diatonic arpeggios superimposed.

We begin with a pull-off on the high E string, from the 12th fret to the eighth, followed by an upstroke sweep across a partial Am7 arpeggio shape, then a slide down into a G7 shape.

In bar 2, we have two consecutive downstroke sweeps across the related triadic arpeggios F and Bdim, with the high F note resolving down to E with a finger slide.

Now let’s take a look at how this arpeggio-superimposition concept can be applied to a chord progression. Ex. 9 presents an eight-bar melodic run played over a repeated ii-V-I progression in the key of G major: Am7-D7-Gmaj7.

The melody uses a combination of superimposed sweep-picked arpeggios and some that directly match the accompanying chord, plus some straight melodic playing with alternate picking over the Gmaj7 chord in bar 3, added for the sake of breaking up the pattern of successive arpeggios.

All of the chord symbols for the superimposed arpeggios are identified in parentheses to illustrate how they work in relation to the accompanying chord.

Whether you want to ditch Yngwie Malmsteen for Frank Gambale entirely or simply find new ways to change up your playing, incorporating these concepts and approaches into your melodic vocabulary will breathe new life into your sweep-picking technique and musical inventions.

The arrival of Rising Force, Yngwie Malmsteen’s 1984 debut album, gave birth to a new genre known as neoclassical metal. Of all the album’s tracks, “Far Beyond the Sun” best demonstrated the guitarist’s unprecedented technical chops and melodicism, cementing his place in the annals of shred legends.  

Malmsteen was unaware he was about to launch an entirely new genre of rock. In his eyes, he was simply playing his way. “When people ask why I play in the style I’m known for, I explain that this is natural for me. I’m not putting it on,” he says. “Blues is part of me as well, but my natural style is predominantly what I like to call ‘symphonic metal.’” 

Reinventing The Steal

Although Malmsteen had worked up most of the album’s songs many years before, he wrote “Far Beyond the Sun” specifically for the record. “I was thinking a little bit about Beethoven’s Fifth, rhythmically. I was shamelessly stealing from the greats,” he says, laughing.

Considering Malmsteen's love of classical music, it’s nor surprising that “Far Beyond the Sun” is jam-packed with all of the tropes of the genre: light and shade, tension and release, and crescendos that explode into flurries of cascading notes. 

“When I was young, I realized that so much rock music was based on five notes, and I wanted to break out of that,” he explains. “Improvisation is the root of all of my compositions. People forget that all of the great classical composers were improvisers, because nowadays everyone sticks to the written music when they play classical pieces.”

Here Comes The Sun

The track was recorded with Stevie Wonder’s mobile recording unit and came together quickly. “I knew exactly what I wanted the bass and keyboards to play,” he says. “The only thing that we had to do a couple of times was the ending.” 

Malmsteen's setup for the recording consisted of a Fender Stratocaster, Marshall 50-watt stacks, and a DOD overdrive. “I found my sound in the ‘70s, almost by accident,” he explains. 

“Everybody wanted 100-watt Marshalls, so the 50-watt heads were very cheap. That’s why I started to use them. But I realized that they delivered exactly what I was looking for. My sound and equipment have basically been the same ever since.”

In retrospect, Malmsteen isn’t completely happy with “Far Beyond the Sun.” “I think the drums sound terrible,” he admits. “That was then, though, and it’s easy with hindsight to pick up on things that I would do differently today. 

"The thing that I am happiest about for all of my albums is that I never released something where I didn’t give it my all. If my playing is better or worse on something, that was always the absolute best that I could have done at that time.”

Show Of Force

Malmsteen has played “Far Beyond the Sun” at every show since it appeared on Rising Force, and, in the spirit of the classical composers who inspire him, “I never play it the same,” he says. “I always have a long improvised intro, and then an adagio before the big opening riff. I also play parts of the runs and the solo differently, never note-for-note. 

“I never expected ‘Far Beyond the Sun’ to become the huge piece of music that it has become. I guess that’s my legacy. You can take it or leave it, but that’s who I am, and it comes from within me.”

Last month, neoclassical shred titan Yngwie Malmsteen announced his 22nd solo album, Parabellum, and released its first single, "Wolves At The Door." 

Now, Malmsteen has released the album's second single, the rather aptly titled "Relentless Fury."

You can check out the song – which closes with a bonanza of alternate picking, monster bends, and other fiery six-string acrobatics – below.

In a statement, Malmsteen cited the song as a "good example of how you can take a simple groove and melody and take it to a whole new world with different harmonies, instrumentation, and voices."

Malmsteen's first solo effort since 2019's Blue Lightning, Parabellum is set for a July 23 release via Music Theories Recordings.

“I always try to push myself on every album I do, and attempt things which are more extreme than previously," Malmsteen said of the album. "But what has helped this time is that I wasn't able to go on the road because of the pandemic. It meant I could take much longer in the studio, both to write and record. 

"Because I am usually always on tour, which is great, I haven't had the luxury of spending a lot of time working on new music for more than 20 years. But I suddenly had no pressure at all on that front. And I feel the album has benefited enormously as a result.”

You can check out Parabellum's cover art and track list below. 

To preorder the album, step right this way.

Yngwie Malmsteen – Parabellum:

1. Wolves At The Door
2. Presto Vivace in C# Minor
3. Relentless Fury
4. (Si Vis Pacem) Parabellum
5. Eternal Bliss
6. Toccata
7. God Particle
8. Magic Bullet
9. (Fight) The Good Fight
10. Sea Of Tranquility

Yngwie Malmsteen has announced a new solo album, Parabellum.

The new full-length – the virtuoso's 22nd solo offering, and first since 2019's Blue Lightning – is set for a July 23 release via Music Theories Recordings.

You can check out the album's first single – the characteristically intense, light-speed, "Wolves At The Door" – below.

“I always try to push myself on every album I do, and attempt things which are more extreme than previously," Malmsteen said in a statement. "But what has helped this time is that I wasn't able to go on the road because of the pandemic. It meant I could take much longer in the studio, both to write and record. 

"Because I am usually always on tour, which is great, I haven't had the luxury of spending a lot of time working on new music for more than 20 years.  But I suddenly had no pressure at all on that front. And I feel the album has benefited enormously as a result.”

You can check out Parabellum's cover art and track list below. 

To preorder the album, step right this way.

Yngwie Malmsteen – Parabellum:

1. Wolves At The Door
2. Presto Vivace in C# Minor
3. Relentless Fury
4. (Si Vis Pacem) Parabellum
5. Eternal Bliss
6. Toccata
7. God Particle
8. Magic Bullet
9. (Fight) The Good Fight
10. Sea Of Tranquility

Remember when Yngwie Malmsteen took a Jimmy Page Telecaster for a spin last month? And ended up sounding... just like he normally does with one of his signature Strats? Well, the Swedish neoclassical guitar titan is at it again.

This time, for a video posted a couple days ago to his YouTube channel, Malmsteen picked up a resplendent 1959 Gibson Les Paul and put it through its paces.

In yet another example of the 'tone is all in your hands' mantra, Malmsteen makes the hefty solidbody sound like a souped-up superstrat, executing all manner of two-hand tapping sequences and blink-and-you'll-miss-them lead runs without so much as breaking a sweat. 

You can check out the short 'n' sweet demo of the – in Malmsteen's own words – “nice guitar” above.

For more of Malmsteen's videos, stop by his YouTube channel.

The Fender Jimmy Page Telecaster was released in January 2019 – in “dragon” and “mirror” Custom Shop and factory-line incarnations – to much fanfare.

Though one would expect that the guitar specializes in the sort of taught, razor-sharp tones – as heard on Led Zeppelin's legendary self-titled debut album – that made Page's original so famous, the six-string, in the right hands, definitely shows some sonic versatility as well.

Case in point is the above video, in which Yngwie Malmsteen – neoclassical shred titan and Strat aficionado – tears it up on his own Jimmy Page Telecaster.

Malmsteen had been asked by a fan named Eric Frehse if he owned any Teles and, in case he did, if he would mind taking one for a spin on camera. As it turns out, Malmsteen had just acquired a Page Telecaster, and was more than happy to take it for a test drive. 

“This doesn’t have any scallops, it doesn’t have any stacked pickups,” Malmsteen said of the guitar, before unleashing some oh-so-Yngwie-esque, million-miles-per-hour licks. “Real different.”

One point for the "hands over gear" team!

Earlier this week, we reported on Nuno Bettencourt's upcoming, guest star-packed AXS TV special, At Home and Social with Nuno Bettencourt & Friends.

Though the entire lineup for the show - which took place on August 3 - was stacked, of particular note was the show's highlight, Generation Axe - Bettencourt, Steve Vai, Zakk Wylde, Tosin Abasi and Yngwie Malmsteen - teaming up with Brian May for a performance of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Thankfully, we didn't have to wait too long before a video of the, unsurprisingly, awesome performance popped up on YouTube.

You can check it out - in all of its momentous, shred-tacular, six-guitar glory - above.

Arguably the most immediately recognizable name of all is that of Yngwie, the man who invented an entire genre of music known as neoclassical rock. 

Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s astounding technical ability and unprecedented approach to virtuoso guitar playing set the bar to a previously unimaginable level when he was first heard on record in 1983, on the self-titled debut album from American heavy-metal band Steeler.

For those old enough to remember, Malmsteen’s initial appearance in the U.S. press was in Mike Varney’s “Spotlight” column in the February 1983 issue of Guitar Player. The tape he submitted to Varney has surfaced on YouTube and serves as a sobering example of the difference between a great guitarist and one who is truly gifted. The 19-year-old’s style was already fully formed and unlike anything else that came before it. Critics will sometimes try to point to some of Malmsteen’s influences, such as Ritchie Blackmore, but his playing and chops were from another universe.

At the time of his emergence, the undisputed god of all things shred was Eddie Van Halen. Remarkably, Malmsteen rapidly became as influential as Eddie, and was copied by many — from players who threw a few harmonic minor runs into their solos to imitators who appropriated his technique wholesale. The copycats are considerably fewer these days, but Malmsteen’s 1984 debut album, Rising Force, remains one of the definitive go-to shred albums of all time.

Malmsteen is currently promoting his new release, Blue Lightning (Rising Force). Early rumors tantalizingly suggested it would be a blues album. In actuality, it features his signature takes on a number of classic rock staples, mixed in with a handful of original songs. Performed entirely by Malmsteen and recorded in his own studio, Blue Lightning is a testament to his ability to take songs like the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” and Eric Clapton’s “Forever Man” and make them his own. In addition to playing all the instruments, Yngwie sings all vocals, as he has since 2016’s World on Fire. His voice has continued to develop with each release, making the final product an even more personal statement.

Malmsteen has a reputation for taking no B.S. and pulling no punches with interviewers, but his sense of humor is often underestimated. Not only can he laugh at himself and the absurdities of the music business but he is also grateful to sustain a lucrative career in this age of the ever-shrinking music business. Given Guitar Player’s pivotal role in his rise to prominence, he was especially happy to reconnect with the magazine to discuss his new album and early years in America.

Blue Lightning features some interesting song choices that are well outside what people would expect of you, like “Forever Man” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” How did you go about selecting which songs you’d cover?

Everyone knows me for the neoclassical style, and for years people have said, “You should do a blues album, man!” Then, about a year and a half ago, Mascot Records actually did ask me to do a blues album. I said, “I don’t think I want to do a blues album — but I could do a ‘bluesy’ album.” They wanted to pick some classic songs for me, but I said I’d rather come up with the tracklist myself. They liked what I chose, so that worked out well. Some selections were made automatically — for example, songs that I’d loved forever — and some were songs that I’d found interesting when I heard them on the radio but never tried to play or sing. “Smoke on the Water,” of course, was something I’ve played my whole life, since I was a kid. In terms of singing, it was very interesting to approach some of the songs I’d never played before and to think about the phrasing and the keys. But because I am always on tour, I’d have to go home to cut a song, then head back out again to gig. The album was really created song by song.

As I understand it, your home studio is not just a small project studio but a full, professional facility.

For sure, and I’m always adding things and improving and upgrading it. A couple of months ago, before I went on the road, I had the space completely refurbished. I had a new console put in, and everything was updated to the top specifications. But then I went out on the road, so I haven’t really had a chance to use the new equipment yet. I’m looking forward to getting some time with the new gear.

You recorded your first covers album, Inspiration, in 1996. That disc included Deep Purple’s “Demon’s Eye,” a song that you’ve cut again on Blue Lightning. Why did you remake it?

I was eight years old and a little tyke when I got my first record. It was Fireball, by Deep Purple. Most versions came with “Strange Kind of Woman” on it, but mine came with “Demon’s Eye.” When I was growing up in Sweden, we had nothing like that music. So that album was a revelation, and I really loved that song. As it happens, when I recorded it for Inspiration, I did it in a different key and, of course, I didn’t sing it. But the song is amazing, so I decided to do it in the right key and sing it myself.

It adds a new dimension to your music to hear you perform the vocals. It’s obvious that your vocal abilities have continued to develop over the years. Is that something you’ve focused on?

When I’m on the road, I don’t drink or smoke. I do my exercises, I get enough sleep, I drink some tea, and I sing every night. As a result, I’m developing all the time, and I’m not doing anything that might have a negative impact on my voice. The fact that I’m doing it so much helps it develop naturally and become stronger. It seems like the more I sing, the stronger it gets. I have very good ancestry for singing. Both of my uncles were opera singers, my mother sang in a choir, and my father and sister are also singers. When I grew up in Sweden, I was always the singer in my band as well.

Why didn’t you sing on your earlier albums?

In the past, I wrote all the lyrics and the melodies, and then I had the singers sing exactly what I wanted them to sing — no more and no less. But of course, to sing it yourself is much better. I think partly what happened is that when I came to America, I had an invitation to join a band — Steeler — and then I went on to join Alcatrazz, where I was the guitarist. When I did the first album of my own in 1984, the logical development was to focus on playing. I didn’t really question it or give it a second thought. Now I am singing everything in the live show, except for a couple of songs that the keyboard player sings.

Let’s go back to your earliest appearance in the U.S., in Guitar Player’s “Spotlight” column, in the February 1983 issue. You’ve said you’d been a reader of the magazine for years. What was the music press like in Sweden when you were growing up?

We had the NME and Melody Maker from England, and Guitar Player from the U.S. They were magazines that I bought religiously. I always thought that I would move to England, as it was only a couple of hours away by plane. All my favorite bands were English, and it seemed like the obvious thing to do, as there was nothing in Sweden. But when I saw the column in Guitar Player, I thought, I’m gonna send my tape in to that!

Listening to the tape now — you can find it all over YouTube — it’s amazing how fully formed your style and technique were even back then. Obviously, you’ve continued to refine and improve over the years, but in essence, anyone hearing that first tape couldn’t fail to be blown away. Did playing guitar come easily to you?

It’s an interesting question. For my fourth birthday, I got a violin, for my fifth I got a guitar, and for my sixth I got a trumpet. At first, I didn’t really play anything. But when I was seven, I saw Hendrix on TV smashing his guitar, and it made me think about playing. Immediately, I picked up my guitar. It just felt very natural. It was the same when my son, Antonio, began to play guitar. He sounded like he’d been doing it for years. He is an amazing player.

The story of how you moved to America in 1981 has been told over the years — how you arrived with your guitar, a toothbrush and a pair of jeans. Is it accurate, and did you feel confident you’d have success?

It is true. But to come to America as I did, you have to remember that ’70s Sweden was like a musical desert. A wasteland. When Guitar Player invited me to come to America, it was a very easy decision to make, and it completely replaced my original, loosely formed idea about moving to the U.K.

Did Shrapnel [Mike Varney’s record label] put you on a retainer?

I didn’t get any money, man! I was living in Steeler’s warehouse, where the rest of the band lived. It was pretty disgusting. I was only there for about a month, and then the word got around. People were asking, “What the f*ck’s this kid doing?” No one knew what my style was. I love Van Halen, but my style was completely different, and everybody was following that kind of direction, copying Eddie’s style. The note selections for my riffs and solos were completely different from what everyone else was doing. Unlike Europe, I think the American rock audience had very little, if any, exposure to classical music. They had no knowledge of where I got these ideas, or that I’d been influenced by Bach, Vivaldi and Paganini. They didn’t know what I was doing!

I remember the first gig I did. We were opening up for Glenn Hughes, who is a dear friend of mine, and the first time we played, there were about 70 people. A couple of days, later we were playing the Troubadour in Santa Monica, and you could see down the street from the dressing room upstairs that there was a line going around the block. I asked some guy at the club, “Who’s performing tonight who can draw such a crowd?” and he said, “It’s you!” That’s how fast it was. It went crazy, like a mania. I couldn’t believe after all my years of struggling in Sweden, I was in America one week and it was already happening like that.

How did you feel when other guitarists began to copy your style?

Irritated. [laughs] Yeah! It was so funny, because it was so blatant. Then you’d see the interviews with them: “Who were your influences?” “Bach.” Yeah, sure! But whatever, y’know?

Imitators aside, do you feel satisfied that your vision has been validated?

Yes. It is really remarkable. On this tour I’m playing 39 cities in America, and wherever I go, it’s packed. I wonder how this is still happening to a kid from Sweden 35 years later. I’m still here, I’m still doing it and people are coming to see me. I’m blown away. It is very rewarding for me, because I never compromised. I always said, “It’s my way or the highway!” I’m a very lucky man. But it doesn’t feel like any time at all has passed. It’s all gone by so quickly.

You’re frequently referred to as a neoclassical shredder, but it would be just as easy to say you’re a rock guitarist. You’ve recorded an acoustic album, and you’ve recorded in other styles as well. Are you bothered when people pigeonhole you in that way?

Sure. It’s the dumbest thing someone can say. One of my favorite bands in the world is AC/DC. I love that band, and I love Angus. They play three chords. Their music hasn’t changed, their style hasn’t changed. Why should it? If somebody comes out with something that’s theirs, that’s what’s amazing and great. Music is not a fashion show, where you have to have something different every year. Musicians are like artists, with their own style of painting. You can hear my earliest recordings from before I came to America, and you can hear that I’ve always composed the same way. Because that’s me.

But, yes, I’ve done an acoustic album, a symphonic album. And this new album is different. I don’t do all the same things. If you ask me what I like to play, it’s hard rock with that symphonic-classical feel. That’s what I prefer. Fifty Marshall stacks and a smoke machine!

You’ve always had a lot of amps onstage kicking out some serious volume. Have you ever suffered any issues with your hearing?

What? [laughs] No, my hearing is fine. It is loud onstage, but it is the quality of the sound that matters — the sweetness of the Marshalls. I think P.A. systems can be problematic, but onstage the volume doesn’t trouble me. I think if you went to a lot of shows and stood out front, where you get the full impact of the P.A., that could affect your hearing.

You love the late-’60s Fender Stratocasters with the big headstock and the various customizations you prefer — scalloped fretboards, for example. Do you have any interest in vintage guitars, given how different they are from your signature models?

I have old Strats from the first year of manufacture, as well as vintage Gibsons. I have a ton of vintage guitars, and I do love old guitars. But as far as playing onstage, I use my signature Strats. Fender is about to bring my new signature model out soon. It’s based on a ’68 Strat, whereas the ones I have usually played have been based on a ’72 Strat. That’s what my first main Strat was, the one that I nicknamed the Duck.

How much maintenance is required to keep your playing where you need it to be? Do you play every day, and do you have any kind of regimen?

When I’m at home, there’s always a guitar sitting next to the sofa, and if I’m watching TV, I’ll play. I’ll often get ideas, then go to my studio and record them. My other passion is my Ferraris. I do spend a lot of time with them. I don’t think I would ever usually go more than a day without playing the guitar. Now that I’m on tour, I’m playing all the time, of course.

You seem to arouse a lot of hostility in other guitarists and musicians, who are often very vocal with their criticisms of you. For example, last October, Jake E. Lee went on a tirade on the Talk Toomey podcast about your personality and how he doesn’t like your playing. How do you feel about these attacks, and what do you think is behind them?

[laughs] I don’t know! I don’t even pay attention to stuff like that. First of all, music is not a competition, and secondly, I’m very much in my own little world when it comes to music. I definitely don’t want to be influenced by other people. I like music to come from within. I don’t pay attention to what other people do. I think it’s a distraction. If they say bad things, then I’m sorry to hear that.

You’ve given a lot of interviews over the years, and you’ve probably answered the same questions many times. Is there any question you wish you’d been asked instead of the usual ones?

[laughs] No. I understand that there’s going to be certain things everyone will ask, and if I’m promoting a new album it’s understandable that there will be a lot of similar questions. But I’m really grateful to still be talking to magazines about my music after all these years, and to have a career that’s lasted this long. I feel very lucky.