Swedish arpeggio obsessive Yngwie Malmsteen is rarely spotted without a Fender Stratocaster by his side – and he has a vast collection of them – but he says the guitars were not in vogue when he first started earning his stripes. His rise, though, helped give the guitar a second life.
With the one-two of 1984’s Rising Force, which introduced the world to his high octane neoclassical shredding, and Marching Out one year later, Malmsteen proved a force to be reckoned with. In the age of Kramers, Jacksons, and Ibanez speed machines, championed by the likes of Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai, he proved an outlier by doing it all on a humble Strat.
