“Those arpeggios... That was the sickest thing I ever heard”: Yngwie Malmsteen on why guitarists should take inspiration from players of other instruments if they want to develop their own style

Yngwie Malmsteen: the Swedish guitar maestro holds his trusty Fender Stratocaster aloft and screams onstage in Oakland, California, on a stage lit in red.

Many have tried but no one has managed to play the electric guitar quite like Yngwie Malmsteen. They broke the mould when they made him, or rather he broke the mould, exercising his expansive vocabulary of rococo classical phrasing within the framework of high-volume, high-spectacle rock guitar

But if the questions is how to follow in Malmsteen’s footsteps, maybe the first thing to do is stop thinking so much about the guitar. Speaking to MusicRadar in advance of his 40th anniversary live album, Tokyo Live, the effervescent guitar maestro had some advice for young players who are trying to develop their own style.