Guitar legend Yngwie Malmsteen has a long standing reputation for being an egomaniac. In a new interview with Music Radar he addressed the subject along with revealing the guitarists he'd love to jam with, clean living, his most expensive guitar, and what he considers his breakthrough moment.

On his reputation

Malmsteen: "There are quite a few misconceptions about me. I think some people misunderstand what I’m doing; they believe I’m an egomaniac. The truth is, I’m a very focused person. My way of creating things is unlike rock ’n’ roll musicians. I don’t have a band; I’m not in a band. I look at it more like a painter who locks the door of the room and just paints. I do the foreground, I do the background. I frame it. Then I take it outside and say, ‘Here’s my painting!’. I don’t let anyone else put their paintbrush near it. People might think that’s an egomaniac thing - no, it’s an artist thing; I’m a creator.”

On his breakthrough moment(s)

Malmsteen: “I’m not sure if I’ve had one major breakthrough, but I guess there were some watershed moments. I started playing the day I saw Jimi Hendrix on TV and no one taught me how to do anything. Everybody in my family was a musician; they might have shown me a C chord at one point but that’s about it. I realised I could figure it out myself pretty quick and within days I had some shit already down... at seven years old! Later on I heard Niccolò Paganini, who pointed me in a new direction - to apply virtuoso violin techniques on guitar, which had never been done before.”

Read the complete interview here.

Generation Axe: The Guitars That Destroyed The World (Live In China) will be released as a CD Digipak, Limited coloured 2LP+Download and Digital. Pre-order the album here.

Tracklisting:

Generation Axe - "Foreplay"
Tosin Abasi - "Tempting Time"
Tosin Abasi and Nuno Bettencourt - "Physical Education"
Nuno Bettencourt - "A Side Of Mash"
Nuno Bettencourt and Zakk Wylde - "Sideways"
Zakk Wylde - "Whipping Post"
Steve Vai - "Bad Horsie"
Yngwie Malmsteen - "Valhalla" / "Baroque n Roll" / "Overture" / "From A Thousand Cuts" / "Arpeggios From Hell" / "Far Beyond The Sun"
Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai - "Black Star"
Steve Vai / Zakk Wylde / Nuno Bettencourt / Tosin Abasi - "Frankenstein"
Generation Axe - "Highway Star"

Album preview:

"Highway Star":

"Sideways":

"Frankenstein":