by photographer Michael Johansson
For many years, Yngwie Malmsteen was one of the artists that I found most enjoyable to photograph and then to hang out with. It is therefore extra sad when this changes with new management and new people who decide in Yngwie's life.
The first time I spoke to him was at the Pink Pop festival in Holland in May 1985. Jörgen Holmstedt and I were there to do a report about the festival and also a more in-depth story about Yngwie. It resulted in overturned cars, thrown bicycles on highways and a taxi ride to a closed brothel in Belgium. Over the next 15 years, I photographed Yngwie about 50 times. I did several of his
album covers, including Trial by Fire: Live in Leningrad (1989), Eclipse (1990), The Seventh Sign (1994) and Double Live in Rio (1998).
I was on several tours both in Europe and the USA. There was only one time I got mad at him. It was during a tour in 1990 somewhere in Europe and there was a drunken party on the tour bus and Yngwie was extra rowdy and rowdy. Then I had enough and took all the booze that was left in the bus and poured it out in the sink. I think everyone was a bit shocked that meek little me did this so everyone went to bed. The next day Yngwie smiled and said that he didn't know I could get so mad. He even apologized. I did the same because I had poured out the booze.
These Christmas pictures for me are Yngwie in a nutshell, He wants to be serious, which he is 100 percent in his music, but didn't hesitate for a second when I asked him to put on a Santa hat for a picture for the magazine Okay. We did Christmas pictures on several occasions over the years. Once at his house in Miami we stayed up all night drinking. Yngwie in a Santa hat, playing the sitar and singing Christmas carols. Parts of this were also filmed for a feature that would later be broadcast on ZTV. Nowadays, his management has broken all contact with basically everyone who had anything to do with him when it happened.
I find it very sad because many of my funniest rock memories are from my meetings with Yngwie.
It was better back in the day …
(The opposite side)
THE MOMENT
A small, small part of Heavy Metal history seen through SRM (Sweden Rock Magazine) photographer Michael Johnssons lens.