In a recent interview with Total Rock, Yngwie Malmsteen revealed the one thing he does during his shows to ‘surprise’ himself every night.
“So, basically what I do every night, not just this night, at the soundcheck 40 minutes before the show I say, ‘Come into my room, let’s make a setlist,’ and I kind of ramble a setlist and they print it, put it all over the stage, then I go on stage and I play a different setlist. So it’s never the same, never,” he revealed.
Malmsteen also admitted that the reason for this was that he liked taking risks. “Everybody has to be on their feet, including myself, I like to surprise myself too. So that’s one reason that I’m still doing this after all these years is the fact that I like to do the shows very spontaneous and very sort of like taking risks. All the solos and intros, everything is different every night.”
The guitar virtuoso explained his reasoning not to keep a stable setlist every night during an earlier interview, and also revealed that he doesn’t rehearse at all. “Haha! No, I don’t rehearse. I don’t rehearse at all. The band does. I don’t. I just do a kind of a long soundcheck the first day. Ever. I just do what I do,” he told SiriusXM.
It appears that he doesn’t want the shows to get boring. “The reason why I’m still doing this after 40-plus years, and going out and playing, is because I don’t have a rehearsed set because if I had a rehearsed set, it would be like turning on a jukebox. It would be that boring. It’s boring for me. It’s boring for everybody. I need a little danger,” he added.
Malmsteen is scheduled to play at the Louder Than Life fest on September 18.
