Yngwie Malmsteen’s Opinion About Angus Young’s Guitar Playing

Yngwie Malmsteen and AC/DC's Angus Young - The Music Network / House of Blues

The extravagance of heavy metal in the rock scene is duly credited to the hardcore riff-meisters who are virtuosos of their craft. To earn praise from your most talented contemporaries in the field exceeds any material bounty. Metal guitarist prodigy Yngwie Malmsteen comments on AC/DC’s legendary lead guitarist Angus Young’s guitar play. Young has been known to add to AC/DC’s adrenaline driven performances with his own quirky energy, clad in his school uniform and beret, and his ever present duck walk while delivering face-melting riffs.

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In an interview with Music Radar, Yngwie Malmsteen explains why he thinks Angus Young is a severely underrated guitarist.ย โ€œHeโ€™s super-tasty and always good! Itโ€™s still blues, though, even when he does his big solo. Classical isnโ€™t just little triplets here and there; itโ€™s your entire mind being released from the pentatonic box โ€“ a linear kind of playing. And no-one really does that.”

“Itโ€™s all guitar players who listened to other guitar players who listened to other guitar players.ย Thatโ€™s a very incestuous line,ย and what happens is people donโ€™t leave the pentatonic boxes enough. To play classical, you need to throw everything away and think in a completely new manner. Whatโ€™s my favourite AC/DC riff?ย I love them all, but Hells Bells is amazing,โ€ย Malmsteen continued.

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Malmsteen also offered a compliment to rock and blues icon Eric Clapton, โ€œI think maybe the first kind of blues I ever heard was John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers. I didnโ€™t really even know who it was playing, but it kinda registered this was how you do the blues. And then Cream were really goodโ€ฆ you could say it was the heavy metal for its time, for sure!

I donโ€™t have any favourite Clapton solos as such, but there are certain songs like Stepping Out that I love. Iโ€™ve never met Eric Clapton, which is too bad because weโ€™re both Strat and Ferrari menโ€ฆ he knows the deal, haha!โ€

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Nothing beats a fellow artist who appreciates your craft with more gusto than the general public. We’re waiting on Angus Young’s reply on that one!