Yngwie Malmsteen Quotes

Richard Lloyd of Television is one of my favorite guitarists. His mentor was Jimi Hendrix when he was just 14. Jimi was always pounding everything he knew into that kid.

It was Jimi Hendrix that I first got into when Betty Mabry turned me on to him.

I wanted to be a composer before anything else. And my sister was listening to Led Zeppelin in the other room! When I heard that, it was a game-changer.

I've always been the first to admit that Jimi was a very big influence on my early stuff.

I always loved rock guitar. I just never put it together that that's what I'd end up doing.

My father played guitar, so I always wanted to play for that reason. But I think the biggest reason was just the '90s in general - growing up listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and bands like that, and going to concerts and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.

Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.

I always loved rock guitar. I just never put it together that that's what I'd end up doing. I had no aspirations to be a musician, but I picked up a guitar for two seconds and haven't put it down since.

I've always loved the guitar. You see Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar with his teeth, and OK, you know you're never going to be able to do that, but I always wanted to play an instrument of some sort.

I think I always wished I could play guitar as well as Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix was a perfect guitarist. And that's all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and jump around.

I have held Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock guitar and imagined what it would be like to play it, but that's the extent of it.

I probably spent more time as a kid playing air guitar to Jimmy Page than any other guitar player.

I have a Stratocaster, which is part of my long, doomed ambition to become Jimi Hendrix.

I listen to lots of artists. But I remember discovering John Mayer, whose music made me want to write my own. And so I did.

As a young man growing up in that era, I was very influenced by Hendrix and took to a wah wah, and I learned how to really use one effectively as Hendrix did.

When I saw Courtney Love in 1994, I knew what I wanted to do. The minute I saw a female-fronted rock n' roll band, that changed my life.

My fourth birthday, I was given a violin, and my fifth birthday, a guitar. I didn't start to play until I saw Hendrix on TV. They showed him setting his guitar on fire and burning it for the Monterey Pop Festival.

I'm pretty sure I was about the only kid in school who knew who Jimi Hendrix even was. Through my older siblings, I was getting turned on to all the great music that was happening at the time, and I really loved Hendrix.

Jimi Hendrix is one of the main influences on why I wanted to play guitar. He really shook me. I think it was his whole style - the look and what he did with the guitar.

I remember where I was when I heard Yngwie Malmsteen for the first time. It was such an epiphany for me, and it really shaped the way I play today. I think I heard him in '83, if I'm not mistaken - I was 13 years old - and it really was amazing for me.

Pearl Jam's 'Alive' is the reason I started to play music.

I started out playing guitar because Jimi Hendrix was my hero, so my roots were really based on Jimi Hendrix and his style of playing.

Music is really important to me; Kurt Cobain is important to me. Hearing Nirvana was pretty life-changing.

I always had a love for music, but I was watching 'Sister Act 2' with Lauryn Hill, and I heard her sing, and I was just like, 'Man, I want to do that.' The whole movie overall was an inspiration for me.