Jake E. Lee Slams Yngwie Malmsteen: “He’s an Arrogant Fucking Asshole”
With all due to respect to Jake E. Lee and Yngwie Malmsteen, great players both, any news we publish here today pales in comparison to the fact that Robyn’s new album Honey is out now!! Swedish pop > Swedish shred alllll fucking day long!
But in case you care to read about one old guy with a fading career slamming another, there’s this: Jake had some very-not-nice things to say about Yngwie in a recent interview with the Talk Toomey Podcast. Not only does Lee slam Yngwie’s one-dimensional focus as a shreddy lead player — a common criticism, to be sure — but he flat out calls him a terrible person. The quote:
“He’s a dick – that’s my main problem with him. He’s an arrogant fucking asshole, and he always has been.
“I don’t know if he is right now, to be honest – I haven’t seen him in forever. But I can only assume that if when you’re younger, you’re that arrogant and that big of a dick, that you really never change. So I assume he still is.
“But no, he was just – he was a dick. And he was a great guitar player. But even then, he was really good at one little thing that he does – doing the sweeps and arpeggios and playing fast – and that’s all he could do.
“That’s one of my problems with him – it’s a very narrow band of guitar playing. He just focuses on this one part.
“He’s a shitty rhythm player; he can’t write a song worth a fuck. And I’m saying this, and this sounds bad – I feel a little bit bad – but knowing what an asshole he is, I don’t feel that bad.
“You can’t be that arrogant if you’re only really good at one, minute aspect of the art of playing guitar. And that’s all he was… And, yeah, fuck him.”
To Jake’s credit, he’s not wrong. Against Jake’s credit, why the sour grapes? To neither man’s credit… who the fuck cares? It hardly matters at this point in their careers.
Jake E. Lee’s Red Dragon Cartel will release a new record, Patina, on November 9th; check out the single “Havana” below, and catch him live on his upcoming tour of local VFW halls (dates TBD).
[via Ultimate Guitar]
