Writers: Anders Tengér, 2013
Publisher: Bokfabriken
List Price: $28 (€22)
Buy it HERE
How can you really fail writing about Yngwie J Malmsteen and his career? Not in this world, even if Yngwie himself isn’t a part of the work. No, that’s correct. “Såsom I Himmelen, Så Ock På Jorden” (freely translated to; “As In Heaven, So On Earth”) is the unofficial biography of Sweden’s most Rockstar throughout time. For the Swedes author Anders Tengér is a well-known face; he’s been working on several different magazines and was the founder of the biggest one in the 80’s, OKEJ. And this is what he has used here; his connections from his career as well as putting in a lot of effort digging up a lot of information about Yngwie J Malmsteen.
The book covers Yngwie’s life from his days as a kid, starting playing guitar, skipping out of school and forming his first band. Then throughout his days in the first edition of RISING FORCE, STEELER, ALCATRAZZ and of course his solo career and all the greatness and mess around him as a person. The book features interviews with friends, ex-girlfriends and wives, managers and band-mates from all the eras reaching over three decades. Parts that stand out is actually not about Yngwie making a mess, rather the Johansson (Anders and Jens) brothers who seems to be stir crazy with absolutely no limits at all.
Anyone slightly interested in Yngwie at all is familiar with his Rock’n’Roll lifestyles with excessive luxury when it comes to watches, cars and guitars but also the darker side with alcohol and drugs. It is not pretty all the time, in fact ugly to read about his fury towards the people around him but there is also another side of the story that tells about a regular guy just hanging out and having fun. On occasion it feels even sad to read that Yngwie was ripped off by almost all his managers, those were people really taking advantages of his dream and talent. Horrific was also the accident while having his old friend Peter Rooth on the passenger’s seat when twisting his Jaguar E-Type around a tree ending up in a coma for a week. Then waking up to realize his manager has backed out when it came to pay the expensive hospital bill since he had “saved” money not buying a health insurance for Yngwie.
Almost all band mates tell the same story; Yngwie is a true genius when it comes to playing guitar but also countless stories about a spoiled dictator making fuzz about anything that does not perfectly fit into his taste. Almost all, end with a statement though that Yngwie can be a very nice and funny guy as well (but of course those don’t become the best stories). The work Anders has put into this book is solid, it is very well written and has a great flow in the text. The research is solid and it is impressive how many Anders has actually interview to build the whole story. All statements don’t really match in time but that is also mentioned in the foreword, for me it makes the book feel real and honest. It makes more sense if the interviewees can’t nail exact dates for events happening some 30 years ago. The interviews are backed up with articles from various newspapers, magazines and recordings so in many cases there are multiple sources to confirm one event. Sometimes though, it is hard to make out if it is Anders himself commenting about the events (since he was a part of the scene back then as well hanging out with upcoming Swedish acts in the late 70’s to early 80’s) or if it is a story by someone else retold Anders.
The downside is of course that Yngwie himself isn’t represented at all in this book. For now it seems this book is only available in Swedish but I sure hope it will be published in English as well because it was fun reading “Såsom I Himmelen, Så Ock På Jorden”.
+Pros Easy to read and very amusing. Good interviews, lot of different stories with different people to create a rather big picture.
-Cons Yngwie himself isn’t represented at all. So it will be interesting to read his own biography if that ever comes out.