Yngwie Malmsteen Tribute Series Stratocaster
(Fender | Posted 2008-11-23)
Famous “Play Loud” guitar replica released along with new album. November 2008 sees the 100-instrument limited edition release of the eagerly awaited Fender Custom Shop Yngwie Malmsteen Tribute Series Stratocaster (“Play Loud”) guitar replica. The instrument is a meticulous recreation of the infamous and battle-hardened 1971 Stratocaster guitar that fueled Malmsteen’s meteoric rise to metal stardom, complete with heavily worn Olympic white finish, scalloped fingerboard and distinctive body graphics.
Malmsteen was one of the very first Fender signature artists; a Stratocaster bearing his name appeared in 1988, the first year that Fender offered artist signature guitars.
The original on which Malmsteen's new Tribute Series Stratocaster is based is a highly significant instrument in the annals of metal and of instrumental rock music. The replica is authentic in nearly every detail, including the famous "Play Loud" sticker on the upper horn and the distinctive scalloped maple fingerboard.
Like the original, it features DiMarzio® HS-3 pickups in the bridge and neck positions and a standard '70s-era Fender middle pickup. It has a standard Fender bridge, a large headstock and a heavily worn Olympic White finish expertly treated to mirror each of the original guitar's many battle scars—the nicks, dings, scratches, burns and worn finish spots from decades of heavy use (and abuse) in Malmsteen's masterful hands.
Malmsteen need no introduction to shred fans, of course. He rose to fame in the early 1980s as the phenomenally talented and flamboyantly theatrical sole progenitor of “neoclassic” metal. Live and on record, his classically inflected guitar chops dazzled all who heard him. His phenomenal playing proved highly influential and served as the foundation for an entire new metal sub-genre. Several of his many albums are considered metal classics, including Rising Force (1984), Marching Out (1985), Fire and Ice (1992) and Unleash the Fury (2005).
The guitar's debut was timed to roughly coincide with that of Malmsteen's latest album, Perpetual Flame, released Oct. 14, 2008, on Malmsteen’s own Rising Force Records.
To enter the online Yngwie Malmsteen Guitar Giveaway and to learn more about the Yngwie Malmsteen Tribute Series Stratocaster, visit Fender's Yngwie Malmsteen Tribute Series Stratocaster website here.
