In a new interview with Music Radar, OPETH frontman/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt talked about his Swedish friend Yngwie Malmsteen.

He said:

“I hate him as much as I love him. I just want to shake him around, kick him in the a*s and make him wake up to something. He is fantastic and he knows it.

He has the most beautiful tone of all heavy metal guitar players, bar Fredrik[Åkesson, OPETH guitarist].

“I saw his latest video for his blues album, which I thought was appalling, cruising down the Miami streets in his Ferrari. That’s not what I think of when I think of blues. It’s pretty horrible.

“His records have been pretty f*ckin’ sh*t for a long time, but the guitar playing has always been great. The last one I loved was ‘Odyssey’, but now I just sound like a disgruntled OPETH fan. After that, he went a bit cheesy and got really bad.

“I feel like he should take care of his career better and maybe calm down a bit, focus on writing great songs.

He’s not giving himself the credit he is due; he just wants to carry on playing neoclassical at full distortion. But I still love him.”