Jeff Scott Soto says Ritchie Blackmore‘s Deep Purple reunion gives him hope of repairing his rift with Yngwie Malmsteen.
Jeff Scott Soto has taken heart from something that happened at a beach amphitheatre in New York a fortnight ago. Speaking to Remzi “Jam Man” Yates of “Rocking With Jam Man“, the singer said Ritchie Blackmore‘s reunion with Deep Purple shows that nothing is permanently broken and that he intends to keep trying with Yngwie Malmsteen, four decades after they worked together.
“[Ritchie‘s reunion with Purple] was an exciting moment that nobody expected that would ever happen, much less that it happened in our lifetime. And for everybody to see that, it just goes to show that there is hope. There is a chance that anything that’s fractured or broken is fixable. There’s this Krazy Glue you can put in pretty much any situation. So I will never stop extending the olive branch, telling Yngwie there’s no reason, there’s zero reason for us to have any animosity or any walls between us. So hopefully someday we can put that aside. If it’s not put aside to actually work together, I don’t really care. I care more for the personality side of things. I care more for the friendship,” Soto said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
He continued: “I don’t want any enemies when I leave this earth. I wanna go with a clear conscience that everybody was cool with me and I’m cool with them and not have any of that in my life. Anything you add to it — reunion, doing a show, an appearance — that’s all bonus stuff. That’s icing on the cake. The main thing right now is I want the cake, which, to me, is to get the friendship back intact and to not have any more animosities.”
The precedent Soto is pointing at is more instructive than it first appears. Blackmore, 81, joined Deep Purple at the Northwell at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York on 12 August for “Smoke On The Water“, his first appearance with the band in 33 years, after a split in 1993 so acrimonious that he skipped their Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 2016.
He made the approach himself. Ian Gillan told the audience: “I’ve gotta say something. A couple of days ago, I got a message. I got a letter from this man saying, ‘I only live around the corner. Do you mind if I come and jam with you?’ And it was an absolute pleasure to have back onstage, the founder member, the great legend, the immortal, Ritchie Blackmore!”
Blackmore later told Guitar Player: “I was there to heal any wounds — but there weren’t any wounds. Everyone was like we were in the army all along the Western front and we were all getting together again. Very emotional moment.”
Put to him that any reconnection with Malmsteen would immediately be read as a tour announcement, Soto was firm.
“That’s the Internet at play. That’s the World Wide Web always trying to come up with things that don’t exist just to add more to the story, et cetera. And again, that’s why I make it very clear — when I extend that olive branch, I make it very clear that I have no agenda. I don’t have any M.O. It’s all about I just wanna be friends with the guy. We had a great friendship,” he replied.
He was candid about what being around Malmsteen required.
“I understood what it was like to be friends with Yngwie,” Soto explained. “I understood who he was and how he was, and from that, I accepted my role in how I am around him. And, yeah, I might have to be a little less ‘me’ for us to have a peaceful hang whatsoever, but I’m good like that. I’m a chameleon. I can hang with people who are not necessarily thinking and feeling the way I am about life. To me, it’s all just about being cool with each other, and we had that. But, unfortunately, something, through the years, along the way, kind of came in the middle of that, and as I said, there’s no reason why that can’t be squashed and we move forward from it.”
Asked whether the harder thing to move past is what happened when they were young or what has been said since, Soto picked the latter.
He said: “I think the latter one, the second one, because that’s more fresh. If something like that happened along the way, that wound is still open, and that would be the reflection of the relationship itself. Something that happened a long time ago, it’s easier to go back, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re not talking because of that. That’s so stupid.’ But if something happens more recent, it’s kind of keeping the animosity or the wall between us. So I would say there’s more damage to more recent things said and done.”
On the role social media plays: “Yeah. And that’s really all about, ‘You know me, I know you. Don’t let any of that stuff get under your skin.’ As you said, there’s so many things that they get warped or filtered or watered down and it turns into something that it wasn’t meant to be or it shouldn’t have been. So from that, it’s like you know who I am. You know what I would say and how I would say it. If that was misconstrued or somebody wants to turn that into something it’s not, you should know me well enough to know what I meant by that. And that’s the bottom line. It comes down to the individuals. You can’t let what the public or the Internet cowboys make up or wanna make up. You gotta make sure that you’re strong enough with the individual or individuals, and they know your M.O., they know who you are and what you are all about. Because from that, you’re able to get through and past any of that stuff.”
Asked whether he would join Malmsteen onstage for a single song with nothing attached, Soto did not hesitate.
“I can’t speak for him, but I can speak for myself in terms of, 100% yes. I would do it in a heartbeat, and I would feel satisfied that that one time, that one shot was enough for us to bury the hatchet and actually just cruise into the future, even if we never do anything together again. It just opens that door of being friends again, of being able to call him on his birthday or say ‘merry Christmas’ or ‘how’s the family?’ That kind of stuff. That’s the kind of stuff I miss in our relationship. I don’t really care about, ‘Oh, I wanna sing another record for him.’ ‘Oh, if I do something with Yngwie, I can get a lot of social media action from it.’ All that stuff means nothing to me. Zero.”
On what he wants Malmsteen to take from it: “Well, I’ve said it in many of an interview for many years now, and it’s the same narrative. It’s everything we’ve already discussed. I just want him to know that I want nothing from him. I’m not looking to be his friend again so hopefully I can be on an album with him, or I can co-write, or he can produce me. None of that. It’s absolutely one trillion percent genuine that I miss my friend. We were friends before. We might have said some things along the way, or done some things along the way, that would have fractured or kept the relationship fractured longer. But, again, for every action there’s a reaction. If an action was thrust upon me, I’m gonna react, and vice versa. It’s human nature. It’s who we are. It’s what we are. But in the end, I’m looking just to be friends and just be good with everybody that’s in my past, in my present, in my future, and that’s just the way it is for me. That’s how I see it.”
Soto answered an advertisement for a singer in 1984 and ended up on Rising Force, a record Malmsteen had planned as an instrumental side project while he was still in Alcatrazz. Soto’s presence turned it into a solo album. He returned for Marching Out in 1985 and briefly rejoined for rehearsals in 1989.
The public falling out came much later. In July 2017 Malmsteen told Metal Wani that he had always written everything, lyrics and melodies included, and simply hired vocalists to perform it. Soto disputed that, saying they had co-written material together and that he authored songs, he carries a co-writing credit on “I’ll See The Light Tonight“, among others.
It escalated in 2022, when Soto said he had gone to a venue where Malmsteen was headlining, was recognised, and was told the show would not go ahead while he remained in the building. Malmsteen responded publicly, accusing Soto of inventing stories to stay relevant and telling him to stop following him around and get help.
Soto has been making the same overture in interviews since at least late 2025. Malmsteen has not publicly responded to any of them.
