Uli Jon Roth interview part I. Dawn Road, Scorpions, Electric Sun, TSG, Sky Of Avalon.

“It was always easy and very natural to improvise music on stage I never found it difficult but I know many people don’t find it easy to do it. I like to play certain things differently every night to fell something completely different”.

“I don’t know if I’m perfectionist, I just got a very clear idea about the sound I imagine and I don’t usually get it at the studio”.

“There was a bigger reaction with the next album “In Trance” and there was even a stronger reaction with “Virgin Killer”. Those are the two big albums that became quite popular in Germany, in France and in England”.

“Back then everything was so fast and the Scorpions compositions were not complicated but we didn’t need more time. We experiment so a lot of the progress was with touring. Later with the live shows we developed ourselves”.

“In Virgin killer compositions flowed, it was easy and the ideas came. It was very natural and organic. I truly think that with that album we created a new sound, a new kind of something in the field of Rock”.

“We were quite adventurous. We changed and improvised with some songs. Scorpions were very free like Deep Purple. Most bands don’t really do that. They stick very much to one thing and find it really boring”.

“When I listen to a guitar in a nice room is three-dimensional. When a listen to it through a speaker in a studio recorded by microphones it’s more like a very cheap and basic kind of reflection of that sound, it’s more like a ghost”.

“Monika Dannemann was very important to me both artistically and spiritually. Before meeting her, my lyrics didn`t have depth enough. She said they should say something meaningless. She was completely right and that wasn’t the only thing, I found a great inspiration and something we won’t have no more”.

It’s an honor and privilege to present this in deep conversation with musician and composer Uli Jon Roth. This genius and true visionary that will undoubtedly be studied by future generations had the courtesy to chat with us about his musical career and his artistic and vital concerns.

The one who played with the classic Scorpions, who created Electric Sun, started up projects as interesting as Transcendental Sky Guitar, Sky Of Avalon or developed a new guitar model with the name of Sky Guitar gave us an amazing review of his musical journey. This is the first of a three piece interview.

A new world tour starts at the end of this year to celebrate his special “Triple Anniversary”: The 50th anniversary of Uli’s first performance, the 40th anniversary of Electric Sun and the 40th anniversary of Scorpions’ “Tokyo Tapes”. 
Mr. Uli Jon Roth with all of you.  Stay in the light.

-What´s your first musical memory. When did you discover that you could play music and decided to try? Was there the guitar in the beginning?

My first memory was when I was 3. It was a song in the radio, a hit named “Hang down your head Tom Dooley”. I remember clearly singing it with the radio. Later on I remember listening to music in the radio. Folk songs music we learn in the school. When I got a little bit older I started with The Beatles. It was a very good start. That was before learning to play instruments. Then I started playing a little bit of bass guitar and trumpet. After that I switched to the lead guitar.

                                                   "Hang down your head Tom Dooley".

-What kind of music has influenced your musical knowledge and interest in music? Tell us about your musical likes. What kind of music or artists do you listen to?

There were most influences when I was much younger. There was a strong Jimmy Hendrix influence when I was with Scorpions and Electric Sun. But at the same time I was strongly influence of classical music. I’ve got my favorite composers and I used to study their music. Today I don’t really listen to anything. For many years I never listen to music actually only occasionally when somebody plays me something or at festivals and other bands are playing. But I still actively like to play the piano. To study the great masters Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.

-I think you’re a great pianist. Do you play any other instrument? Have you received any musical studies, are you self-taught or kind of both?

I learned the piano and the violin. I wouldn’t say I’m a great pianist. I know how to play piano. I like playing the piano but my piano is mainly a composing instrument to improvise. Great piano players are people who start playing when they’re three years old: A different feel.

-Think about the first time you played on stage in front of a crowd. What was the experience like? How did you feel?

I remember it very well. It was actually almost 50 years because next year is my 50^th anniversary. My first show was in 1968. I was 13 years old, it was with Blue Infinity. I’ve made a big progress. People were dancing. We played some Blues so I remember felt very comfortable playing on stage. It didn’t change, luckily.

-You played in Blue Infinity. Is that the first band you were in?

Yes that was. At that point I’d been playing the guitar for a year.

                                                          Uli Jon Roth. Blue Infinity.

-Did you think about composing your own music? Did you play covers as well?

We played Blues, things like The Shadows, several songs by Cream. On stage we started improvising immediately. That’s the beginning of composing music.

-What do you think about improvise music on stage?

It was always easy and very natural I never found it difficult but I know many people don’t find it easy to do it. I like to play certain things differently every night to fell something completely different. I know the risk of improvising. It could go wrong but I’m also attracted by the element of danger. I like to thrill the risk of the moment not knowing what’s next including me.

-What can you tell us about Blues Exchange?

There were a couple of things in between. It first started with three members and then four. Maybe it was until 1972. First was named Blues Company and then Blues Exchange. I don’t know really why it was called Blues Exchange. Then we started to do our own creating songs. I think it was about 1969.

                                                                 Blues Exchage.

-How did you get to be into Dawn Road? Did you meet each other members before?

With Blues Exchange we were four members in the band. We only made our own material. I knew them all before. Francis Buchholz was on my band, and I knew Achim Kirsnning from long ago. Jurgen and Achim and I were friends.

-I’ve only listened to “Turn the time” from “Transcendental Sky Guitar”. It seems to be some Classical references in Dawn Road. Could you tell us something about the kind of music you wanted to do with this band?

That was a song I wrote for this band. I think it was quiet musical journey. It was not commercial, a kind of Progressive Rock. We also played some classical things in between.

-I really like Achim’s music and the “Serene” album. I also love your own music, of course.

Yes. He is very talented musician.

-Are there any recordings, demo o sessions from these days? In positive case, any chance to publish them?

I remember gave each song the name of a color. One song we got the “Green” colour, next song we got the “Yellow” and then the “Purple” colour. We made them all about. The tapes probably were merged somewhere. It wasn’t about published because they weren’t good enough (laughs).

                           Dawn Road: Jurgen Rosenthal, Uli Roth, Francis Buchholz, Achim Kirschning.

                                                                  Dawn Road.

                                                       Uli Jon Roth: "Turn the time". TSG.

-You’ve been celebrating the 40^th anniversary of “Tokyo Tapes” and the years with Scorpions. I suppose that you’ve been asked this question many times before, sorry about it but the process is not clear. It seems that you first joined Scorpions for one show. Then the band split and after that Dawn Road rejoined Rudolph Schenker. Could you explain the readers of HUSH-Púrpura Chess what made your mind up to join Scorpions?

I mean you know I said most of it before. I’ve made a thousand interviews about early Scorpions. It was a natural decision. Before I joined the band Michael Schenker was the lead guitar and Scorpions kind of broke up, they were fed up. There was only Rudolf left but there was a contract left and Rudolf called me up and said if I could play and I did so we played the show in Germany and I really enjoyed playing with Rudolf and Klaus but there were no more Scorpions after that and I was in Dawn Road. Over the summer we started cutting our Dawn Road rehearsals and thought about to play together. I asked Klaus to get back and wanted to play together. Scorpions had still a record contract and which just gradually the reason it began. Although the band exactly didn’t exist anymore we decided to call the new thing Scorpions so Scorpions at that time was a group of four members of Dawn Road and two members of the old group. There was a band of six members to record “Fly To The Rainbow”. Next Achim kind of feel like it was his life really and became a school teacher so he left the band, then we were five members.

- You recorded the great “Fly to the Rainbow” in 1974.  Were there old tunes previously or was everything new material specifically made for the album?

There were really some songs written by Michael and Rudolf, those were “Far away” and “Fly people fly”. We used them as our new material for the album.

-Was there any “outtake” from that album?

No, not really. We only recorded those. The album was finished within a week.

-Could you tell us something about the song “Drifting Sun”, one of my favorites?

It was the first song that I ever wrote for Scorpions. We played it every night actually really for a quiet long time. A Hendrix inspired song and all of the people say that I sing like Bob Dylan. At that time I wasn’t a Dylan fan but when I listened to the song I know what they mean.

                          Scorpions: K.Meine, A.Kirschning, U.Roth, F.Buchholz, J.Rosenthal, R.Schenker.

                                                         Scorpions: "Drifting sun".

-Has the song “Fly to the Rainbow” got any element from your earlier band Dawn Road?

Absolutely, the middle part with the talking voice is a direct offspring of the song “Turn the time”. It was a very similar treatment.

-What about the public response to “Fly to the Rainbow”?

I don’t particularly remember a particular reaction to the album. There was the album and we did the shows and that’s all. The impact came later. There was a bigger reaction with the next album “In Trance” and there was even a stronger reaction with “Virgin Killer”. Those are the two big albums that became quite popular in Germany, in France and in England. “Fly To The Rainbow” was more to say: ok, here we are. It’s got more experimental sound. It wasn’t as guitar crafting.

-Scorpions worked with Dieter Dierks. Do you like the final sound, the mix or maybe would change a bit here and there of these Scorpions albums?

It’s a difficult question to answer. Nowadays these albums are icons of Rock but I remember then I was not happy with the sound. Of course, Dieter was a great producer and it was a pleasure to work with him but I feel we had a much better sound on stage than we had at the studio. I feel 50% happy with the result we had at the studio. I think it’s my problem. I don’t really feel comfortable with the studio sound. 

-You are a perfectionist.

I don’t know if I’m perfectionist, I just got a very clear idea about the sound I imagine and I don’t usually get it at the studio. I was very upset about the guitar sound on “Fly To The Rainbow” at first because I don’t like the studio sound, I like the sound in a concert hall with ambient. We had Musicland Studio in Munich. Remember that on the first day I was very disappointed with the guitar but I just worked with it. It was very much my problem with the mediums of recording. When I listen to a guitar in a nice room is three-dimensional. When a listen to it through a speaker in a studio recorded by microphones it’s more like a very cheap and basic kind of reflection of that sound, it’s more like a ghost. Not the real thing for me.

-The next year you recorded “In Trance”. I think that it’s a very “poetical” and soulful album. It was only a year after “Fly to the Rainbow”. Had you got enough time to compose it?

Yes we did, because back then everything was so fast and the compositions were not complicated but we didn’t need more time. We experiment so a lot of the progress was with touring. Later with the live shows we developed ourselves. We used to use the summers to record the albums.

-I think that the song “In Trance” today is a classic but I´m in love with “Evening Wind”. Could you tell us something about this song? Did Scorpions play it live ever?

I think we tried to play it live a couple of times but I was not happy with the result so we never played it again. It’s a song that needs keyboards and some kind of atmosphere. On my “Scorpions Revisited” album we recorded it with keyboard and I was quite satisfied with it.

-“Nightlights” is an instrumental song. Was it deliberate to do an instrumental for this album or was it a song that didn’t find the appropriate lyrics?

It’s an instrumental that came to me and, why not? At that time there were some guitar instrumentals, it was quite fashionable to do instrumental. I guess it was my first time doing that.

                                                         Scorpions: Evening wind".

-You spent many hours driving from town to town. How was the atmosphere and relationship between you and the rest of the boys those years?

It was always very good I think it was exceptionally good. We never had a quarrel. The only disagreements were because choose a different song or a different lyric but it was always in a gentle manner. We never had an argument and we never raised our voices.

-I really think that you've got great improvisation ability. What’s your opinion about improvisations? Do you like improvising? What did the rest of the band think about this?

We were quite adventurous. First of all it was with “Drifting sun”. The middle part was always improvised and we changed it every night. We changed some songs. Scorpions were very free like Deep Purple. Most bands don’t really do that. They stick very much to one thing and find it really boring.

                                         Scorpions: F.Buchholz, U.Roth, K.Meine, R.Schenker, J.Rosenthal.

-The next album was “Virgin Killer” in 1976. Jurgen Rosenthal was not with the band and Rudy Lenners replaced him. Why did Jurgen leave Scorpions? Did Lenners record all drums in this album?

After “Fly To The Rainbow” Jurgen left the band because he has a military instruction so we had a new drummer for one year and his name was Dobbie Fletcher. He never ended up on “In Trance”. For this album we found a drummer from Belgium called Rudy Lenners. He played “In Trance” and “Virgin Killer”.

-In “Virgin Killer” there are really great songs like “Catch your train”, “Pictured life”, “Hell cat”, “Polar Nights”, “Crying Days” and “Yellow Raven”. It’s very varied music. What are your memories about this disc?

At that time for me it was definitely my favorite Scorpions album. In that disc I had a lot of input personally. I was very involved. I wrote half of the songs and felt more comfortable at the studio. I always felt comfortable at the studio but was happier with the results. Also we took longer it wasn’t such a mad rush. That’s why the other two albums were not so satisfactory for me.

- What about the composition process for “Virgin Killer”?

Most of the stuff was pre-written, some of the guitar solos were improvised and the some were written out. For example “Catch your train” solo was something that I wrote going to the studio. The compositions flowed it was easy and the ideas came. It was very natural and organic. I truly think that with that album we created a new sound, a new kind of something in the field of Rock.

                                   Scorpions: F.Buchholz, R.Schenker, U.Roth, K.Meine, D.Fletcher.

                                    Scorpions: R.Lenners, R.Schenker, F.Buchholz, K.Meine, U.Roth.

-“Polar Nights” is an incredible tune with great guitar job since from intro to the dramatic outro and with an interesting Hendrix touch. What did you want to express when you wrote this song?

It was Hendrix inspired and the lyrics are pretty much like cosmic dimension. We’ll use that cliché to the fullest. We used to play that song almost every night for the next years. I was singing it live and also it was good to Klaus to have a voice break. Have to say that Klaus voice is great and high but things like “Catch your train” is killing your voice. It was easy for him when I was in the band because he didn’t have to sing so many songs.

-I'm glad that you play “Yellow raven” with your band currently sometimes. It’s a fan question. Did Scorpions ever perform this song live?

It was a little experimental. I wasn’t really happy with the original arrangement so I’m much happier now. It has some nice change with the sounds of the seagull. I like the solo and I like the riff. At the end I think that’s a song with a kind of mystery. Now we frequently play it live as an encore because we have three guitars on stage and it’s possible. With Scorpions it would have been impossible. There’s the harmony leads and then you need at least the harmony and the backgrounds. We were only two guitars and some of the songs didn’t sound well because they needed more to make them real justice and that’s why we also never played that one on stage.

-The original cover of “Virgin Killer” was controversial. How did that idea come? What do you think about the Scorpions’ covers when you were in the band?

It was the idea of the head of the art department of the record company. It was RCA and they did that. Afterwards I thought it’s regrettable because I think that the cover was really bad taste. But back then I was 21 years old and I didn’t understand it was bad taste. We wanted to shock the world and we did but I’m not proud of that. Scorpions very often had terrible covers and afterwards they didn’t get any better.

                                     Virgin Killer.                                      Virgin Killer. Censored.

                                                            Scorpions: "Catch your train".

-In “Taken by force” Monika Dannemann (RIP.) co-wrote the song “We’ll burn the Sky”, great song. Could you describe the influence of Monika Dannemann in you and your artistic creations?

That was 1977. Monika was very important to me both artistically and spiritually. Before meeting her, my lyrics were less, really didn`t have depth enough. She said I think they should say something meaningless. She was completely right and that wasn’t the only thing, I found a great inspiration and something we won’t have no more.

-How was Monika relationship with the other members in the band?

Everything’s fine with that. She also got along with the others. Klaus’s wife Gabi and Monika were the best friends.

-Songs like “The Sails of Charon” or “Your Light” are different from tunes like “He’s a Woman” or “Steamrock Fever”. What were your feelings about this album then and now?

Most of the songs of that album are very different one from another. There are three written by Rudolph that are different from each other. I wrote “I’ve got to be free” that is very different from “Your light”. They couldn’t be any more different and is completely different from “Sails of Charon”. I like to compose in a way that I’m not repeating myself and the same thing once and again. I think also Rudolph was always doing the same way. We had a wide big range of compositions. Somehow the sound works altogether and it works as any album. I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite early Scorpions album but it’s a very good album and it has some of the best Scorpions songs. That’s for sure.

-Why and when did you make the decision of leaving the band? Was it before writing sessions of “Taken by force” or after that?

That happens exactly in the first half of the year when I felt more and more dissatisfied  in a band that was going to be commercial and I wanted to be free and experiment more. I want to spread my wings in a different direction. In fact my decision was made before the album. I told Francis there was no way it had to be after the album. As the album was made I told Rudolph and Klaus and they were not happy with that. It was a shock but they kept booking so many concerts that I went on for a whole year until I quit. That finally happened and that was all.

                                     Taken By Force.                               Taken By Force. Censored.

                                                    Scorpions: "We'll burn the sky". German TV 78.

-Scorpions recorded and edited “Tokyo Tapes”. I think this album is a classic today. What are your musical memories about those Japanese concerts? What was the show where you felt the atmosphere and the band playing were better?

The Japan tour was six concerts; well it was five and a TV show. They were the best concerts we’d done so far. We knew it was my farewell tour and we played the best. The album became a classic but I was not happy with it, unfortunately it missed the best show that was the first one. We played three nights in Tokyo’s Sun Plaza Hall.

-Why didn’t you record the first night?

It was a financial thing. It was a very expensive tour. Dieter was the producer and thought that the first night wasn’t going to be the good one and in fact it was a great concert so it was a big mistake I think, very often the first take is the right one. It was the album that broke out as a great international success, the disc that brought the biggest. “Virgin Killer” had been a success and sold many copies also. Then they changed from RCA to EMI and that was a big step because it’s a much better company and they started selling more records.

-Did any members of the band feel that you would be making something great, a kind of enduring legacy from those Japanese shows?

I knew I did feel like something special and very inspiring. It was a very good feeling playing Japan. Then I was already working on my Electric Sun album and left the band in the summer so they made it without me because I wasn’t interested anymore. I regret that afterwards because I was not happy with the mix. I find the guitar was recorded too quiet. After all I realized it was a milestone for the Scorpions because the fans come with this disc and ask me to sign it. Anyway I don’t usually listen to that album.

                                 Scorpions: F.Buchholz, R. Schenker, K.Meine, U.Roth, H.Rarebell.

-Were you in touch with any members of Scorpions in the eighties?

We were always friends and it didn’t stop but we’ve never thinking about actually playing together. For me it was not even a remote possibility. That became much later when we did the reunion in 2005.

-Recently “Taken By Force” has been published with many bonus tracks and obscure gems like “Blue dream” or “Midnight Blues jam”. Did Scorpions record any songs or demos with you that finally didn’t use in these albums?

Very little. I remember we recorded a song called “Barbarella” which was a club in Manchester. I think it was recorded in 1976 prior to “Virgin Killer” but never made it to any album. Usually all that we composed and recorded went down in the discs.

-Could you tell us what’s behind The Hunters single?

This actually happened before we recorded “In Trance”. The producer was Dieter Dierks and the publisher was working for that company. I had written some vocals for two songs of The Sweet in German language, one was “Fox on the run” and the other was “Action”. I think it was one of my first works in a studio and they wanted to try the sounds of the covers in German. We were the drummer, Francis and I did all the guitars and Klaus doing the vocals. Someone called it The Hunters. We’ve got nothing to do with the recording. It was only a studio experience and I think it was the first time I did harmonic guitars at the studio that was maybe what made it an interesting thing.

- Recently you have done an amazing tour revisiting your Scorpions days. And what are the next plans for Uli Jon Roth this year?

That’s right. Recently I started to revisit my early past and recorded “Scorpions Revisited” and also the “Tokyo Tapes Revisited”, the Dvd in Japan. They’re basically two projects. We got to do the Electric Sun Reborn which I didn’t play in nearly thirty five years so this year we’re going to do that. We’re going to do a world anniversary tour, a triple anniversary. 1978 which is forty years ago, we created Electric Sun and was also the year we recorded our first Lp. In 1968, ten years before that was the year when I had my first ever appearance on stage so that’s my fifty stage anniversary. This triple anniversary starts up in America  (Editor's note: the interview was done before the American leg was postponed to March 2019) where we’re going to play Electric Sun Reborn program and also a special VIP concert section where we play the entire “Metamorphosis” only for the VIP guests. These are going to be long days but we are willing to do it.

Later, that’ll be seven big concerts each one with different program in Japan. It would be a kind of Uli Jon Roth Fest. Maybe also in Europe, we’re already working in this. Two of these concerts will be with the orchestra, one instrumental evening with “Sky overture” and other pieces of mine; also we will play “Metamorphosis”.  In the second show will be a symphonic concert with Sky Of Avalon, we will perform “Europa ex Favilla” and other pieces. The other five nights will be also different programs. One of them will be Scorpions Revisited, of course. The second one will be Electric Sun Reborn. The third day of the anniversary will be a review of my entire career with special guests involved. The fourth concert will be dedicated to Cream and Jimmy Hendrix because these were my formative influences. Finally the last night will be an acoustic set with my eight strings Flamenco Sky Guitar. Seven nights total.

-That’s absolutely great news. Besides this amazing Triple Anniversary Tour you’ll try to make these special concerts. As soon as you announce the festival to the press I’ll book a plane to Japan.

We’re talking to promoters at the moment and we don’t know if we will do all the seven concerts. There we will do one in Hamburg and maybe we will do another in New York or Los Angeles. Maybe the idea is making a sort of a festival, something like Uli Sky Fest.

It was good to do the Scorpions because it opened a lot of doors for me and woke my Rock side again so now I feel way to look at all these other pieces again and certain new ones because I’ve written a lot of new ones.

                                         Uli Jon Roth: "Virgin killer". "Tokyo Tapes Revisited".

                                                    Scorpions: "Polar nights". "Tokyo Tapes".

Acknowledgements to Javier Terrones.

Dedicated to the memory of Zeno Roth (1965 - 2018)

(R.I.P.)