Renowned as one of the world’s greatest electric guitar virtuosos, by the kind of people who know about such things, Uli Jon Roth’s achievements include pioneering the intimidatingly technical “neoclassical metal” genre – and inventing his own 35-fret Sky Guitar, adding a whole higher octave to the instrument. In 1998, he was invited to join one of the earliest editions of Joe Satriani’s renowned G3 guitar geek-out tours.
Now, however, the German fretmaster is reining things in – marginally – with Scorpions Revisited, a double album and world tour which sees the 60-year-old reviving his early days with the Scorpions, the rock giants he recorded five albums with, before quitting in 1978.
A few hours after leaving the stage at London's Roundhouse – where he performed alongside a fleet of legends at a concert commemorating the first anniversary of Cream bassist Jack Bruce's death – the rock star spoke with The National from his home in rural Wales.
The biggest criticism of fast guitar players is that they play a lot of notes, but say little.
It’s horrible a lot of the time. A lot of “shredders” just don’t have a clue about music, it’s just a senseless display of arpeggios up and down, and I’ve got very little time for that. It’s off-putting to people who just want to enjoy music. What good is it if I’m not getting through to people because it’s self indulgent? Not that I’ve never been self-indulgent – I have been, but I didn’t mean to be. You don’t want someone to hold a speech and say 1,000 words without any meaning, far better to say one sentence that really hits you.
Using that analogy, you could say your Sky Guitar is adding to the dictionary.
It just extends the range, not even the vocabulary. If you make the analogy of looking through a widow, you can only see a certain angle. With the Sky Guitar it’s like my window is an octave higher, and lower – my window is nearly twice as wide as on a normal electric guitar. But the main action is still in the centre of the picture.
Why did you decide to revisit Scorpions material at this stage in your career?
I was talked into it. Two of my friends had the same idea at the same time. At first I thought it was a little odd, but then I consented to a tour and I really started to enjoy delving that far back into my own past. Most of it I had very little connection with anymore, and I realised there’s something to be learnt from this. [Lead singer] Klaus [Meine] likes it, so we must have done something right.
Don’t you find the material primitive compared with your later work?
Primitive is not the right word – it is less complex, but some of the greatest pieces are. Every night I love to play All Along the Watchtower. That's only a three-chord scenario, but, my goodness, there's magic in it. Primitive is slightly derogatory – I like the word primal, where something consists of less elements, but that which it consists of has a lot of strength and force.
Scorpions became huge. Did you ever regret leaving?
No, that’s so long behind me. I couldn’t regret it, had I stayed in the band I would not have been happy. Because I wanted to explore music in a different way, and in a commercial environment that was not possible.
Do you feel the band sold out on its early ideals?
No, they were always more commercially-minded than I was. They wanted the big success and got it. If I would have stayed in the band, I would have felt like selling out, but they’re in it in a different way for different reasons, and they stayed truthful to their journey.
Do you hear your influence in the younger generation of players?
I know because people come up to me and tell me it. It appears to be a whole generation, the list of names is endless. That’s nice to know.
What makes a great guitarist?
I go for people who are very versatile, but only if that versatility doesn’t come at the price of being clear and congruent. I like to see and hear and feel a personality when I listen to a guitar player, something distinctive and unmistakable, something that moves me. Very often it doesn’t. It’s not often that I go “Oh, wow.”
• Uli Jon Roth is live Thursday November 5 from 9pm at Heroes, Crowne Plaza Abu Dhabi; and Friday November 6 from 9pm at The Music Room, Majestic Hotel Tower, Bur Dubai. Tickets cost Dh100
rgarratt@thenational.ae
