Episode 124 Uli Jon Roth In search of the Alpha law

Uli Jon Roth has been a force to be reckoned with as a master of the guitar for decades.
While he first made his mark with German rockers, the Scorpions, he has been blazing new trails for himself ever since. 
He is known as an early innovator of neo classical rock and has gone beyond the norm with his creation of the Sky guitar, a very unique guitar with extra frets to emulate the violin and advanced electronic features. 
All the while touring the world on a regular basis, thrilling fans with his virtuostic yet melodic playing style. 
In this episode we discussed his new book, In search of the Alpha law, how he is inspired by going outside his comfort zone, and the importance of supporting our children's dreams...among other things! 

If you enjoy this episode & would like to help me to keep producing these shows, why not buy me a coffee at this site?  https://buymeacoffee.com/tsolobandq

To keep tabs on what Uli is up to, go to this site  https://ujr.info/

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Episode Transcript

(00:25):
Welcome to Tommy Solo's Famous Friends.This is where I get to chat with
people who I've connected with over theyears in the world of arts and entertainment,
and today I'm making a brand newconnection with guitarist extraordinaire Oulie john Roth.
Welcome to the show. Uli,Hey, thanks for having me Tommy.
It is my absolute pleasure. It'sbeen a bit of a goal for
us to make this happen today,so I'm just glad that we are connected.

(00:48):
And from what I understand, youare parked in the tour bus on
your way to Texas. Yes,that's a long route. We actually that's
the only time on the tour.We have three days of travel and on
the bus. I guess I couldhave taken the plane, but I'm toughing
it out with everybody else, andso far it's fine, and I'm always

(01:11):
working anyways. I've got my computer. I've got so many things to do,
you know, so I don't eventhat's just the difference. We do
have day rooms, so the driveris sleeping now, and then we're driving
in the night and so he's sleepingand we have rooms for showering whatever.
But yeah, we're in the parkinglot in Springfield, Missouri, and that's

(01:34):
it. Tomorrow we'll probably be inOklahoma or something, and then finally in
Texas. So from what I understand, you have four more shows in Texas
and then you're off to Europe andI believe we're going to be in Ireland.
Yeah. First we have one gigin a city called Urum in the

(01:56):
center of Germany, which is prettymuch the only time when we're doing the
same kind of show that we're doingin Northern America, you know, where
we're doing two programs and one evening. So we're doing that on the twenty
fifth. Then, yeah, Ihave to travel all the way to Ireland.

(02:16):
We're playing the Rory Gallia Festival atBallyshann, the far end of Ireland,
just at the other end. Quitedifficult to get to because there's a
lot of driving, you know.You know, a lot of people don't
realize just how far north Ireland isas well, so it's a totally different
lanscape. Yeah, and when youfly into Ireland, you always fly to

(02:39):
just Dublin, which is at thevery beginning on the east coast, and
then the rest is driving and you'redriving through a lot of unpopulated areas.
It's quite beautiful. Yeah. That'sthe part of the road that I enjoyed
the most is when you get toa really scenic panorama, you know,
landscape. I understand that this timearound you're including a masterclass on guitar in

(03:05):
your shows. Yeah. No,we're not always doing it. We're doing
it sometimes that's before the show.Yeah, that was a late add on
for special VIPs. So, asI said, it's not always happening.
Okay, I'll tell you I'd loveto be a part of that because I
learned how to play guitar all thoseyears ago by ear and you know,
taking the needle and putting it backand forth and ruining all our records.

(03:30):
Yeah, those days, I'm gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I
mean, if only we had YouTubewhen we were young, man like,
actually, no, no, no, no, I'm very happy I didn't
have YouTube because YouTube presents you withtoo many shortcuts, shortcuts to have.
I'm glad I had to do itquote unquote the hard way. Discovering the

(03:53):
guitar really very much with my ownsenses and my own imagination gave me a
head start in doing something original,you know, on YouTube of course,
it's easier to learn an instrument nowadaysbecause hey, you want to play this
up PAGEO, there are ten guysshowing you how to do it, and

(04:15):
so you don't have to solve anyriddles, you don't have to finish any
puzzles. It's all there. Theone thing that's not there is it really
leaves no room for your own imagination. You're just following pre made recipes,
which will, of course, ifyou follow them, may turn you're into
a competent guitar player. But tobecome like an artist you need to think

(04:42):
differently. So I don't think Iwould have benefited much from YouTube. Maybe
I would have played better, butto me, that's not so important.
Actually, you know how good orhow bad or how media okay you play.
I think the most important thing isis there anything you've got to say
absolutely you know? Does it makesense? Does it hit home? And

(05:08):
sometimes you can say a lot withjust very few words, and the current
trend seems to be to say lotsso much with a lot of words.
I do agree. In the phaseof technical exploration of the guitar, so
a lot of kids are fascinated byspeed and dexterity. Speed dexterity, but

(05:31):
the essence of music and tonal quality, the sound, the emotional aspect and
the imagination sometimes is lacking. That'sfine. Yeah, there are a lot
of people out there who have usedYouTube so that they could learn well,
for example, the sales of Sharon, How many there are. It's amazing.

(05:53):
Actually, Like when I turn onYouTube, of course they always there's
a name connection YouTube. Know whoI am? You know, so I
get tons of oh yeah, checkout myself as and some of them are
quite good and some of them arepretty atrocious. But I guess that's for
everything. You know. Well,my thought is okay, that's great.

(06:16):
So you can copy Uli, oryou can copy Eddie van Halen's eruption.
But what have you written to me? I agree with what you're saying about
going through the process the way thatwe did and enhancing your creative process.
Speaking of creative processes, you havea brand new book coming out very soon.
From what I understand, it willbe out sometime during this tour.

(06:39):
Got it right here. It's thiseditor's note. In the video version of
this interview, which you can findon my YouTube channel. Ouli is on
to be holding up a beautiful coffeetable book that's loaded with wonderful illustrations,
et cetera. Now back to theshow. See how big it is?
Wow? Quite a monster. VeryIt's got about six hundred pages, and

(07:04):
I can't really show it. Thereare some lovely illustrations and photos in the
area. I did the entire layoutof the book myself because I wanted it
to be homogeneous and artistically pleasing,And it's about at least a thousand photos
and illustrations, a lot of whichI've made myself. And the book is

(07:29):
not about myself at all. Idon't really figure in it much. It's
about the things that It's basically aboutmy view of things that are unspeakable,
you know, Like it's a littleesoteric. It talks a lot about the
mind, our in that being,and it also speaks a lot about the

(07:54):
laws of music, which I findare very much the same as the physical
laws that govern the universe. Andthese laws of music, I'm both interested
in the metaphysical angle, like whyare certain notes different from others? And
why are certain constellations of notes whydo they evoke certain feelings in us?

(08:16):
And always fascinated by that because noneof it is accidental. There's always like
a deeper reason and deeper connection.And as a musician, I find it
interesting to see the world with musiclives. So I'm presenting kind of a
different world view, which makes alot of sense to me because I've had

(08:37):
this worldview since I was in myearly twenties, and I've done an awful
lot of thinking and probably in thatdirection. So the book is kind of
the combined essence of that. It'sgot quite a skill. It's not just
about one thing, It's about manythings. But they these many things are

(08:58):
all interconnected. Sometimes the connections maybe totally obvious, sometimes they're more further
apart. I also am fascinated andlooking at opposite how two opposite forces relate,
and how although they're opposing, theycan be bridged and connected in the
meaningful way. And we should letpeople know. The book is titled in

(09:22):
Search of the Alpha Law. Correct, Yeah, you've got a hard copy
there. Do you have an ideawhen it's going to be released now?
Or it should go to print sometimenext month. So then they're already on
the tour, they're already selling,okay, but we have not yet advertised

(09:43):
it on the web. Or it'snot yet out there. This will happen.
So, and we're not going throughcommercial publisher because I deliberately didn't want
that, really because I didn't wantthe book commercialized. Because going through a
publisher, yes, the book mightbe a little bit smoother if you have
playing editor, more streamlines, moremainstream, they take off some of the

(10:07):
edges, et cetera. But Iwanted it to remain untarnished from commercial aspects.
It is really there because I wantedto be there, and ultimately I
wrote it for my Sky Academy studentsbecause whenever we did Sky Academy and the
Past, which we started back intwo thousand and six in Los Angeles,

(10:28):
they always asked, can we readabout that stuff somewad? I always said,
well, no, not really so, but now I've got that and
that's why we're also starting the SkyAcademies again. So it all comes full
circle. Very nice. Yeah,well, I'll be looking forward to getting
a copy. I'm assuming that they'llbe available through your website then. Yeah.
Yeah, it's not only going tobe bad. There will be multiple

(10:52):
chance. I've got some people dealingwith all that distributors, et cetera.
And it shouldn't be too difficult toactually get it. We will see if
that process will start very soon.Speaking of Sky, I know that you
are credited as being one of theearly innovators in neo classical music, and

(11:13):
I don't know how many people areaware of just how multifaceted you're playing is.
I've seen you playing on a verylovely seven string nylon go down guitar.
Oh that's a long time ago,and you have your own custom built
Sky guitars. Now from one understandyou wanted to have a guitar built with
extra threts so you could emilate theviolin. Is that correct? Yeah,

(11:37):
that was the original intention behind theSky guitar, and that's why this guitar
came into being this kind of guitar. Like, even early on in my
early twenties, I often ran outof threts quite literally on a traditional stratocast
psych guitar. I wanted to goslightly higher and I was always listening to

(11:58):
these violin con shutters and wow,you know they can do that, and
why is the guitar I'm not ableto do that? So I came up
with a different body shape which enabledme to play much higher, and I
had a very good guitar builder whobuilt the first Sky guitar and it works.
That was back in nineteen eighty threeand I haven't looked back since.

(12:20):
You know, since then. Myphone be based guitars and we're selling them
on the market as mail order.There's about a two year waiting list.
They're all hand built. Yeah,I'll bet not. Many artists have their
own special design guitar. Like thereare a lot of guitarists out there,

(12:41):
top shelf players who have endorsements withGibson or Fender or whatever, and they'll,
you know, tweak it a littlebit. But this is something really
special. Yes, it is actuallyalmost like a new instrument. If you
look at the violin family of stringedinstruments, you have the violin, you
have the viola, you have thecello. Now, the difference between these
is only the size, and theyhave different strengths, like the viola will

(13:07):
have a bass string that the violindoesn't have. But essentially the fingerboard is
very similar. But because of allthis, they sound different because they have
different sizes. Now, the Skyguitar is quite a different animal from a
standard guitar, not just because ofthe extended top range. Also, my

(13:31):
Mighty Wing guitar in the eighties wasthe first seven string in electric guitar,
and that kind of started a littlerevolution because that's copied by many people.
And so then we started to experimentwith new pickup systems. That we developed
an extremely sophisticated pickup system called MegaWing, and we'll be right back after

(13:54):
this. Nowadays, the main Skyguitars that I'm playing on stage, they're

(14:15):
all singing, all dancing. They'vegot an armory of special effects from echo
to loopers whatever, plus all theother things that are technologically extremely advanced instruments.
And that's that. But it takesa real player to get something out
of them. It's a bit likedriving a Formula one car. You know,

(14:35):
you can't do it so easily,leave your crash into a wall.
You really need to know what you'redoing. But some people just buy them
because they love the way they look, and then they're just hanging on the
wall. Quite a few. Actually, I was in a local guitar store
a number of years ago and theproprietor said to me, you know,
you're not one of our best customers. Our best customers are doctors, and

(14:58):
lawyers and dentists. Not the program. You get a lot of these.
You're absolutely right. Lawyers dentists exactly, Yes, yeah, because they have
the money. I mean guys likeyou and I, at least in the
beginning, we had to struggle toput our pennies together to buy our first
Gibs and our Fender guitar. Well, I had a dad who had supported

(15:20):
me a lot. He bought methese expensive guitars, even in the beginning.
Just before my dad died nineteen seventytwo, he bought me this beautiful
Segobia concert model Ramirez guitar, whichback then costs as much as his entire
paycheck for one month. It wasa small fortune, and he was a
well paid journalist even back then,and he did that. I still have

(15:43):
that guitar. It's still in primecondition, and I've played it on Flight
to Rainbow, I've played it onUnder a Dark Sky and a product to
Symphonic Legends. It's lovely to havethat. So I was lucky that my
dad, my mom, they weresupported for me. He bought me a
strato cast. Like you talked,I know a lot of people on this.
Plus we had this discussion yesterday wheretheir dads did exactly the opposite.

(16:07):
You know, they say, ohway, and yeah, So I was
very, very lucky to have supportiveparents. That is fairly rare in the
music business. I mean, Italked to a lot of artists who say,
my dad didn't want me to play, my mom would let me sneak
out whatever. But it's very rare, and it's it's so nice when you

(16:27):
do have that support from within yourfamily. Yeah. Well, I grew
up in a very artistic houseo mydad drawing painting. He taught me how
to draw paint. You know,how to write poems. I mean when
I was sixteen, Like my firstever poem ended up as the Flight to
Rainbow poem. And so that waspossible because I grew up in a household

(16:51):
like this. My brother was thesame. And when parents are supportive,
that's so nice. And parents whoare not supportive of them children have a
lot to answer for. Some peopleare just so small minded and narrow cited
that they don't understand that their offspringneeds support to unfold. And of course

(17:14):
some people are very they've been beatendown by the sister. Yes, you
need a job, you need tomake money, et cetera, etcetera,
which is all very true, andthere's hardly any money in music nowadays.
But robbing a child of the opportunityto unfold their musicality is almost like a
crime. It's like tying somebody's wingsand making sure they never fly. It's

(17:37):
horrible, even if I mean notmany people have it in them to become
professional business, but you can alwayshave it as a serious hobby. Play
the piano. It's so good foryour brain. It's so good for your
mind and your spirit. That somepeople just can't see that because they've never
had it themselves, and then theythink, why should my child? But

(18:00):
that's the way the world is.Well, there's a lot to unpack there,
but I think part of it isthe evolution of music. And I
try my best to listen to newmusic. It's not easy because it's not
meant for me. I think thisis what the struggle is a lot of
times with parents and their children.You know, this isn't Elvis. What
are you listening to you? Whateverthat being said, I also feel like

(18:23):
music is the doctor, and nomatter what level you get to. I
mean, I've had young people comeup to me when I'm playing a live
show and they'll say, wow,I love your playing, you know,
and I can't play like that,or you know, I'm no good.
I just have a good So I'llsay, well, when you play,
do you enjoy it? Do youhave fun? Well? Yeah, well
that's all that matters. Not everybodycan be Ulie john Roth, not everybody

(18:48):
can be Eddie van Halen, butyou can have fun. Yeah, absolutely,
Yes. Music can be more thanfun. It can be when you
say, it's the doctor, andit can be as Luke. I remember
when just before I started the guitar, I had terrible asthma and I nearly
died a couple of times from it. As soon as I started the guitar,

(19:12):
it went away because I had foundmy vocation and before that there was
something missing, and my self consciousknew that, I guess, so that
translated into that very serious illness Ihave if I had it since, but
I've had music, and I'm wellgrounded it myself also thanks to music.

(19:37):
Well, I certainly agree with everythingyou've said there. I'm curious now with
your mastery of the guitar, doyou do your own maintenance on your guitars?
No, I'm not good with thatat all. I leave that to
the guitar builder or of a tech. What I do do is I always
keep my guitars in good condition.I treat them with the utmost respect always,

(20:02):
so even my old guitars look relativelynew. I'm not one of these
people who could ever best treat theguitar like what you Be did or Pete
Towns that I could not do thatsmash the guitar. To me, it's
like the ultimate crime, you know. I mean, I've never smashed anything,
so I'm just not that kind ofperson smashing an instrument. No,
I can't do it. I reallywouldn't want that, because if you smash

(20:26):
the instrument, it's almost like anattack on music itself. And to me,
music is something sacred, it's holy. It's like going to church.
I may sound like some kind ofbumbling idiot from the past, but this
is what it feels like for me. And also, when I take a
guitar, it's always special and Ialways feel like new. And I don't

(20:47):
play that often. I play extremelyrarely on a tour. You'll never see
me sitting with the guitar. I'llonly take it out before I go on
stage, I don't play myself injust straight in and that's it, and
that keeps it fresh for me,and also a certain danger element, which
I like, so you don't endup being complacent. If I play too
much, I find I'm losing thatmojo, and the mojo is the most

(21:11):
important thing, the feeling, thesensation that it's alive. It's now,
it's fresh, and it happens evenwhen you're playing staff that you've played a
lot of times. To always puta new spet on it and make it
alive, you have to infuse itwith spirit, otherwise it's just dead.
Now there are some bands who replicatetheir own songs and it sounds literally like

(21:33):
the ghosts of something from the past. It's not alive anymore. And then
oh, yes, you're getting Yes. See editor's note. At this point
in the interview, I stood upto show only my vintage T shirt from
nineteen ninety one when I watched Yeslive in concert in Toronto during their union
tour. Now back to the show. I've seen a lot of really good

(21:57):
concert Yeah, I've seen a lotof really good concerts, and of course,
being a musician back in the seventies, just starting out. All of
the older guys said, you've gotto listen to Yes, and you've got
to learn how to play roundabout andall of this stuff. When I saw
them live, like you say,they replicated it one hundred and ten percent

(22:18):
accuracy. But it was one ofthe most boring concerts I've ever seen because
they were on a rotating stage,moving very slowly, and even John Anderson
was reading lyrics on a big pieceof bristol board. Yeah, you know,
a brilliant musicians. When was that? It was back in ninety one
ninety two the Union pocup all right, Yeah, now, I know what

(22:42):
you mean. That is a dangerand being overly perfect and the spirit of
rock is not necessarily in perfection.There needs to be a certain freshness,
revolutionary danger, almost, and youhave that with all the great pieces and
rock music. When they came out, they were completely unique and one offs.

(23:06):
Yes, brote a lot of things. I mean, if you have,
like, for instance, requirement,he still has that mojo. He
is so genuine as an artist.He can still be just as exciting ass
back then. But not everybody cando that. You know, if you
stay constantly in your comfort zone withoutchallenging yourself. Then you're not there like

(23:30):
you used to be, like inthe beginning. The things that the great
things happen when you're going beyond yourcomfort zone. And so some people write
all their best stuff like when they'revery young, and then afterwards they stay
in their comfort zone for the restof their lives and then the quality goes
down. I think it's a trackto fall into. Well. I agree

(23:51):
with the idea of not playing allthe time as well. Even though I've
got my guitars out around me,I don't think i've played for the last
few days. And I find thatit does present a challenge when you are
on stage if you haven't played fora little bit, you know, I
mean, I'll do my warm upsand so on. But I also find
it very inspiring pick it up aftera little bit of time away. Yeah,

(24:17):
that's what I mean exactly. Yeah. So, I know you've got
Texas and Germany and Ireland once thistour is over. What's next for you?
Well, I'm spending We have afew festivals in the summer, that's
normal. We played the Valkan Festival, some things here and there, but
mainly I'll use the summer to becreative at all, which just what I

(24:40):
love the most. Got a wholebunch of oil paintings stacked up that I
want to do. They want toget back into that so they used to
do. Also, we're preparing forsome orchestra shows for next year, so
after my work cut out and inthe fall and the autumn, will do
a European tour. Very nice.Well, we'll all be looking forward to

(25:00):
everything new coming from Wullie John Rothand once again the new book in Search
of the Alpha Law will be outvery soon. I know you have a
lot on your plate and you're avery busy man. I don't want to
take up your whole day, butI do want to thank you so much
for taking the time out of yourday to do this with me today and
until next time, cheers, Thankyou, Tommy, good bye. Tommy

(25:25):
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(25:49):
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