ULI JON ROTH too hippie or not too hippie, that is the question

Andy Hughes

It's the easiest thing in the world to write off Uli Jon Roth as some sort of time-warped sky-pilot; a guy who still walks around in flares (!) and wears a hat with a feather in it in 1985 just has to be disconnected. right?

Uh-uh, far too simple. Writing off Uli Jon Roth as an anachronism is rather like condemning Bob Dylan to a section label-ed "protest," or filing Jim Morrison under "unsuitable for parental consumption." They are, but there's more right? Uli Jon Roth is unconnected, but only because his mind genuinely moves on another plane, the complexities of which defy the space allotted in this magazine.

Do what I did, start with the easy stuff, and ease yourself gently into the Roth philosophy-and then dog-paddle around in it for a while. When you find yourself getting into difficulties, head for the edge. One thing's for sure: you'll approach his Beyond The Astral Skies album with more caution/interest than you would have before!

New readers start here. Uli Jon Roth used to be (and for the real die-hards, he still is!) the guitarist with German hard rockers the Scorpions. Until 1978, that is, when he elected to begin his solo career. This was the start of his abiding passion, the Electric Sun project-always more of an idea, a concept in Uli's head, than simply a band, which has meant its oc-casional shifts in line-up have had much less of a traumatic effect than usual in this business. Legal problems meant that the initial two albums weren't released in most countries, and UIi was prevented from recording until 1983.

And so, in 1985, we finally see his first worldwide release-Beyond The Astral Skies-and what a record it is. It takes several listens for the average rock fan, even those used to Liles often "unusual" approach to the art of rock music. Let the man explain, why don't you?

"Some people get into it immediately, but it really depends on where you are coming from musically. The more you listen to it, the more you can identify with it, if it's the kind of music you can iden-tify with at all.

"There's lots of inspirations behind it, it's not just one thing, it works on many levels. I was trying to create a unity, a concept in which the music and the lyrics and everything creates a whole, like a lit-tle world almost, or a glance into a little world of its own. At the same time, the songs are all linked, and they all balance each other out. All the lyrics are in rela-tion to each other, which is why certain words recur in certain lyrics under different circumstances. I like to look at the same words and look at them from dif-ferent angles, and see them in different lights."

ULI JON ROTH too hippie or not too hippie, that is the question

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See what I mean? Trying to stick Uli Jon Roth in a pigeonhole marked "guitar hero" is to curtail his ideas, and that's an attitude he fights against. Simultaneous-ly, he extends the barriers of the medium he's working in, whether that be playing the guitar or explaining his style in an in-terview to a confused journalist.

"It seems complicated, doesn't it?" understates Uli with a beaming smile. "But it's quite clear in my mind. It's just difficult to relate it in words, because there's a lot of thought behind it—too much thought to explain."

So is the idea for the listener to analyze the record and understand your ideas from that?

"What I would hope is that people will listen to the record and little ideas of their own will be sparked off. If I read a poem to 10 people, each line will mean something different to all of them. You may favor the first line, others may be gripped by the last line. It's the same with music—I can't expect every listener to have the same feeling every time. Each person is totally different, and I can only hope that certain sections of the record can move people—that's what I'd really like to achieve. It's heavy!" Once again Uli laughed, certain that I only understood very little of what he was trying to explain. But he's quite used to that.

For those of you already feeling impa-tient that a musician should adopt such a heavy-handed tone in an interview, let me assure you that Uli Jon Roth is anything but heavy-handed. His approach comes more from a Germanic desire to be understood, given the complexities he's trying to convey. See, even I'm do-ing it now!

I know what you're thinking: it's all get-ting very sell-indulgent. So to prevent you from terminating right here, I leveled the accusation at Uli.

"It's absolutely not self-indulgent! It's very concise! It’s just a totally different form of art. It’s art which at the same time is commercial. It is commercial, because it sells, people like it, even though they do admit that it sounds weird and strange. All it needs is the promotion—and that’s what we’re doing now, we’re going out to play so the people can see us. We’re going to spread the word.”

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Uli Jon Roth plows his own furrow, on a mental as well as artistic level, but that’s not to say that he’s remote from the world. Indeed, the opposite is true.

“I tend to view everything from a wide angle, because I see what went on before and I know how politics affects history. I’m very interested in history. I try to extract principles from the things that I see, principles which work in all times, past, present and future. These principles are what make things recur in cycles, and I try to inject these into the music.

“Also, in the lyrics—I very rarely take an everyday example without having a much deeper meaning, so I try to have lyrics which could have a meaning, for people born 500 years ago, but also for someone born 500 years from now. That’s what interests me: the human mind, the human soul as a whole, not affected by everyday changes because these changes are insignificant when compared with the whole of our history.

“We change trends every day. There is always something new. But this is only on the surface, it’s not really important, it’s only important to ourselves at the moment. I just don’t find it interesting, the everyday trends, it doesn’t affect me very much.”

The depth of Uli Jon Roth’s thinking, as should be clear by now, is at a level that far exceeds the thinking of the average rock ’n’ roll guitar player. What was it that inspired him to learn in the first place?

“When I first started to learn, when I was about 12, it was the excitement of the music that spurred me on. But as I grew inside, I checked out my own talent, and what I should do in life. I knew there was something there, and I followed my inner guiding light. From then on, I made a conscious effort to see things more clearly, and my imagination got a lot stronger. Which has a lot to do with what I do now.

I can see abstract things very clearly as pictures and images, which helps a lot. That again is something people can only do if they train themselves to do it. Imagination is everything, because you cannot think without having a strong imagination.”

However unusual Uli Jon Roth’s approach and style in rock music may be, his influences are a lot more mainstream.

“Oh yes, lots of influences—I started with blues influences, I liked Eric Clapton, and at first I liked the Beatles, then I liked Jimi Hendrix, he was my strongest influence on guitar.

“When I was about 16,1 started to get into classical music, and I studied classical guitar. After that I started to get interested in classical music as a whole, symphonies and so on. I’m not especially influenced by modern bands; I may spend most of my time at home working on my own material.

“I sit at home and study Chopin and translate it into our kind of music. There’s a lot of Chopin in our songs without people even knowing it, especially on our new songs which aren’t recorded yet but which we’re playing live.”

Chopin? Nothing about Uli surprises me any more, and by this stage, you should be feeling about the same, dear reader. After all—breaking new ground is what Uli Jon Roth is all about, except in his sartorial style. Some of the music press have even called him a (sssh!) hippie!

“Ah yes, the hippie angle again. Maybe I shouldn’t mention it here in case the American press see it the same. I am not a hippie, I never have been a hippie and I never will be a hippie. I just wear long hair and a head band because it suits me. Lots of people dress in a way that doesn’t bring out their personality, it just makes them look like one of the sheep. I think people should be more individual. Why should I wear what others wear? It’s boring! I think people who work in the media have to cater to the trends I mentioned earlier, they think the outward image is what they have to write about. Who is doing anything new? Who is?”

I reckon you are trying!

“Yes, except with my clothes—they don’t interest me. If they did, maybe I’d come dressed in a sort of space costume!”

I wondered whether that might give the average man in the street a far clearer idea of where Uli’s mind was coming from.

“Maybe, but I don’t want to give them too much of a clue! If I did, maybe they wouldn’t learn to dig below the surface, so maybe it’s a good thing that I come in this disguise. This is heavy stuff for METAL ROCK ’N’ ROLL, but that’s a good thing—because it will stick in people's minds, and they will remember it.”

If Uli Jon Roth comes your way, make a point of seeing him with an open mind, and enjoy that ever-fluid and inventive guitar work, if nothing else. As for the lyrics, the ideas and the concepts, this interview was an effort to help to see into the mercurial mind of Uli Jon Roth.

Remember it.