CALIFORNIA ROCK NEWS

Alex Kluft / CRN: You’re about to kick off the Interstellar Sky Guitar World Tour which is your first North American tour in 5 Years

UJR: Thanks to covid. I’m flying out on the 21st [March]. We’re really looking forward to it. First we’re doing a Sky Academy teaching seminar in Long Beach, CA for four days over Easter. Then the tour starts on the 2nd in Arizona then goes all over North America. One and a half months. 

CRN: On this tour you’ll be doing something quite unique which is how the show is broken into two sets with the first being your compositions and parts of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” with a discussion of your book Alpha Law as well and the second being Scorpions and Electric Sun with your band. 

UJR: Before the pandemic I was embarking on a world tour with my one man solo show and we had it well prepared. I had written a lot of new music and produced a lot of nice background videos. We had 70 shows booked for the states. Just after we started the tour in March of 2020, the virus hit Europe and we had to shut down the concert after a few concerts. Coming back to America now, I thought it would be good to pick up that subject and do at least some of that material. The first half of the evening will be my solo show “An Evening With Uli Jon Roth” After the intermission, I’m bringing the full band and we’re playing a full rock set of older material Scorpions, Electric Sun, and some Hendrix. The first half will be very unusual because it also includes a “Ted Talk” introducing my new book and I’m playing a few new songs which I have written specifically for this which are not Rock songs, but they are very melodic with a story and meaning and that’s why I’m doing it. Yes, I’m playing some classical like Mozart and Vivaldi with the orchestra on the screen behind me. Last but not least, before all that I’m doing a guitar seminar in the same venue. One and a half hours of guitar teaching. The ins and outs of what I do. It’s a full 360 degree kind of thing that evening.

CRN: Who will your band be?

UJR: It’s pretty much the same band we had in 2019, but the drummer will be Jamie Little who has been in America before with me and he did both Scorpions Revisited andTokyo Tapes Revisited dvd recordings with me. We have Corvin Bahn on keyboards, Niklas Turmann on lead vocals and bass, and David Klosinki on guitar [All on Scorpions Revisited]. 

CRN: Last year marked 40 years of the Sky Guitar which you designed and to this day remains very iconic. 

UJR: It was the first guitar ever with the extra frets with an extended top range. I came up with the idea in ‘82 and it was built in ‘83. It was a 6-string which I took to America for the Electric Sun tour. Then we built several prototypes and one was also a 7-string “Mighty Wing”. That was another first for Rock music I think. I’m pretty sure of that. Of course that extended the range of the guitar even further. I was able to play intricate pieces just like I would play on the piano on a guitar without having to transpose the octaves which is very important I think. If you play Vivaldi in the wrong octave, the piece falls apart. At least I think so. Over the years it went through several stages. The first Sky Guitars were already pretty perfect I have to say, but then later on we brought them to the market and there are quite a few different models. They’re just internet orders with my own company UJR Sky Guitars. I’m playing several of these models during the evening including a 9-string nylon one which is semi acoustic. 

CRN:  From looking at photos from the Sky Academy site, it looks like around 30 students? 

UJR: Maybe a little more, it always depends. We didn’t actually advertise this. This is more like a beginning after many years of not doing it. I hadn’t done a Sky Academy for 10 years. The simple reason was I didn’t have a book as the foundation and now I have one. Now that I have the book it was a good reason to take up Sky Academy again. 

CRN: I saw you for the first time at Reggies Chicago in 2012 and I remember there being a Sky Academy and the guitars were Dean.

UJR: That was just an afternoon seminar which was a ‘Sky Academy lite’ at the venue. It was just a little teaser or taste of what it would be like. It was nice. We did that several times I think. The first commercially available ones were Dean, but they were all built by Boris Dommenget with the Dean logo and they were the distributor for the first 50. The owner of Dean then Elliot Rubinson [Passed in 2017] was one my best friends and he persuaded me to put them on the market and that’s why they even exist out there. 

CRN: And Boris built them all from the beginning?

UJR: He made aloof them but the first five. Once we started putting them out commercially from then on, Boris built every single one by hand and they are true masterpieces and I love these guitars. He is unbelievable as a guitar builder. There all slightly different which is what I like. 

CRN: Right, this took place at the venue and was a few hours rather than what the whole academy experience is.

UJR: The Sky Academy takes four days morning to night and is quite intense. The students get to play and we do all sorts of things, not just guitar playing. It’s also mental exercises helping to do what we do.

CRN: And Long Beach will be just that. I would like to mention that your builder Boris will be coming in for Germany to meet the students and work on their guitars. 

UJR: Correct! There are quite a few Sky Guitar owners coming to this academy so it’s like a ‘Sky Academy Convention, ’but you don’t have to own a Sky Guitar to be there. There will be Sky Guitar owners from all over America coming and some of them have quite a few. One guy has four and I think another six. It’ll be quite something, I’m really looking forward to that. 

CRN: Beyond the guitar, you’ll be explaining the pedals and amps you use and it’s great that it’s intimate. 

UJR: Yes, oh my it goes way beyond that. It’s always different. It’s not something we advertise as a big commercial event. This is much more intimate compared to others. As I said I don’t want to advertise it so much since it’s my first one after all this time. We need to get going again. A Lot of the same people will come that came many years ago and some new ones of course. There’s younger people and ones close to my age. It’s a mixed bag ya know?

CRN: So you’ll see some familiar faces. To talk about the Whisky A Go’ Go’ where you’ll be playing April 3rd. This year marks the 60th anniversary of this historic venue and you’ve played it over the years.

UJR: There aren’t that many places even available that size any more. Most shut down. There’s no more House of Blues which was on Sunset. The Whisky has been part of our tradition, although this time we won’t have support acts. We used to have many support acts and I was getting tired towards the end of the evening as we started around almost midnight which is not my kind of thing. So, this time as much I want to support musicians, but with such a long show I thought it’s not a good idea. We’re going to play without support bands. 

CRN: I certainly understand that. There’s times there could be five openers on the bill and with a show that length it’ll go late as is.

UJR: With me, it’ll start earlier since I’m doing the ‘Evening With.’ I don’t want to do that too late. We’re not really doing a bar performance. This is some heavy duty stuff. 

CRN: It’s a two part show and “Ted Talk.”

UJR: We’re talking about a three hour show easily with an intermission. The last time was like that but it was three hours of my 50th anniversary show. That was a nice tour. I didn’t have any complaints that the show was too long in the states. 

CRN: And for the fans it’s tiring standing through multiple acts until the headliner goes on and a set of that length would be the equivalent of two three openers and headline set. To go back to the Sky Guitar, how many do you play throughout the show?

UJR: I’m bringing at least four or five different types, but there are more in existence but I can’t play them all. Five all together. Sometimes people come up and say hey can you play my Sky Guitar? And I will play a few songs during the set. I enjoy that, because I can play all of them straight as they come and don’t need to be set up specially for me. I’m not difficult when it comes to that. 

CRN: Thank you for taking the time to talk and we look forward to seeing you at the Whisky April 3rd! It’s been five years or since you’ve performed here in L.A. 

UJR: Time really does fly. It doesn’t feel that long, but now that you say it, it’s true.