ULI JON ROTH On Guitarists' 'Pursuit Of Technical Brilliance': 'Too Many Players Start Sounding Like Typewriters'

In a 2025 interview with North Coast Music Beat that has just been uploaded to YouTube, hugely influential German guitarist Uli Jon Roth was asked what advice he would give to a young player trying to find their own unique voice in today's music. Uli responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Maybe don't listen too much to other players. Get your chops in order. Yeah, that is important, but don't put too much emphasis on it.

"Nowadays there is a lot of talent out there," he continued. "However, I find the journey at the moment is maybe a little bit too much in pursuit of technical brilliance, and the personal sound and personal touch and expression is wanting. Too many players start sounding like typewriters, I would say. And I'm not saying that derogatorily — there are amazing people around, but I would [say], for a young player who wants to be different and stand out, do the opposite. Don't play all the fast notes. Play the notes that go straight to the heart and not too many — not too many notes. I've done that in the past. I still do sometimes, but the older I get, the more I aim for just the most meaningful notes. And so it doesn't matter how fast you can hold a speech to someone; it matters what you're actually saying… [They speak really fast] and then when you listen closely, they're not saying anything. It doesn't mean anything. It's just empty gobbledygook, as we would say in England. Empty hogwash — I like that word. Poppycock. Yeah, these are all English terms.

"So, no. For a young player, do it differently from everybody else," Uli added. "Just go for your own voice and yes, do learn the craft. Become a really good craftsman. You should know music, not just the scales and arpeggios. Understand the harmonies, understand the rhythms, and understand music from deep within and connect with it on the deepest level you possibly can. And then get inspired. And then the rest will come."

Last year, Uli spoke to Andrew McKaysmith of the Scars And Guitars podcast about his pioneering role in the neoclassical metal genre. His unique style, incorporating classical techniques and exotic scales, has inspired numerous guitarists, and his time with the SCORPIONS significantly shaped the band's sound. Uli said: "I'm not a metal guy. When I was in the SCORPIONS and the name heavy metal barely existed, we were considered, if you want to classify it, as a melodic hard rock band. So metal, the name, came afterwards, and then it became something which is actually not my cup of tea. Most metal, for me, is just a little bit too hardcore, a little bit too distorted and, for me, maybe a bit two-dimensional. And what I mean by that is the lack of dynamics.

"I come from a time, like in the '60s when I first started, in the '70s, where even loud bands played with a lot of dynamics," Uli explained. "People like LED ZEPPELIN, [Jimi] Hendrix, CREAM, they were loud on stage with the amplifiers, but they were actually very dynamical in it. The guitars, the drums, everything was dynamical. Now, in heavy metal that gradually went away and everything went to 11 all the time — the guitar constantly hyper distorted, every drum beat fortissimo — and for me, it's very often more like a cacophony. So I'm not a fan. There are some metal things that are excellent and great — absolutely — but on the whole, it's not something I like to listen to. It's not my world."

Asked how it feels to know that he and fellow German guitarist Michael Schenker were so hugely influential in shaping the heavy metal guitar style that is popular today, Uli responded: "I don't really think along these lines. For me, I know that we had a strong influence on particularly guitar players, but some people have said, 'Yeah, these two guys are the architects of rock,' which is, I think, an exaggeration, because we were standing on the shoulders of other people. Michael was listening to maybe LED ZEPPELIN, Rory Gallagher, MOUNTAIN and I was listening to [Eric] Clapton, Hendrix and some other bands. And that's where we learned our craft. And then, of course, we were like the next generation. We put our own stamp on it. And it was a time of discovery — the early '70s sort of field was wide open; it was completely wide open. And there weren't that many explorers around, I found. There were a few, and they pushed it forward. In Holland, in the Netherlands, you had Jan Akkerman. He was an explorer, and he was amazing, and his guitar playing — he was way ahead of the game of most of the other players. In England you had Ritchie Blackmore [DEEP PURPLE]. Then you had Brian May [QUEEN] in England slightly later. All these people were pushing it forward in their own way, and most of them were in England, most of the great guitar players, which is very strange, but I counted it once; there were at least 12 of them. Some of them may be not as well known, but there was [PINK FLOYD's David] Gilmour, there was Allan Holdsworth. There was Gary Moore; of course, he was Irish. There was Hank Marvin, who started it all. There was [THE BEATLES'] George Harrison. Amazing what he did on the electric guitar and the sitar. And I probably forgot quite a few here, but they were all English and British or Irish. And the rest of Europe had a lot of guitar players, but not many of them made it into quote-unquote writing history as such, or rock history. You can count them on one hand, whereas in England it was like a nest. You had all these people. Yeah, Jimmy Page also. Of course, Jeff Beck. I forget Jeff Beck. Hello. Big mistake. He was definitely one of the all-time greats."

In recent years, Roth has revisited the early music of his period with the SCORPIONS, which resulted in the "Scorpions Revisited" double CD and "Tokyo Tapes Revisited" DVD/Blu-ray releases.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest guitar players ever, Uli pioneered a unique style of guitar playing which — for the first time — combined complete mastery of the instrument with an intensely melodic and emotional appeal.

From his earliest days onwards, Uli has always been a bold and uncompromising musical innovator of the first order. Being the first guitar player in rock to incorporate complex melodic arpeggio sequences, Uli Jon Roth — in the eyes of many of his peers — practically reinvented modern guitar technique almost singlehandedly during his SCORPIONS tenure, but even more so during his ELECTRIC SUN days.

Image credit: Thomas Fingerhut