Episode 14: Uli Jon Roth Interview

In the year 1973, Uli’s friend, Michael Schenker, quit the already established band Scorpions to join UFO in England. This lead to the break-up of the Scorpions, which his brother, Rudolf Schenker, had formed in the Sixties. But before leaving the band, Michael asked Uli to take his place instead. Later that year, the two remaining members of Scorpions – Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine – joined forces with the four members of Dawn Road in the summer of 1973. Soon afterwards, the “new” Scorpions played their first gig, which happened to be a two-song live appearance on one of the two main German television channels. This lead to a 5-year record contract with one of the major international record companies at the time, RCA.

Uli recorded five albums with the Scorpions – one for each year of his tenure. Each one of these was to achieve iconic status in the history of rock music. The band recorded altogether four studio albums and one live-album during that five-year period. These were – in chronological order – Fly To The Rainbow (1974), In Trance (1975), Virgin Killer (1976) and Taken by Force (1977).

GUITAR TRAX is hosted by mulit-Emmy award winning guitarist Brian Tarquin featuring in- depth interviews with today’s hottest guitar legends and airs every Monday night from 10pm-12pm on NPR's WFIT 89.5FM on the Florida space coast and can be streamed on WFIT.org. In 2023 Brian’s music video “Speed of Sound” featuring Joe Satriani won Best Video of the Year by the Josie Music Awards. His all star album Brothers In Arms topped the metal radio charts peaking #7 on the NACC Loud Rock charts and #11 on the Metal Contraband charts. Both in 2022 & 2023 the Josie Music Awards nominated Tarquin for "Musician of the Year (Guitar)" and "Music Producer of the Year." In 2019 Tarquin received a Global Music Gold Award for his release Orlando In Heaven for “Best Album.” In 2023 the Hollywood Independent Music Awards nominated his company BHP Music-Guitar Trax Records for "Independent Record Label of the Year."