Rudolf Schenker reveals the “one favour” Uli Jon Roth agreed to before his Scorpions departure
Rudolf Schenker asked Uli Jon Roth to agree to one last favour before he left Scorpions to pursue a project of his own.
Things were looking good for the band at the time of Roth’s departure, with them having released a number of successful albums including Fly To The Rainbow and In Trance, and their international fan base was growing. However, Schenker says Roth’s unhappiness became fairly obvious to him as time went on.
READ MORE: “I was never really interested in great guitar playing if the other stuff wasn’t there”: Uli Jon Roth on why he never got in Van Halen
Speaking to Get On The Bus, Schenker recalls how Roth informed him of his decision to quit: “One day in the morning, on Sunday, he came. Uli Jon Roth came to me. I was living in a normal apartment in Hanover. And [he] said, ‘Rudolf, can I talk to you?’ I said, ‘Sure. Come in, come in.’ So [he said], ‘Rudolf, I want to quit.’”
He continues, “I said, ‘Yeah.’ [Roth replied,] ‘You don’t say anything more?’ I said, ‘No, because I was watching you. I could see that you, sooner or later, will move to your own project.’”
The project that Roth went on to pursue was his band Electric Sun, which formed in 1978. They went on to release three albums together, with their first being 1979’s Earthquake. But, before his exit was made final, Schenker wanted just one more thing from Roth.
“‘Do this Tokyo Tapes [live] album with us as a last piece, as a Last Testament for the Scorpions,’” he asked him. “We went to Japan. We played the Tokyo Tapes album. And then, Uli left.”
Interestingly, despite Roth’s time in Scorpions leading to him being cited as an inspiration for many great metal guitarists, Roth has said he doesn’t consider himself a metal fan.
“I’m not a metal guy,” he told the Scars and Guitars podcast back in August. “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.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
