Electric Sun: the band Uli Jon Roth put together after leaving Scorpions

What Electric Sun was

Electric Sun was the band Uli Jon Roth led after Scorpions, with three studio albums released between 1979 and 1985. English Wikipedia presents it as Roth’s own band, formed by him, with which he released those three albums, and his official biography titles that chapter “1978–1985”.

It was neither a side project nor an interlude. It was his main platform for that entire period: the three albums he released between leaving Scorpions and the start of his career under his own name — which did not come until the 1990s — are the three by Electric Sun.

It is also a stretch of his career that is poorly documented in Spanish, which is why this page exists in the first place.

When Electric Sun began: formed in 1978, first album in 1979

There are two starting dates, and they do not contradict each other: they measure different things.

• 1978, the formation. According to the version of his official biography archived in May 2026, Roth founded Electric Sun “after the summer” of 1978, following his final tour with Scorpions, in Japan in April 1978, and set it up as a three-piece in the tradition of Cream and Jimi Hendrix. The current version no longer gives that detail, but it titles the chapter “1978–1985” and keeps the three-piece.
• 1979, the first album. Earthquake was recorded at Olympic Studios in London in the winter of 1978 and released in the spring of 1979, according to that same archived version. English Wikipedia gives no year of formation: it only dates the three albums (1979, 1981 and 1985).

What none of the sources consulted provides is a more precise formation date than that “after the summer.”

The end is precisely dated too: the archived version of the official biography states that Electric Sun’s last concert was on July 4, 1985, at the Milwaukee Beer Fest. The current version no longer gives the date or the venue, although it keeps 1985 as the close of the period.

The three Electric Sun albums, with label and catalog number

Electric Sun released three studio albums. These are the details of the original editions according to the Discogs listings:

Album	Original year	Label	Catalog number	Listing
Earthquake	1979	Brain (German edition)	0060.196	Discogs master 324412
Fire Wind	1981	Brain (German edition)	0060.378	Discogs master 345358
Beyond the Astral Skies	1985	EMI (European edition)	1C 064 24 0269 1	Discogs master 324413

The first two albums came out on Brain, a German label. The third moved to a different company and was released on EMI.

There is also a detail about dedications recorded in English Wikipedia: the three Electric Sun albums are dedicated, in order, to Jimi Hendrix, to Anwar Sadat and to Martin Luther King Jr. together with Roth’s own fans. Taken together, those three dedications point to a thematic framework that is unusual for a hard rock band.

Who was in the band: what is documented and what isn’t

There is a gap here, and I’ll say so plainly: the sources verified for this archive document only three members of Electric Sun.

• Uli Jon Roth, leader of the project.
• Clive Bunker, drummer, formerly of Jethro Tull, who played on Beyond the Astral Skies (1985) according to the album’s Discogs listing, and who already led the pair of drummers on the 1983 tour according to the version of the official biography archived in May 2026.
• Ule W. Ritgen, bass on that 1983 tour, according to the same archived version, which describes a seven-piece live band with keyboards and two backing singers without naming anyone else.

The rest of the lineup — bass on the albums, drums on the first two, vocals — does not appear in any of the sources behind this page. I could make it up or copy it from an aggregator, and I am not going to. If I later get hold of the credits from the original editions, this section will be expanded with the source alongside.

Why Uli Jon Roth left Scorpions

The reason was artistic, and he told it himself. In an interview with Guitar World he explained that he resigned in 1977, that he had started writing songs such as “Earthquake” that did not fit Scorpions, that he needed a different platform and more freedom, and that the split was amicable.

Note the detail: the material that gave its name to Electric Sun’s first album existed before the band did. Electric Sun was not born to fill a gap after a breakup; it was born because there were songs that did not fit in their previous home.

The dates of his Scorpions years also shift depending on the source:

Fact	Source	What it says
Joined Scorpions	Official biography	1973, coming from Dawn Road (summer of 1973 in the version archived in May 2026)
Joined Scorpions	Spanish Wikipedia	June 29, 1973
Period as guitarist	English Wikipedia	Studio albums “between 1974 and 1977”; in another passage, left in 1978
Final tour with the band	Official biography	April 1978, in Tokyo
Left	Spanish Wikipedia	April 1978
Resignation submitted	Guitar World (Roth’s own statement)	1977

With Scorpions he released five albums, all on RCA: Fly to the Rainbow (November 1, 1974), In Trance (September 17, 1975), Virgin Killer (November 22, 1976), Taken by Force (December 1977) and the double live album Tokyo Tapes (August 15, 1978).

How it differed from Scorpions

The documented difference is one of purpose, not of style. What Roth explained to Guitar World is a change of platform: he had material that did not fit Scorpions and needed somewhere else where it would.

What can be stated with a source:

• The repertoire. The songs that prompted his departure were already of a different nature, with “Earthquake” as the example Roth himself cites.
• The dedications. Hendrix, Anwar Sadat and Martin Luther King Jr. (the last one shared with his fans) as the reference points of the three albums.
• His role in the group. In Scorpions he was the lead guitarist and a songwriter within a band; English Wikipedia describes Electric Sun as a band formed and led by him.

What I will not state: descriptions of the sound along the lines of “more psychedelic,” “more experimental” or “less commercial.” They circulate everywhere, but none of my verified sources supports them, and a stylistic judgment repeated a thousand times is still not a fact.

How it sounded: the only documented gear detail

On the recorded sound there is just one technical detail I can back up. Roth has explained that the 100-watt Blackstar Artisan amplifier he has used in his modern era is modeled on his old 100-watt Marshall Super Lead Tremolo, the amp on the Scorpions and Electric Sun albums. The detail comes from the Rig Rundown Premier Guitar devoted to him on April 6, 2016, and it should be read for what it is: a historical reference point of his, not a technical spec sheet for the 1979 sessions.

Electric Sun and the presence of Jimi Hendrix

Earthquake (1979) is dedicated “to the spirit of Jimi Hendrix,” according to English Wikipedia. The same source documents that the artist Monika Dannemann, with whom Roth had a romantic relationship, painted the covers of all three Electric Sun albums, and that the two collaborated on the song “We’ll Burn the Sky,” from Scorpions’ Taken by Force.

In other words, the connection with Hendrix is not an influence mentioned in passing: it is built into the work itself — into the dedication of the first album and into the imagery of all three.

The bridge to the Sky Guitar

The first Sky Guitar was used on Beyond the Astral Skies (1985), Electric Sun’s last album. English Wikipedia says so, and it is probably the most important fact on this whole page.

The chronology fits:

1. 1982-1983: Roth conceives the instrument. Sources conflict on the exact year. Guitar Player places the conception in the spring of 1983.
2. 1983: British luthier Andreas “Andy” Demetriou builds the first one, according to German Wikipedia, the edition that devotes a dedicated article to the Sky Guitar.
3. 1985: that guitar is heard on Electric Sun’s third and final album.
4. July 4, 1985: the band’s last concert.

The reason for the commission is documented too. As Roth told Guitar Player: “I wanted to have the register like a violin, which is completely impossible on a normal guitar.” That goal makes no sense for a late-1970s rock band; it makes sense for a musician who had been studying piano and classical guitar since 1971 and who named Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream and Yehudi Menuhin among his influences.

That is why Electric Sun works as a hinge. The rock guitarist who leaves Scorpions in April 1978 is, by the time the band winds up in 1985, a musician with a new instrument made to measure for playing string repertoire, already built and already recorded.

What came next confirms it: Transcendental Sky Guitar (2000) and Metamorphosis of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (2003), a reinterpretation of The Four Seasons with Sky Guitar, Don Airey on harpsichord and violinists Brian Wright and Stephen Bentley-Klein. The instrument born at the end of Electric Sun ended up being the one that made that possible.

How many frets that first Sky Guitar had

There is no settled figure, and anyone who gives you just one is hiding the others. These are the three published figures that refer to the guitar of 1983-1985:

Figure	Source	Which guitar it describes
30 frets	English Wikipedia	The Sky Guitar used on Beyond the Astral Skies
36 frets	Spanish Wikipedia	The 1983 Dolphin Sky
38 scalloped frets	Guitar Player, June 26, 2025	The first one built, in the spring of 1983

And those are not the only ones: guitar forums also circulate 29 and 32 frets for the same instrument, with no source to back them up.

Part of the discrepancy probably comes from the fact that not every source describes the same unit, nor counts the whole-tone frets in the top register the same way. But that is a hypothesis, not a conclusion: no source resolves it.

What this page doesn’t cover

In case you are using it as a reference, these are the gaps this archive acknowledges as of today:

• Electric Sun’s full lineup. Only Roth, Clive Bunker (third album and 1983 tour) and Ule W. Ritgen (1983 tour) are on record.
• Track listings and production credits for the three albums.
• Tour and concert dates for the entire Electric Sun period, except the last concert (July 4, 1985).
• Critical descriptions of the sound from sources contemporary with the albums.
• Reception and sales of the three albums.

They will be filled in as verifiable sources turn up, and every new fact will arrive with its link alongside.