Uli Jon Roth's Rock Hard interview (2023): the facts, the topics and what can be checked

The interview at a glance

The interview that the German magazine Rock Hard published in September 2023 is titled “Schwingungen im Haus der Jugend,” literally “Vibrations in the House of Youth.” These are its details, taken from the interview page and the issue 436 page at rockhard.de:

Field	Detail
Magazine	Rock Hard, a monthly based in Dortmund, published since September 1983
Author	Holger Stratmann, the magazine’s founder and editor
Photos	Holger Stratmann
Issue	Rock Hard Vol. 436, 132 pages, with KK’s Priest on the cover
On sale	September 28, 2023
Web edition	September 23, 2023, Rock Hard+ paid content (estimated reading time: 19 minutes)
Length of the conversation	About two hours, photo session included
Roth’s age	68 (born December 18, 1954)

The magazine’s founding date and Stratmann’s role come from German Wikipedia.

Uli Jon Roth with a Sky Guitar. Promotional photo: UJR Sky Guitars.

Why the interview is not translated here

In November 2023, the Spanish version of this page, at the address it still has today (/interview-en-rock-hard-magazine-uli-jon-roth/), published a Spanish translation of the first part of the interview, ending with a “To be continued” (Continuará) that never came. It has been withdrawn. The text belongs to Holger Stratmann and Rock Hard, and translating it in full without permission is not quoting it. This page does something else: it identifies the original, summarizes what it covers and checks whatever can be checked against other sources.

If you read German, the original is at rockhard.de for Rock Hard+ subscribers and in issue 436, in print or as an ePaper.

What the public introduction says

The only part that is freely available is the introduction, and it already sets the tone. Rock Hard presents Roth as “neben Michael Schenker der berühmteste deutsche Rockgitarrist”: alongside Michael Schenker, the most famous German rock guitarist. It notes that since Scorpions Revisited (the 2015 album, recorded in 2014, on which he re-recorded his Scorpions repertoire; it is in the discography) he has been a regular sight at hard rock festivals. It also highlights his wit in conversation and points out that he gave two hours to the interview.

The topics of the conversation

A warning before the list: the full text is behind the paywall and could not be checked against the original. The topics come from the introduction and from the first part that this page’s Spanish version published in 2023, the only version that could be read:

• His return to the stage after the operation, and the metal festivals of summer 2023.
• The kidney operation and how he went through it.
• His concern about the state of the world, and the book he wrote during the pandemic.
• His way of working, from the obsessive control of the Electric Sun years to a more relaxed pace.
• His father, a journalist, and his childhood in the 1960s.
• According to the introduction of the 2023 version, also Michael Schenker, Monika Dannemann and the philosophy of the Sky Academy. The translated part never reached those topics.

What can be checked

The operation and the recovery

This is the best-documented part. The official statement of July 2023 speaks of an “unexpected, yet successful, kidney removal operation.” His team postponed to spring 2024 the North American tour scheduled to run from September 6, in West Hollywood, to October 1, in New York, and announced select European concerts during his convalescence. The news was reported by Blabbermouth on July 8 and by Rock Hard on July 10.

Classic Rock pins down the date. In Dave Ling’s interview, published on Louder on November 16, 2023, the journalist places the operation in May, and Roth says the wound healed well and that he went back to work almost immediately: “after seven days I was recording in the studio.” The postponed tour became the Interstellar Sky Guitar tour of April and May 2024.

What cannot be checked is the diagnosis. No official statement and no outlet consulted says why the kidney was removed. A tumor is mentioned in the Rock Hard interview according to the 2023 version of this page, but without access to the original it cannot be confirmed. That is why this page does not claim that Roth had cancer.

The summer of festivals

Roth told Classic Rock that he played nine festivals that summer. setlist.fm, a collaborative database, lists eight between June and August 2023:

Date	Festival	Location
June 16	Der Detze Rockt	Daun (Germany)
June 23	Music Legends Fest	Bilbao Arena, Bilbao (Spain)
July 1	Guit’Armor Fest	Rostrenen (France)
July 10	Time to Rock	Knislinge (Sweden)
July 22	Chaos Descends	Crispendorf (Germany)
July 28	Rock of Ages	Seebronn (Germany)
August 5	Rock ’n Beer	Valledoria (Italy)
August 26	Trveheim	Hallbergmoos (Germany)

Bilbao is the only date in Spain that setlist.fm records for 2023. At the Swedish festival, according to Classic Rock, Roth also joined Saxon on stage as a guest. The Swedish drummer Anders Johansson, known for his time with Yngwie Malmsteen and with HammerFall, played with him in 2023, according to English Wikipedia.

The record he was making at Dierks Studios

At the time, Roth was recording new material at Dierks Studios, near Cologne. He told Classic Rock that he had reconnected with Dieter Dierks, Scorpions’ former producer, and that on the fall tour he would play a song on his nine-string flamenco Sky Guitar, a variant of the Sky Guitar, which is now made by UJR Sky Guitars. He told The Metal Voice, according to Blabbermouth, that he would release the material in batches of about three songs rather than as a full album.

As of October 2026, the official discography lists no release after 2016. What did move forward was his label, Alpha Experium, and the “Requiem” project, whose story is told on the The Alpha Experience page.

Michael Schenker

The relationship with Schenker rests on a simple factual basis. According to the official biography, Roth joined Scorpions in 1973, when Schenker left for UFO and the remaining members joined forces with Dawn Road, Roth’s band. Twenty-five years later, Joe Satriani invited Roth on the 1998 European G3 tour, on which Schenker also played. Whatever Roth said about him in Rock Hard stays in the original. His years with the band are covered in The Scorpions years.

Monika Dannemann

Dannemann, a painter born in Düsseldorf on June 24, 1945, who died on April 5, 1996, was Roth’s partner after having been Jimi Hendrix’s. She painted the covers of all three Electric Sun albums, worked with him on “We’ll Burn the Sky,” and Roth wrote the foreword to her book The Inner World of Jimi Hendrix (1995), according to English Wikipedia. The official biography adds that, after her death, Roth began writing Requiem for an Angel in her memory.

Roth live with a Sky Guitar. Photo by Fin Costello.

The 1960s and his father

The official biography identifies his father, Carl-Joseph Roth, as a journalist and multifaceted artist who encouraged his son to paint, take photographs and write. Uli discovered the electric guitar in 1968 and that same year played his first concert, at thirteen, as lead guitarist of Blue Infinity.

One detail from the 2023 version can be cross-checked against another source: the trip to Spain with his father, and his father’s death shortly afterward. In September 2026, Roth told MariskalRock that on that 1972 vacation his father gave him a Spanish guitar in Granada, and that he died soon after they got home.

The Sky Academy philosophy

The book he wrote during the pandemic, In Search of the Alpha Law, came out in December 2024 and is now the backbone of his seminar. The official press kit puts it plainly: “Uli teaches from his Sky Academy book, which forms the foundation of the seminar.” The syllabus includes a block on entering the “Alpha Zone” through relaxation, meditation and concentration. How the seminar works is explained on the Sky Academy page.

Rock Hard and Roth after 2023

The relationship with the magazine continued. On May 21, 2026, Rock Hard published its review of the concert Roth gave at Dierks Studios for the 50th anniversary of Virgin Killer, a week before his appearance at Rock Hard Festival; the magazine’s editor was there. At the festival, Roth’s set centered on that album. There he was interviewed on video by Stefan “Hacky” Hackländer, according to Rock Hard, and WDR’s Rockpalast program filmed his version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” according to the magazine itself.

Roth’s 2026 tour and its dates in Spain are in Uli Jon Roth’s biography.