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INSANE: Uli jon roth | Vintage Vibes

“I found a Gibson Melody Maker but he said, ‘It’s not good enough.’ I said, ‘Take my Flying V.’ When he came off stage he said, ‘I can’t give it back.’ For my brother I did everything… and still failed!” Rudolf Schenker’s 60 years with the Scorpions

He lost Michael Schenker to UFO and Uli Jon Roth to Jimi Hendrix’s ex, then Matthias Jabs helped him fulfill his ambition of being in one of the 30 greatest rock bands. But it might have been very different if his dad had bought him a motorcycle

Guitar World

"This is not their most exhilarating release, nor probably their absolute finest, but creativity is at an all-time high": Scorpions mix hard rock, pop and metal on the pre-stardom classic Taken By Force

The Scorpions' last album with Uli Jon Roth and first with Herman Rarebell sums them up in the year that punk broke

Louder

“It’s crazy, ambitious and so out of the box. It’s like nothing you’d ever heard before.”: Zakk Wylde picks his favourite Randy Rhoads guitar solo – and explains why Rhoads and Ozzy Osbourne were perfect for each other

Plucked from Quiet Riot, Rhoads was the transfusion of virtuosity Ozzy needed to launch his solo career. But Wylde says it goes both ways, and the Prince Of Darkness was the "perfect foil" for Rhoads' classically trained style

MusicRadar

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“You gave him the world, and he gave you his music in return”: Former Scorpions bassist Francis Buchholz dies, aged 71

Buchholz played on all the classic Scorpions records and later joined forces with his old bandmate Michael Schenker in his Temple of Rock project

Guitar World

“You think back over what you have done and you drinka bottle of red wine and get out all the old albums and listen tothem until four o’clock in the morning”: Ex-Scorpions bassist Francis Buchholz dies aged 71

He played on the band’s landmark albums and the worldwide hit Wind Of Change

MusicRadar

Former Scorpions / Michael Schenker bassist Francis Buchholz dead at 71

"Though the strings have gone silent, his soul remains in every note he played and in every life he touched"

Metal Hammer

“It’s about trying to get into the middle of life – not the extreme left or right. It had to do with drinking”: Written in a church, inspired by excess and disliked by their guitarist, this dark Scorpions classic is still one of their strangest songs

It drew on psychedelia and Debussy

Louder

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"We have our own airport and our own postage stamp!" Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine look back at 60 wild years of Scorpions

How Scorpions went from being called ‘the worst German import since the V2 bomb’ to much-loved rock royalty

Metal Hammer

“Those seeking pointers on how to tailor a solo to serve the song would do well to investigate their back catalog”: The Scorpions guitarists list boasts some of rock's most electrifying and underrated players – this is what you can learn from each of them

The German hard rock juggernaut's song-focused approach has required their guitarists to showcase their distinctive styles with a concise blend of taste and technique appropriate to the setting

Guitar World

“The guitar is like a spaceship, like a Formula 1 car”: Uli Jon Roth says his Sky Guitar’s “Mega-Wing” active pickup system had so much output that it blew up his amps one by one

Fender Twin... Boom! Vox... Boom! 5150... Nice try. Here's what the German virtuoso learned from giving the amp 80dB from his guitar

MusicRadar

“Vox AC30s lasted half an hour and Fender Twins lasted an hour. 5150s sounded great for about 10 seconds, then they were fried”: Uli Jon Roth’s struggle to contain his brainchild, the Sky guitar – and why he never played Jimi Hendrix’s black Strat

The former Scorpions guitarist on how he blazed a trail in guitar modding, and why he’d like to see the Hendrix guitar on display – but not being used

Guitar World

“I wanted to have the register like a violin. The luthier said to me, ‘I can build you any guitar you like.’ It was a lightbulb moment for me”: Uli Jon Roth on what you get when you cross a Strat and a Les Paul with a violin hybrid

After modifying Strats only got him so far, one luthier came to his rescue and they found that the sky's the limit

Guitar World

“I had that guy on the phone and said, ‘Give me one good reason why we should sell you the guitar?’ He said, ‘The money.’ I said, ‘That’s not a good reason’”: Why Uli Jon Roth turned down a $9 million offer for Jimi Hendrix’s iconic black Strat

Hendrix’s “Black Beauty” was one of his go-to guitars – and he was in fact photographed with it a day before his death

Guitar World

“When we came to England, all the headlines said: ‘Crash-boom-blitzkrieg, the Krauts are here!’”: The epic story of the Scorpions, the German band who smashed through the barriers to conquer America

The Scorpions proved that Britain and the US didn’t have the monopoly on hard rock and heavy metal

Metal Hammer

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"Ted Nugent came down to the dressing room and said ‘Guys! You have to calm down!'": The turbulent story of the Scorpions

Whether it’s almost changing their name to Stalingrad or filling their biggest hit with whistling, there’s always a sting in the Scorpions' tale

Guitar World

“When I worked with Tony Iommi, I had an epiphany... he sounded like him no matter what amp you’ve got him on”: Billy Corgan on how watching Iommi taught him the key to the playing style of Eddie Van Halen

As Corgan explains, the distinctive aspect he observed of the ’Sabbath great, also shaped his understanding of players like Eddie Van Halen and Uli Jon Roth

Metal Hammer

“In the 80s, you ordered a gram of cocaine like you ordered a beer. Doing cocaine was normal in those days”: The high times and crazy life of the Scorpions

Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine and Matthias Jabs look back on the career of Germany’s biggest rock band

Louder

"In Scorpions days I sometimes ran out of frets because I wanted to play higher": Uli Jon Roth on his iconic guitars, onstage danger, and reconnecting with an old friend

Former Scorpions guitarist Uli Jon Roth is about to embark on a UK tour: expect plenty of improvisation and some onstage danger

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Metal Hammer

How secretly embracing English glam rockers The Sweet put Scorpions on the launch pad to global stardom

In 1975 Scorpions released a German language version of Sweet's Fox On The Run under a different band name: it played a little-known but vitally important part in their rise

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