 to the metal voice a returning guest the master the master of all guitars this the sky guitar and all the arrest yeah right the maestro really John Roth returning interstellar interstellar interstellar yeah interstellar so many cool things Uli so many cool things always a pleasure to speak to you I know you don't remember me from last time but it's always I have to say now looking at you I don't on the monitor the monitors big but you're just so and my vision isn't all that great so if we did come face to face I'm pretty sure I would remember you you're a gentleman when we you know but of course on the tour you do so many of these interviews and and a lot of them are like before the show after the show and sometimes I get really tired that not of the interviews I usually like the interviews but I get tired until it's a constant lack of sleep don't ask me why but the the rhythm is just you know really really not conducive to to get health so many exciting things you have a summer festival tours you have a north America tour I'm hearing new music you're talking about new music from others you're I think there's like this 10,000 page book you've written perhaps it's I I think it's but it's something like 600 pages or so you know big Tom first things first tell what tell us what people can expect on your north American tour which is starting I think in September what can what is what's the what's the mapping of what's what's it gonna look like it's it's different from from any to I've done before but it's got elements of what I've done before you know so it's different because it's actually up to the show consists consists of two very different halves and it's a three-hour show which sounds scary but I've been doing three-hour shows for a long time we have always had an intermission in the middle and you know and I don't think normally people get bored at least that's that's my perception of it you know although I don't really notice when somebody is leaving in the middle of 20 minute pizza solo which I can't blame them for but this so this show is is a three-hour integrated show and and the first half is called an evening with an evening with early genre and the way that came about was before COVID hit the world I was actually on a world tour which has had just started it started it ended in Europe never to be seen again and that tour was like a one-man show I was on stage where the huge screen there were pre-produced movies for for all the pieces I spoke to the the audience about a lot of it was music and there was a lot of music which was new music which I wrote for this occasion and also a lot of the stuff that I normally never get to play in my rock shows you know like orchestra stuff I had the orchestra on the screen and we played some of Vivaldi's four seasons and and a lot of my own stuff so in the first half it'll be an evening with but you did mention the book I will integrate like a 15 minute TED talk where I'm yeah I've never done that before but where I'm just introducing the book because it's quite I mean there's a lot to talk about in the book and it's impossible to put 560 pages plus a thousand photographs I hasten to add in diagrams into a 15 minute thing might it'll be a nice challenge and rather than being all complete I will just pick certain things and just the taste of of what it is just presented you know the books called in search of the alpha law and it's a book which is not about myself it's not about my life on the road or my life it is about my well my philosophy of life you know something which I've for my ever since the earliest Corp in Stays I was a closet philosopher I love I love thinking about things thinking deep thoughts not that I'm my shallow thoughts occasionally as well just like everybody but sometimes I go into this zone and then for me at least interesting things come out and a lot of that has to do with the inner spirit and architecture of music and the the laws of music which I found are the same laws that govern pretty much everything else that we see and perceive you know the if not the whole universe I think the these laws are these fundamental laws of nature and and even beyond that because they also apply to our mind and in our spirit our soul these laws are to me very fascinating to look at them and try to understand what they even are you know and it's not easy to put these things into words but I tried and I'm quite happy with the outcome so that's what what that is all about so the first half of the show has this TED talk but it has also quite a few new music pieces which don't really fit into the band format they're more orchestral they are very melodic free out throughout where the guitar is leading but I have orchestra backing and sometimes also I play solo pieces on a good and mine string flamenco sky guitar maybe some keyboards not sure yet anyway so that's the first time then we have an intermission so everybody can recuperate yeah well whatever I didn't want to go into such extraordinary detail but after the intermission it's a full-on ban show so I'm bringing my band because originally I didn't want to do that for the next North American tour but since it's been such a long time I think it's nine on four years now since we were last in your neck of the woods I'm bringing the band because I know like most of my core audience want to hear that and they want to you know get the full flow of also the my earlier musical existence including of course the Scorpions Electric Sun some sky of Avalon touch of Jimmy Hendrix it'll all be there and yeah and that rounds of the show you know wow three hours amazing I thought that sound just the TED talk alone I think is fascinating I'd love to see that I'm looking forward to that because it's a challenge for me it's something I've never done I mean I've been on stages kind of lecturing or talking about my musical philosophies you know and in my teaching seminars called Sky Academy but I've never really integrated into it into a show so it'll be interesting to see how that pans out but you know usually there's there's always a way I think it's it's a good idea and when it comes to it a way will open up and you know maybe on the first night it might not be so great but I'll tune in and I'll make it work somehow that's my job well if you need if you need moderators in Montreal me and Alan we'll lend our services and trust me it makes I've done moderations before it makes a difference when you have a moderator oh absolutely oh absolutely I was our application I wouldn't mind that at all because it takes a weight of my back you know I hate having to run the show like this I really want to concentrate on on the essence of it you know I'm not really an entertainer you know I've never been good at that or at least I don't see myself as an entertainer and the moderator can put a different spin on things you know so you're very welcome you know so but we haven't as far as I know we haven't booked Montreal yet although our agent is on it he's on on it regarding Canada because I originally he said no it's too far north and this and this and this and then I said no we got to do Canada you know and so now he's he's on it let's let's see what he comes up with yeah what were you gonna say I think you're amused Alan okay yeah it was just this book where I go down to the local bookstore am I gonna find in the spiritual section in the sorry oh you know I've got no idea because the because first of all all we have at the moment our test friends it's not yet on the market we will do our utmost to bring it to the market for for the tour you know in fact we have to somehow but it's not easy because you know I didn't I didn't actually plan on showing is it like a size of a family or something the book weighs two kilos no no it's 3.4 let me just get go get it go get it me and Allen stretch the time you know 600 euro shipping there you go nice love it beautiful love it it's huge and it's got all these musical diagrams with the colors of the notes it got it's got a layout which is in a thousand pictures all of which I've laid out myself you know and I've got an in design program and I wanted it to be a completely integrated experience basically not just a book about thought and philosophy and whatever I wanted it to be something that also tells a visual story and you can actually just leave through it look at the pictures and the pictures tell a story by themselves because they are completely interwoven with the text beautiful and I wrote it on my big monitor with the pictures and the book it was like one kind of seamless process and I don't know if anybody who did such a crazy thing so far maybe somebody did but it came out in such a way that I'm happy with it and it wasn't easy because there were at least three occasions where I tried to write it before and I did I wrote hundreds of pages but it was never quite happy with the actual how shall I say tone of it because a lot of it is delving deep into musical arcane kind of things like the metaphysics of music and to explain to somebody who doesn't play an instrument what an octave is or a fifth which for musician as bread and butter is not easy in words because words are very very limited you know once you hear the music it's easy you know you can hear it immediately translates into your heart and soul and your mind but to talk about it well I found that difficult and then eventually I think I found the way that it was happy with it was only possible because of covid so you know what you made a there you go it was only possible because of the lockdown because suddenly the tour stopped okay everybody said home called turkey and it was great for me because I haven't even been away from the road for such a for such an un-tarrupted time for many many years and I didn't realize but I had a little bit of burnout because I've just been traveling too much it was insane and so when I was at home you know at first I went why am I so tired I was kind and then I realized it was all coming out I needed time to recuperate then the next thing I know it's okay I gotta do something and then the book and you know also the lockdown I worked on that and you know and that was that when can people buy this well your guess is as good as mine we have to somehow produce it before the before the the tour and it's not easy and I'll tell you why not because if I go to a normal publisher nobody nowadays does books like that anymore it's a way to expensive if they print it like this just like this with a few numbers it costs like two or three hundred dollars a piece just to print you know so publishers would immediately say okay well you got to change this and this is not commercial enough and this and may hold by a different cover and I don't want any of that I well because when I'm doing an album nobody tells me oh you shouldn't have that song or I'll play that in a different key or so no I mean I'm the artist and I'm the guy yeah maybe my English isn't as good as as yours because I wasn't born with it but I wrote it in English and I'm sure it's good enough to bring this kind of message across and and and that's it you know so we are publishing it ourselves and it's it's basically it'll cost a fortune before the tour but we'll we'll somehow have to manage it yeah the plan is this several thousand in order to make it work really you know and then then if you say where can we buy it well it'll be online some of them will go to shops so the normal distribution channels you know and if you ask me which section it goes into I've got no problem I've got a trailer music yeah it's all of that you know it's it touches a lot of a lot of different subjects you'll be surprised when you're really because it's almost like a movie it develops and it goes into all sorts of things and get quite an arc to it so I wouldn't know where to put it you could put into almost anything and and get away with it you know which is great we will we will see now I think it is a kind of if the if you look at the essence of it it's it's all about you say is it maybe in the spiritual realm I would yes I say yes because it's it's all about finding yourself through the looking at the world through the eyes of music through harmony rhythm or lack of harmony the opposite or this harmony sounds very tried now but it isn't when you go deeper into this you know I because I tend to look at the world in musical terms and although that doesn't maybe make a lot of sense to people when they just when I just say it when I explain it you may get what I mean and I think this kind of this way of thinking can be quite helpful for other people music has really expanded my mind and my way of being and I think it has the power to even turn you into a better person if you want to become a better person and I always think that's something to really strive for because we've all had a long way to go and now respect you know is Monica do you talk about Monica in the book or just a little bit yes of course because Monica was very much a key to my for myself to find my myself my own way she was like a muse she was extremely inspiring person and I'm there are some sections I'm talking a lot about art also painters painting the connection between painting movie making and music of which there are many because the laws of composition are kind of the same for every medium if you break them down to the main points it's always a play of energy you know energy and where is the root note of something where is the central focus and how all the other elements connect to it yeah just like in a solar system where you have the sun and then you have all the planets around and they're all in different orbits this is very much like music to me Western music has always has a root note or at least normally has a root note and that root note is like the central element the center of gravity and all the other notes are spaced in different orbits around it and the further away they are and according to which ratio they they are related to the root note you have certain you have certain power structures it's like a journey from step to step and each of this these steps which are like musical notes like scared you know each of them has a different meaning and the beautiful thing is that this is all like pure mathematics but we as human beings have the amazing ability to translate that into emotion right away and we're kind of all feeling very much the same thing you know if you play a major chord to a little child a baby you might get a smile you know if you play a very dissonant chord you know you might might even get a you know something like this very sensitive to that and and we all call we can desensitize ourselves by constantly playing tritons you know like in super heavy metal or in or in Schoenberg's 12-term music but it's basically the same as if we're constantly eating overspiced food you know like in curry times 10 you know fresh but Vindaloo and then lots of it or Mexican whatever or Thai like burning Thai spice I I shy away from these extremes normally they are interesting but in music to me I tend to gravitate to two beautiful two beautiful harmonies melodies most of the time sometimes it's important it's also very it can be very powerful to bring some ugly elements into music particularly when you are depicting ugly things just like to like you know I've got one track which is you know you know I love about you you're the last purist you're the last purist musician on the planet you know your last guy I don't last no I think you are you know of this of this generation and there's nobody left now it's all just cracking in crank it out you know what do you mean with pure I don't know like you know you put art before anything else whereas others put everything else before everything else that I mean life and our life is more important you know like yeah like the health or so but you are right art for me is or true art what I would call true art now people can of course argue about what that is or what it isn't but to me it's got a very very high position and what I think is important and not just for myself I think it's important for for humankind because art is it's like if you can sit up mankind to be like a tree with which is blooming flowering and producing fruit then art is one of the finest pieces of fruit that we can bring forward and like if you have art which was produced by a genius like they don't know Michelangelo this is renewing itself in every generation this gentleman died like 500 years ago and still his is art moves people my daughter was just in Florence she's 24 so what did she go because she went to see Michelangelo's David like I did when I was 15 you know and these things are unforgettable if you and if you are able to receive the wavelengths of what you see and you understand or you feel the greatness of it not just the artistic achievement but what's really inside of it you know like I remember my dad brought me to St. Peter's and the big cathedral in Rome which is breathtaking and I was 15 years old and he showed me the Michelangelo stuff and then there was the pietà which is like the an amazingly beautiful rendition of the Madonna with the dead Christ she's holding it like a child and I will never forget the impact it had on me because it was like so strong that I could just feel the greatness isn't even the right word and it was much more in it you know it was almost like inspiration yeah he did that when he was 25 and he did it out of a block of marble you know think the book you know I mean I can paint pictures in oil but to do something like that in 3D with a block of marble in the chisel and make it look better than the original say you know no that is some some amazing achievement and yeah art over the centuries is like a story itself it's an extremely important part of mankind and if you take it away we are the poorer we get because it can elevate us it can make us it can help us to be more focused it can inspire us and all this if we let it and if we if we let that happen you know and then if some people say well they're just they're just artifacts and images you know and we have different problems yes we have different problems with global warming you know but is it a good idea to throw some tomato juice on it or so I don't think so no just to prove a point I mean I'm the first guy who would say who would say yeah let's do it let's I mean the the environment and all this is should be our major concern particularly nowadays but there are many ways you can express these things you know and I think art is exactly one of the things we shouldn't tamper with because there isn't even enough of it you know and I find that the generations the younger generations of today are they're very oblivious to a lot of these things because they I call it the iPhone generation they grew up with Snapchat and all this the piece of art is their own photo you know and hello look at me and which is a piece of art in a way but we're missing out by sidelining all these treasures from the past and saying oh this is just stuffy whatever we are the ones who are missing out if we don't cherish them and protect them and and really understand the the importance for for mankind as a carrier of inspiration and as also as a token of what we can do you know yes we are able to produce warfare and bloodshed in in Ukraine you know we can destroy entire continents with atom bombs but we can also do these things so it's not all bad just these things are extremely important as a counterbalance to all the other madness which is primitive and at a very low level of frequency mental frequency spiritual frequency great art is at a very high frequency like love um it doesn't get any higher than the frequency of love great pieces of art have so much love in them it's you know because these artists these great artists they were people who had that and they carried that that in a light and it ended up in say a Pieta by Michelangelo or in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony you know and uh and woolly woolly we're gonna have i can hear you i can listen to you talk like all day long but all day long you shouldn't have asked about the but i but but we do have to go and we'll do a part two on this we'll do a part to do great at the ted talk section of your performance you're gonna have their source player i can already see it you know i'll start in half an hour later somebody say yeah but what about the music and stuff like well you talked about the music you talked about it you know we're gonna do a part two we're gonna do a part two since yeah let's do a part two because normally i do interviews that are longer than half an hour because once i get into it you know you just get you're just getting warmed up i'm just getting warmed up guys you know we weren't sure about the time and we had to put in the pot so we're really hoping a Montreal date will be added to that tour we're anxious to see you yeah me too i'll i'll talk to the agent tonight and and i'll tell him we we need to do Montreal you know as long as it starts to come which it isn't that shouldn't be a problem no there is also a nice theater in Montreal which i remember i forgot what it was but we played there once and i i like that one willy don't worry this show goes out to everybody in north america and globally so we got you covered in regards to okay well now yeah now instead of the talk the spiritual stuff you know but you brought that out i didn't actually well i want to know we want to know these things we want to know these things you know it's interesting to me you know we'll do we'll do another one closer to the tour dates we can do another show yeah we can do another yeah really thanks so much i know i thank you thank you so much for your time all right talk to you you're welcome have the best good luck