4. Uli Jon Roth
“I grew up with Scorpions and my era was with Mathias Jabs on lead guitar. On a nostalgic level, he’s almost a tie with Uli, though Uli is probably the better and more interesting out of the two. After hearing Mathias, I kinda backtracked and bought Virgin Killer. It felt so loud, almost like death metal to my ears.
“Uli is a great rhythm player too, he wears his inspiration on his sleeve and it’s mainly Jimi Hendrix. Obviously he gets a lot of credit for his solos and rightfully so, they’re all fuckin’ fantastic. They’re still putting out good records. I’ve seen Uli live a couple of times, he’s always so loud. I think he should throw away his Sky guitar and get his Stratocaster back. It sounds too high-endy and sharp for my tastes, though I get that he wants to maintain his trademark single-coil sound.
“I wanted to be Mathias Jabs as a kid. He definitely loves guitars… I believe he has a shop. I had a chance to meet him at MusikMesse in Frankfurt a while ago, he was stood right next to me. But I couldn’t do it… it was too much. They once invited us over to meet the whole band once, but I said no because I knew I wouldn’t be able to deal with it. That’s how much of an influence he was. Mathias is very underrated, but he can sure play that Explorer.”
![Justin Hawkins [left] of the Darkness plays an open G on his offset electric and closes his eyes as he performs onstage; soul-reggae icon Johnny Nash [right] frets a chord on his acoustic and wears a patched denim jacket.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/hWzCjD9ZWQiPPjMtTWiFfa-840-80.jpg.webp)
“It was probably the first time I’d ever sort of listened to one and gone, ‘What is that? I want to learn how to do that!’”: How a soul and reggae legend introduced the Darkness' Justin Hawkins to diminished chords
“When I got the call to record with Michael, I was thinking, oh, there’s going to be an entourage, and the monkey’s going to be jumping around…”: How guitarist Steve Stevens recorded Dirty Diana with Michael Jackson
