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ULI JON ROTH To Celebrate 50th Anniversary Of SCORPIONS' 'Virgin Killer' Album At 2026 WACKEN OPEN AIR Festival
"Virgin Killer" is the first of four studio releases that really defined the SCORPIONS and their highly influential urgent metallic sound. It was released in 1976 and was the first album of the band to attract attention outside Europe. The album was a step in the band's shift from psychedelic music to hard rock. For the first time in the band's career, the lineup stayed the same with Klaus Meine on vocals, Uli Jon Roth on lead guitar, Rudolf Schenker on rhythm guitar, Francis Buchholz on bass and Rudy Lenners on drums. The nine tracks were laid down with Dieter Dierks producing.
"Virgin Killer" is full of heavy songs and exceptionally, fast, innovative guitar leads by Roth. These songs are infectious and the Jimi Hendrix comparisons are endless, especially the sound of the thunder-heavy riffs and grooves on Uli's "Polar Nights" guitar solo that make it a classic.
"Virgin Killer" should have made the band superstars, but since metal was still very much an underground movement, the SCORPIONS would have to wait until the 1980s when the band cranked out their first hits. The metal is so clear cut and state of the art on this historic recording and distinctly draws the line of what was classic hard rock and true heavy metal.
"Virgin Killer" is simply essential listening; a landmark album for the genre's development that made Roth a guitar legend.
In a 2006 interview with Classic Rock Revisited, Roth was asked whose idea it was to have the original "Virgin Killer" album depict a nude, provocatively posed young girl. He said: "Looking at that picture today makes me cringe. It was done in the worst possible taste. Back then I was too immature to see that. Shame on me — I should have done everything in my power to stop it. The record company came up with the idea, I think. The lyrics incidentally were a take-off on KISS, whom we had just supported on a tour. I was fooling around and played the riff of the song in the rehearsal room and spontaneously improvised ''cause he's a virgin killer', trying to do a more or less way-off-the-mark Paul Stanley impersonation. Klaus [immediately said, 'That's great. You should do something with it.' Then I had the unenviable task of constructing a meaningful set of lyrics around the title, which I actually managed to do, to some degree. But the song has a totally different meaning from what people would assume at first. 'Virgin Killer' is none other than the demon of our time, the less compassionate side of the societies we live in today — brutally trampling upon the heart and soul of innocence. I can't blame Tipper Gore [who co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) in 1985 with the goal of increasing parental control over children's access to music with explicit lyrics] for brandishing the cover on TV as offensive, though. She was completely right in doing so, and she's a good person anyway, although she probably didn't make the effort to check out the lyrics, which put a different slant on the whole thing. I can't blame her for that either, because knowing what I know today, I would have possibly reacted in a similar vein."
In recent years, Roth has revisited the early music of his period with the SCORPIONS, which resulted in the "Scorpions Revisited" double CD and "Tokyo Tapes Revisited" DVD/Blu-ray releases.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest guitar players ever, Uli pioneered a unique style of guitar playing which — for the first time — combined complete mastery of the instrument with an intensely melodic and emotional appeal.
From his earliest days onwards, Uli has always been a bold and uncompromising musical innovator of the first order. Being the first guitar player in rock to incorporate complex melodic arpeggio sequences, Uli Jon Roth — in the eyes of many of his peers — practically reinvented modern guitar technique almost singlehandedly during his SCORPIONS tenure, but even more so during his ELECTRIC SUN days.
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