The history of ZENO began to take shape in the early seventies when Zeno Roth and Ule W. Ritgen formed their first band (BLACK ANGEL) in Hannover. Strongly influenced by classic rock bands like Cream, Yes and Jimi Hendrix, both musicians played together for some years while attending university.
When this band had broken up in 1977, Ule Ritgen played bass in the band of Zeno's brother, Uli Jon Roth, appearing on three ELECTRIC SUN albums.
By 1980, Zeno Roth and Ule Ritgen were again working together, heading in a new direction. Zeno recalls: " The music became more melodic, with stronger vocal parts than anything we had done before. Instead of just two guitars, we added keyboard parts and background harmonies. It started to sound like what we were striving for."
The complete line-up of ZENO was formed when Michael Flexig joined as a lead singer.
On the basis of superb demo tracks, ZENO were awarded one of the largest recording contracts for a new band in rock history.
The origin of the name "Zeno" stems from a Greek philosopher, " Zeno Of Citium (Cyprus)" who founded the philosophy called Stoicism. Zeno (Zenon)'s philosophical system included logic and theory of knowledge, physics, and ethics--the latter being central. He held that happiness lays in living in accordance with the laws of Nature and Divine Reason, which governs the universe.
A deep thinker, Zeno Roth, as a successor of such a Greek philosophical mind, is gifted with writing as well as making music.
After the first album 'Zeno' had been released in 1986 he went more into the writing field, as the music business at that time was not very advantageous to melodious rock.
However, the door to his music was knocked open anew by the Japanese listeners who loved "Eastern Sun" from the re-released album 'Zeno' in 1993.
It is fitting that the East, the country of the "Rising Sun" should be directly responsible for rekindling Zeno's desire to continue creating his music.
As a next step, 'Zenology' was delivered in 1995, with songs that had been composed in the non-active period of the band ZENO.
Although those songs were not newly composed, some of them hit many people with the everlasting touch of ZENO's powerful melody. (Like "TOGETHER")
In 1998, the third album 'Listen To The Light' was released. It gained a high reputation with its melodious lyricism, containing many positive messages, spiritual, social and political, concepts for the future and his amazing guitar playing.
Saw Uli at Wolverhampton with the Scorpions on Sunday, any chance of seeing you play the UK soon? It would be great to see you play live in England again.
