SCORPIONS Guitarist Discusses His Autobiography

February 26, 2010

Switzerland's Courvoisier Concert conducted an interview with guitarist Rudolf Schenker of German hard rock veterans SCORPIONS on October 26, 2009. The chat, which focuses primarily on Schenker's recently released official German-language autobiography, "Rock Your Life", can be viewed below.

Audio samples of all the tracks that appear on "Sting In The Tail", the final studio album from SCORPIONS, are available for streaming at Amazon.de. Due in Europe on March 19 and in North America on March 23 via Universal Music Enterprises, the CD was recorded at a studio in Hannover, Germany with Swedish producers Mikael "Nord" Andersson and Martin Hansen (the team behind THE RASMUS' "Dead Letters" CD).

After the release of the album and a three-year mammoth tour, which will take the SCORPIONS across five continents, the band will end its career. The group broke the news on its web site last month.

Schenker told Billboard.com that the prospect of ending SCORPIONS is indeed "really sad, and I don't even want to think about it." But he explained that the band and its management ultimately feel it's the right move to end the band on a high note with its new album, "Sting in the Tail", rather than risk a slow decline.

"You can't think about SCORPIONS at 70, not moving on stage, playing 'Rock You Like a Hurricane' — but on stage it's not like a hurricane, it's a very small wind," he said. "There's no stinger, and that's not good. You're going back down hill, from big hall to small how, small how to club...Everything has it's end; the question is it a good end or bad end? In this case we want to do these things and make it a good end."

Regarding the SCORPIONS members' future plans, Schenker said that guitarist Matthias Jabs has a musical instruments store in Munich, while drummer James Kottak has his own band, KOTTAK. Rudolf himself intends to publish his book, "Rock You Live", in the U.S. and plans a collaboration with his brother a Michael Schenker — which may include SCORPIONS singer Klaus Meine on some songs.

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