“After a while, everything comes back with a twist” — Rudolf Schenker leans into the iconic band’s legacy status
By Gregory Adams
HAD SCORPIONS NOT become one of hard rock’s most enduring global forces, guitarist Rudolf Schenker would have taken himself down a much different, yet nevertheless high-voltage career path. “My mother wanted me to have a real job, as a power electrician,” the Hanover, Germany-born rhythm guitarist recalls with a laugh. Schenker adds that his mom just wanted him to have a more grounded backup plan in case Scorpions, the group he began in 1965 when he was still a teenager, didn’t pan out. Though Schenker did manage to find work as a tradesman for a few years, a heart-to-heart with his dad ultimately convinced the guitarist to follow his dreams and focus on music full time.
Nearly 60 years later — racking up countless world tours and millions of album sales along the way — there’s no question Schenker made the right choice. In an abstract sense, though, you could argue the famously Flying V-toting guitarist has been working as an electrician all this time.
Fittingly enough, Schenker’s affably getting into all things Scorpions over Zoom while sitting beneath a coterie of V’s hanging in his living room — from see-through, cherry red acrylic beauties, to his iconic, black-and-white signature Gibson. He reveals that he spent the early months of the pandemic at home adding anecdotes to the recent, German-language reprint of his 2009 autobiography, Rock Your Life. The past couple of years also found him and the rest of Scorpions — longtime lead guitarist Mathias Jabs, vocalist Klaus Meine, bassist Pawel Mąciwoda and drummer Mikkey Dee — hunkering down in Hannover’s Peppermint Park studio to record their 19th full-length, Rock Believer, adding 11 Marshallcranking anthems to add to group’s crunchy canon. Both projects act as testaments to Scorpions’ impressive multi-decade run. While the book finds Schenker waxing nostalgic on band history and mega-hits like “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and “Winds of Change,” Meine’s lyrics throughout Rock Believer coyly hint at the massive, stinger-sized imprint they’ve all left on each other.
It’s been seven years since the act delivered their Return to Forever, making this the longest wait between Scorpions albums yet. More often than not, it’s been rhythm riffer Schenker that got the ball rolling on new material, but this time around Meine kick-started the creat
