SCORPIONS Singer KLAUS MEINE: 'The Band Was Built On Friendship And On Teamwork'

Mark Dean of Myglobalmind online magazine recently conducted an interview with SCORPIONS singer Klaus Meine. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Myglobalmind: The band are into their fiftieth year and indeed how no sign of quitting. Can you try to account for the enduring popularity of the SCORPIONS?

Klaus: Well, I guess it is the fact that we keep coming up with strong albums and the fact that the SCORPIONS have always been a very powerful live band. Whenever we got out there, we deliver the goods, I guess. The fact that the last couple of years we have a whole new audience of SCORPIONS fans, a whole new generation of rock fans in front of the stage. It is wonderful, you know, to see that our music has become timeless. Some of the big classics have attracted a whole new audience of rock fans out there, and to play them in front of three generations, it is fantastic and very motivating.

Myglobalmind: Looking back at your life what are you most proud of?

Klaus: I think that I am not proud of anything, really, you know. It's more that I feel really thankful that for all these years. It is a privilege that we still, as a German band, can play a global stage. The philosophy of friendship in this band really paid off, because friendship and teamwork was always a very important part of the SCORPIONS. It feels really good that after all these years that we are still out there, and that we still have a chance to even come back to the U.K. very soon.

Myglobalmind: After such a long career, do you still have dreams, hopes and ambitions?

Klaus: Of course. I mean, the thing is we never lost the passion for what we are doing. Even after all these years, there are still some places on the map, some parts around the world where we have never been. Even after celebrating our fiftieth anniversary, it looks like now that we will go to China for the very first time in early May. That is pretty cool, since we have never been there. It feels like we are excited like we were back in the seventies [laughs] playing for the very first time in Japan. There are still places around the world that we want to go, and, of course, we are still very ambitious about it.

Myglobalmind: Viewing the band's back catalogue, do you feel that the SCORPIONS have ever made a bad album?

Klaus: I think in the late nineties, which was a decade which was so much dominated by alternative and grunge music and all that music revolution that took place. For all the bands that had come from a successful career out of the eighties, and being classic rock bands, it was a time where you had to fight to survive as a classic rock band. I think that the second half of the nineties and towards the end of the nineties, where we recorded "Eye To Eye" was an album where we experimented a lot. It was not very well received by our fans, but maybe it was the best mistake that we ever did. We found out how important it is to go back to the SCORPIONS DNA. A few years later, when we came back with "Unbreakable", I think we were right on track. Classic and hard rock came back in a big way.

Myglobalmind: What would you say is the secret of success?

Klaus: The secret of success… Like this band, when we started as young kids in Germany, we were always looking for the right chemistry as a band. As you know, we had Rudi's [Schenker, guitar] brother Michael in the band; Michael Schenker started playing with us. Then he went to UFO in England, and we had Uli Jon Roth, who joined the band throughout the seventies. We did "Tokyo Tapes" always with great guitar players. It was always a guitar-driven band, a hard rock band. Of course, we were always able to show the full spectrum of all the emotions. Of course, we became very strong writing super ballads as well. I think one of the reasons for the longevity is partly because the chemistry was always strong; the band was built on friendship and on teamwork. Like on our new single says, "we built this house on a rock."

Read the entire interview at Myglobalmind.