Scorpions - where was this hiding?

[hieronymous]

Growing up in Tokyo, Scorpions records were always around. Love at First Sting was the first one I got, it was high school, didn't actually listen to it much until later, I actually like a few of the songs - same with Blackout which I didn't own until much later. But In Trance and Virgin Killer (nobody's mentioned that one yet, eh?) that blew my mind. I absolutely love Uli Jon Roth's playing on those albums. Both he and Ritchie Blackmore were influenced by Hendrix and classical music, but Roth just took it somewhere else. Here's a nice analysis of his playing. I never saw them live. And it's kind of embarrassing owning the versions with the original covers (which I have to admit I hunted down while back in Japan a few years ago    ).

Uwe, question for you - does Klaus Meine really not speak English? I remember a girlfriend telling me that he couldn't speak English and learned the lyrics phonetically and I just didn't believe it - he's not American after all, very likely to be able to speak more than one language - but I have no idea what the truth is.

Oh, and one of my favorite things about them is that they are "Scorpions" - not "The Scorpions"

[gweimer]

When I was writing for The Illinois Entertainer, I had the chance to interview Scorps.  This was when they were big in the '80s.  My editor told me it would be Herman Rarebell that would do the interview, since he was the one in the band who spoke English fairly well.  Klaus Meine didn't do interviews in the USA because he didn't speak English, and that came from the band's management.
The night I saw Scorpions, I knew some of the security team.  I gave a backstage pass to a friend who was overwhelmed with being there so he could meet the band. I never met them, and the interview never happened.

[uwe]

Klaus Meine left school after 10th grade - as did Rudolf Schenker. They were kids when they started playing together in the sixties. Both of them did not go through the 13 year type of school that focuses much on foreign language in the last three years. In the early Scorpions (btw: in their sixties beat band days they still called themselves "The Scorpions",


pre-Klaus Meine (The) Scorpions in 1965 (though frankly this pic looks a little later to me, I don't remember flares in Germany as early as 1965), Rudolf on the right, no doubt getting ready to rock ze wörld like a hurricane, but still sans trademark Flying V ...  

to add further confusion, there was also another German sixties beat band called "The Scorpions" that even recorded but had nothing to do with the Meine/Schenker outfit), the people who came from Uli Roth's Dawn probably had that background (Francis Buchholz had I know for a fact) and the drummer on Fly to the Rainbow would later on write the lyrics for German proggies Eloy, which were stilted but at least mostly in proper English.

I'm sure that Klaus Meine's English has improved over the years, but judging from interviews in English I've heard in recent years it is still only ok on a superfical level, not much vocabulary, no nuances. Mind you, he is no intellectual when he speaks German either though I like the guy. He is still wide-eyed about being an international rock star, but not full of it. Jabs' English is much better, but then again he went to school for 13 years and even studied law at one point (in his Lady days). Meine is just not very good lyrically, in either German or English (which explains why the Scorps never recorded an album in their own language which would have most likely done well), he's had outside help on many albums, inter alia from the Bryan Adams lyricist. A lot of the Scorpions lyrics sound so inane and little tongue in cheek because they have a hard time expressing themselves in English. Given that the Scorps are held in high esteem in metal circles, I always wondered why they didn't ask singers/lyricists of other bands to write a lyric for them. I'm sure someone like Rob Halford or Paul Stanley would have been chuffed to do that. Of course, their ex-Kingdom Come yank drummer can prevent the worst excesses nowadays.

Uli Roth was an artist and a great inspiration to, say, Malmsteen and Impelliteri. You mentioned the one who may not be named in every thread, there are similarities and they have a common background to. And if you like Blackmore's playing you probably like Roth's and vice versa. They both have that lyrical style. Ever since Roth plays those weird "how-many-octaves-can-you-get-on-a single-fretboard" own design guitars, his playing has become a bit too mannered for my taste, I liked the way he sounded on a Strat or a Firebird. Live with the Scorps he mostly played with his eyes closed not moving much (but not quite as introvert as his predecessor Michael Schenker), but looking good and suitably otherworldly with his fake feline fur bolero jacket he mostly wore, when he played, you couldn't help but watch him no matter what gyrations Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker made.

Virgin Killer was a great album too, the production more in your face than In Trance (which again was a major step from Fly to the Rainbow in terms of production), I saw them on that tour for the first time when they were playing a former sports gymnasium in Darmstadt before a few hundred people. Other than the Grabber Francis Buchholz played at the time,




Roth's solos and stage presence stick in my mind the most. He was different to them all and no German rock lead guitarist could touch him at that time, I'd say he was even a tad more skillful than Michael Schenker. Or maybe his Hendrixy style appealed to me more. He's a mild-mannered modest man (and has meanwhile mastered the English language after living in England until the death of his wife for many years) sporting the most unusual friends ... or did you think Billy Corgan playing Robot Man with Uli very likely, unplugged at 6.15 and live with the Pumpkins at 7.45 with another Hannoveraner and his Flying V to the left?  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FQhMxJ2pm0&feature=relmfu

If Billy Corgan sings them, the lyrics to Robot Man must be deep poetry, LOL, I always thought they sang "grave communication"!

Crave communication
See me this is my life in the crazy robot man reservation
Do you feel him, the cold vibration
Comes from everywhere, produce a crazy science fiction creation

And I say oooh, oooh
I'm a robot man
And I say oooh, oooh
I'm a loser
I say oooh, oooh
I'm a robot man
Well, that's my mind
That's my life
That's my soul

Babe, it's a magic station
Where we live what we do with our magic from my generation
I say babe, it's not a vision
It's reality, this is a robot scene what we live in.

And I say oooh, oooh
I'm a robot man
And I say oooh, oooh
I'm a loser
I say oooh, oooh
I'm a robot man
That's my mind
That's my life
That's my soul

And I say oooh, oooh
I'm a robot man
And I say oooh, oooh
I'm a loser

I say oooh, oooh
I'm a robot man
And I say oooh, oooh
I'm a loser

...

As if one coudn't write good (albeit escapist rubbish) lyrics to the robot/machine revolution/Iron Man sci fi theme (though I take it that Klaus wasn't so much singing about robots as such as about human life becoming robotic; avoiding the grind of a 9 to 5 life is a regular theme with him, see also "Catch your train")!  



We've taken too much for granted
And all the time it had grown
From techno seeds we first planted
Evolved a mind of its own

Marching in the streets
Dragging iron feet
Laser beaming hearts
Ripping men apart

From what had been our perfection
Where we could do as we please
In secrecy this infection
Was spreading like a disease

Hiding underground
Knowing we'd be found
Fearing for our lives
Reaped by robots' scythes

Metal gods
Metal gods


Metal gods
Metal gods

Machines are taking all over
With mankind in their command
In time they'd learn to discover
How they can make their demand

Better be the slaves
To their wicked ways
Than meeting with our death
Engulfed in molten breath

If you are gonna do Marvel Comic lyrics, mortal, then do them properly, wretched one!  

[gearHed289]

Oh, and one of my favorite things about them is that they are "Scorpions" - not "The Scorpions"

Ha ha! That was a big deal with the older dudes that introduced me to them. To this day, I never put "the" in front of "Scorpions". 

Billingsgate Records - Yeah! Chicago was a good town for those guys early on.