Klaus Meine recently sat down with ‘Monsters, Madness and Magic’ and recalled the time Scorpions lost their first guitar player, Michael Schenker, to UFO. The rocker shared the story of how the British band stole their guitar player. He explained:
“We played together for quite a while with Scorpions. We recorded our first album with the Scorpions ‘Lonesome Crow,’ but after that, we had a tour in Germany with the British band UFO. They lost their guitar player because of customs passport reasons. They hired Michael [Schenker] right away.”
The frontman added that UFO hired Michael right away after seeing what he could do on stage. Klaus continued:
“So he played with us being the opening band, and then he played with the main act with UFO. It was so cool, and they realized how good this German kid was and hired him right away. So that’s how we lost our first brilliant guitar player.”
For fans who might not know, ‘Lonesome Crow’ was later re-released with a sticker that read – ‘Featuring: Michael Schenker of UFO.’ This little touch to the re-released album showed that Michael’s success with UFO had benefited the Scorpions.
Meine went on to explain how they decided to hire Uli Jon Roth as their next guitarist. He added:
“Then we started all over again with Uli Jon Roth. Michael actually had recommended Uli, and he also became one of those guitar legends. So we were very lucky.”
The singer also shared how they recorded their second album with a new band. Klaus said:
“We went into the studio around 73, 74 for ‘Fly To The Rainbow,’ which was the second album. It was a whole new band together with Uli, Francis [Buchholz], and the drummer changed, you know, almost every other month, so we were in trouble.”
You can watch Klaus Meine’s interview with ‘Monsters, Madness and Magic’ below.
