New Scorpions CD Appeals To ‘Humanity’

TORONTO (TNA) – Old dogs may not learn new tricks, but old Scorpions can.

That’s how members of the legendary heavy metal band feel.

Scorpions guitarist Rudolph Schenker and lead singer Klause Meine are celebrating 35 years of headbanging.

The group is celebrating its 35th anniversary with a new album, “Humanity – Hour 1,” that guitarist Rudolf Schenker feels marks a high point for the band.

“We’re really forcing ourselves to grow,” Schenker said. “You need new communications and new possibilities.”

For Schenker and singer Klaus Meine, that meant seeking out a new producer, Desmond Child, to bring out a new side to the band.

Schenker said Child, who has worked with artists such as Bon Jovi, Ricky Martin and Michael Bolton, had the chops to force the band to embrace the future, as well as its past.

“He’s an excellent songwriter,” Schenker said. “And he had a vision of what the Scorpions could sound like.”

For Schenker, it was critical that the band felt it could learn something, and that’s what drew them to Child.

“It’s important to keep learning, even though we’ve been around for 35 years,” he said. “Besides, laying around on beaches is boring.”

But while Child’s job was to make the Scorpions sound new, that also meant embracing the band’s core sound, which Schenker admits had gotten lost during the previous decade.

“The 1990s were not the best time for classic rock,” Schenker lamented. “It was either grunge or classic rock. We were trying to find a way through it. At some point, friends told us, ‘We know you can do [the modern-sounding music], but the fans want albums like ‘Blackout,’” the 1982 hit record that featured their first big stateside single, “No One Like You.”

However, Child was most influential in pushing Meine to new lyrical heights, and Schenker is pleased with the results.

“Some of the songs are about the rain forest,” Schenker said. “We are only here [on this planet] for a short while. We need to take care of the Earth. It’s like you can’t go to a restaurant and destroy all the plates.”

Although Schenker is concerned with the environment, he is no longer affected by natural disasters, despite the fact one of the Scorpions’ biggest hits remains “Rock You Like A Hurricane.”

Schenker admits he used to worry about whether performing the song in areas affected by hurricanes was in bad taste – but no more.

“We did think about that a few times,” Schenker said. “But we’re not a symbol and an artist has a different way of saying things. ‘Bloody Sunday’ was a tragic event [in Ireland], but the U2 song ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ became an anthem of what can happen if you don’t take care.”

As an elder statesman of heavy metal, Schenker believes it’s important to relate to the next generation, whether it’s singing about the environment or just being there for them.

“A lot of young kids in our native land of Germany are finding the Scorpions because they’re getting screwed by new music and want to have more feeling,” he said.