A storm is brewing, Herman Rarebell remains calm. Less because he is known as the drummer and author of the world hit “Rock You Like A Hurricane” by the scorpion can be described as a hurricane whisperer. It’s more because, as a rock star who has been traveling the world for 50 years, he is warmly welcomed everywhere and therefore believes in the good in people. Even in Russia. Especially in Russia. Even if the heaviest artillery is positioned there on the border with Ukraine and threatens to ignite a firestorm. “People always talk about the bad Russians, but I can only judge the country positively. I got to know warm-hearted people there who are never insidious. I don’t think anyone wants war there,” says Rarebell in an interview in Munich, not far from his tranquil residence Planegg.
Now one does not have to share Rarebell’s view that Ukraine could have provoked the peace-loving neighbors into this defensive reaction (“They put rockets on their doorstep!”) by rattling their sabers. And it is objected that a power-hungry Russian president alone could well be enough to plunge two countries, indeed the whole world, into war. But Rarebell, unlike most, has had its own experiences in Russia, over and over again for 34 years, with fans, musicians, officials, politicians, presidents: “And we in the West are not always right.”
The 72-year-old was just in St. Petersburg. The “2nd Dresden Opera Ball” took place in the Catherine Palace (a town friendship dating back to the times of Catherine the Great from Silesia), and the drummer, as a great guest of honour, played some of the Scorpions’ greatest hits, which were played in Russia (and in Latin America, the USA and Japan) are even bigger stars than Modern Talking. Rarebell still felt that, even though he left Germany’s hard rock export hit in 1996, outside in the cold on the stage in front of the ballroom: “It felt really good to be there again.”
Herman Rarebell learned from Helge Schneider to “let the pig out once in a while”.
(Photo: Piosenka Plus Records)
“Back in the USSR” wanders his memories. The Scorpions in 1988 as one of the first western bands behind the Iron Curtain; the hair he put on the suitcase in the hotel, whose disappearance in the evening told of a “fine” investigation by the secret service; ten concerts in a row in Leningrad, every night in front of 20,000 fans; then a year later the invitation behind the walls of the Kremlin, where they first talked for three hours with Fan Gorbachev, who answered his question “What is Heavy Metal?” himself answered: “When Khrushchev took off his shoe at the United Nations and pounded on the table with it – that’s heavy metal!” And then at the concert in the Kremlin, the 800 soldiers who enthusiastically threw their caps in the air: “It was clear to me that they are also obsessed with rock ‘n’ roll, they also want to belong to the big rock world community.”
The “wind of change” was blowing. The singer Klaus Meine set it to music after they walked through Gorki Park and ate hamburgers in Moscow’s first McDonald’s. Rarebell advised him to leave the whistled intro in – “that was my contribution”. The song was too hit for most of the band, only Rarebell, who always liked to go hard, following his example from John Bonham Led Zeppelin stood, said: “It’s going to be a worldwide hit. And that’s the only thing that counts.” It was the peak of the band, also the turning point, Rarebell got out in 1996: “At the right time, I lived through the golden twenty years, after that nothing great came from the Scorpions,” he teases.
The Scorpions never let him go
The drummer fell softly, into a bed of copyrights to the numerous co-written tracks and into a web of old and new rocker buddies: With Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones he founded the project “Art Meets Rock”, a kind of live painted musical; with drummer friends Pete York and Charly Antolini, later with his idol Ginger Baker from Cream he played as “drum legends” in big halls; his debut Rock Wolves he gave in 2016 at the age of 66; there’s a hippie-esque alternative rock band going on right now, aside from some solo stuff called seeing trees; and in between he had the Monaco Records label with Prince Albert, who set him up with Claudia Raab at a charity ball. He not only makes the children’s book series “Schnatter und Lieschen” with the saxophonist, he also married her and lives with her in Planegg – when he isn’t drawn to rocking out in Brighton, where “Herman Ze German” is not far from Pink Floyds David Gilmour has a place to stay.
The rock aura from Hanover is still there
But the Scorpions never let him go. With other ex-members like Michael Schenker and Francis Buchholz he played as Temple of Rock to sold out houses in Japan. The rock aura from Hanover is still spreading around the world. Together with his Polish tour promoter Toby Thalhammer, Rarebell has therefore created a new album and tour format: “Scorpions Songs Symphonic”. They rearranged the hits for a big “Hurricane Orchestra” made up of talented Czech conservatory graduates, young rockers like Munich guitarists Christos Efstathiuo and Fabian Nafziger, and Rarebell as the drumming emcee, who works with the music clown Helge Schneider (for whom Pete York drums). have learned “to show no consideration” and “to let the pig out once in a while”. They play the hits Rarebell co-wrote like “Make it Real” or “Don’t Stop At the Top” as well as his favorites “Passion Rules The Game”, “Falling In Love” and “You Give Me All”. I Need,” which the Scorpions never played live but are worth playing, Rarebell finds.
Getting the performance rights for “Wind Of Change” was surprisingly easy. Rudolf Schenker wrote to him that he thinks what he is doing is great, says Rarebell. That’s a surprise, because after a few guest appearances with his ex-band, there has been a bit of radio silence lately. After the departure of subsequent drummer James Kottak in 2016, he offered his services because the Ü70 band with the original line-up “could fill the biggest stadiums again”. But Messrs Meine, Schenker and Jabs are now going on a big tour with Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee and their new album “Rock Believer” (on June 10th in Munich’s Olympiahalle). They never responded to Rarebell’s request, who called them “greedy” and “arrogant” at the time. Today he puts it a little more peacefully: “If you tell the world for 20 years that your best friends are going out to conquer the world, which is what we did, and then they don’t even call you back, then everyone can wonder if that’s the case Friends are.”
Scorpion’s Songs Symphonic, Monday, Feb. 28, Augsburg Kongress am Park, Tuesday, March 1, Fürth Stadthalle