Almost exactly 13 years ago they announced scorpion her farewell to the stage at a press conference in the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. “We’re turning into the home straight,” said Klaus Meine at the time of the last world tour. On this last round, Germany’s most successful rock band (the Vor-Rammstein-era) so much fun that they followed up tour after tour and two albums. The fact that their record company Sony is now releasing twelve of their classic LPs freshly mixed and pressed as colored vinyl indicates a demand that was also acutely boosted by the Eighties boom rather than a siding. Shortly before leaving for the start of another world tour in South America, 74-year-old Meine is again very thirsty for action.
SZ: When you talk to Rudolf Schenker on the phone, he advises you to meditate, Matthias Jabs shows you how to sit in a way that is easy on the joints. Do you also have a tip?
Klaus Meine: Just relax. Always try to speak from the heart.
Are there exciting topics on the upcoming South American tour? Last year you didn’t get into Peru; Traveling in Latin America always brings with it a few security issues.
We play some shows headlining alone, but we’re also part of the “Monsters Of Rock” tour together with kiss and Deep Purple. In any case, as a Very Special Guest you are not in the front row and can take it easy. Manaus is perhaps critical. Playing in the Amazon is always something that makes you think of yellow fever vaccination and malaria.
Then what draws you there?
The whole area is fascinating, and Manaus, this metropolis in the jungle where the Rio Negro and the Amazon meet, to experience that and to follow in the footsteps of Klaus Kinski and Fitzcarraldo in the opera house, that is a cultural history. If you can believe our Brazilian fan club, after the tour we played 50 shows in Brazil alone.
At the last “Rock in Rio” they were voted the best band of the festival ahead of “Iron Maiden” and other greats. Proud?
Of course that’s cool. “Rock in Rio” was a milestone for rock fans on the South American continent in 1985. When you play with them again after so many years Bon Jovi and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and ends up being voted best band by Globo TV viewers, it’s very surprising and flattering.
Klaus Meine 2019 at the “Rock in Rio” festival in Rio de Janeiro.
(Photo: Leo Correa/AP)
You’ve also received bizarre honors. Now a researcher has named a new species of spider Extraordinarius Klausmeinei.
This scientist has a thing for spiders. She recently wrote to me that she had now found the partner spider, i.e. the female counterpart to my spider man Klaus. I don’t have arachnophobia, but well, that’s a bit weird… I invited her to meet up in Sao Paolo.
Isn’t it silly that a rock band is always associated with such nasty creatures, shouldn’t they even name a fluffy rabbit after you?
Rabbit would be more of a cuddly skirt, because the spider fits better.
How did you become so well known internationally?
We earned the status of belonging to the international rock family when we performed at countless concerts in the early eighties. With the album “Blackout” we could really take off. We rocked the arenas in the USA as headliners, but also at festivals like in the San Bernardino Valley in front of 250,000, 300,000 fans.
Exchange ideas with Till Lindemann – like between the most internationally successful bands from Germany?
Till and I have known each other for a long time. Also about joint ventures like the support for the Nordoff/Robbins music therapy. See you in Sao Paolo for a drink at Manifesto, a totally cool rock bar. On the last tour in the US, a few Rammsteiners came to us and we went to theirs in New York.
Is there a drawer that contains a German-language Scorpions album?
No. At the end of the nineties I only wrote a German-language text that said: “You are so dirty (yet so beautiful)”. It was fun presenting a German song to our US record company. He was immediately thrown in the bin. We just hit a nerve with English-language hits in the USA, like “No One Like You” or “Hurricane”. Also in the USA, by the way, where it started in 1978. We were influenced by English language guitar music and did what we felt about music. Like all. The only one who turned it around and worked with German texts was Udo Lindenberg.
You still live near Hanover. Didn’t you ever want to move out into the wide world?
The wide world has enticed us once or twice. But that was at a time, in the 1980s, when family planning was on the agenda and we decided that we didn’t want our children to grow up in a ghetto in LA, but in Lower Saxony. Looking back, that was good: we’re already cosmopolitans, we like to travel, but we like to come back home to recharge our batteries with friends and family. In the crazy Rock’n’Roll life it feels good to have an anchorage where you can feel your roots. And the airport is not that far away.
Stylish through the eighties: The “Scorpions” live the combination of hard and soft to this day.
(Photo: Didi Zill)
Isn’t traveling getting too tiring for you?
It’s still fun after all these years. In March 2022 we had a residency with ten shows in Las Vegas for the second time. You can understand why so many artists think it’s cool: you stay in one place, the casinos pamper you, you have the biggest billboards on the Strip, and fans come to you from all over the world.
Her current album is called “Rock Believer”. Rock comes in so many forms to us. Which skirt do you believe in?
I believe in rock as such. And I believe that we’ve written some strong songs over the years. And on the new album you can see that we haven’t forgotten that. Classic rock is perceived anew by every generation. We see the boys partying on stage with their friends who may have heard Rock You Like A Hurricane for the first time while watching Stranger Things on Netflix. Even if hip-hop is mega popular, you can tell that rock is not dead, but very much alive.
They have also rediscovered classic rock for themselves, especially with the last two albums. In between there were some experiments due to the zeitgeist, sometimes a bit krautrock, sometimes a bit electronic. In retrospect, do you see that as a mistake?
Haha, yes, wrong ways, you could say that. In the nineties they were nirvana started this world to put an end to classic rock. That really cost a lot of bands their existence. For a while we also tried to find our audience and ourselves. We actually got to a point where we didn’t know where we were going. Then there was an album with the Berlin Philharmonic, an unplugged story. It wasn’t an easy time, but the chemistry in the band was always very strong and we believed in coming back.
Which do you prefer: the hard guitar plank or the rock ballad?
Both is important. I’m not Engelbert Humperdinck. We’ve written a lot of successful ballads, but we’ve also written a lot of successful rockers. Both belong together, that’s the only way a concert works that you hit the fans directly in the heart.
What does the attitude of the rock mean to you? Is she still rebellious, or is that a romanticizing notion?
The rebellious department has long been closed. But you only have to look at Wacken, or at Hell Fest in France, or at Hell and Heaven in Mexico, you can see the strong international cohesion of the Hard’n’Heavy community. That’s the strength of rock music.
Are the Russians out of the international rock community now? “Wind of Change” is now sung with de-Russified lyrics.
“Wind of Change” was a promise of peace between East and West. That broke on February 24, 2022. When we went through the set list in Vegas last March, we asked ourselves: What are we going to do with “Wind of Change”? The song is connected to the historical moment. My feeling was: “I follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park” has a bitter aftertaste. It’s just not the time to present Russia with such romanticizing lines around the world. That’s why I thought, how can I express that. It was then very easy to let my heart speak: “Now listen to my heart, It says Ukrainia, Waiting for the wind to change.”
They have more fans in Russia than almost any other western band, and many experiences with the people there. What do you think went wrong there?
well I’m not a politician. I can only say how we experienced the fans through the musician’s glasses, not only in Russia, but also in Belarus, Ukraine, all the Eastern Bloc countries: this peace anthem was also sung very loudly there over the years. That touched us very much. Even where there are already endless conflicts, like in Lebanon or in Tel Aviv, we felt how much the music brings the different political currents together. That’s why one hopes that music will make a small contribution to a peaceful world. We only wish that this terrible war will end soon.
Are you still in contact with the Russian fan clubs, so do you have a foot in the door?
No, there isn’t. The organizers are the first point of reference. At the beginning of 2022, concerts in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus were already on our schedule. Of course that couldn’t happen. After what is happening in Ukraine and horrifying us every day, it is inconceivable to play concerts in Russia again in the foreseeable future. If any.
Scorpions, June 5, 8 p.m., Munich, Olympiahalle, information and tickets at olympicpark.de