By A. Lee Graham

Interviewing Michael Schenker is a breeze: just hit “record” and watch him go.

What follows are glimpses into the man who inspired countless guitarists, produced several classic albums and created the demons that nearly pushed the six-string master over the brink.

Just when the mad axman seemed at wit’s end almost two decades ago, he dusted himself off, hired new management — and most importantly — rediscovered the creative spirit that pushed him to the rock guitar forefront in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

That latter decade underscores Michael Schenker Fest, now touring the United States following successful runs in Japan and Europe. First captured on DVD and Blu-ray in Japan, the worldwide trek sees Schenker and four vocalists — Gary Barden, Graham Bonnet and Robin McAuley from ‘80s Michael Schenker Group lineups; and Doogie White from the more recent Temple of Rock ensemble — perform classic material.

From “Into the Arena” to “Desert Song” and beyond, the stellar set list is packing clubs as an energized guitarist and killer backing band celebrate four decades of guitar magic.

When this journalist first interviewed Schenker almost 20 years ago, he was without management or recording contract. On the heels of  Beware Aware of Scorpions and Arachnophobiac, his latest albums at the time, Schenker was open to chat and consider future options.

That sense of adventure and willingness to experiment helped rebuild a career that had stalled with what many considered several hit-and-miss Michael Schenker Group releases. But the guitarist rebounded, using the ‘90s and early 2000s to reassess his career and prepare for what would be a comeback decade.

Schenker took time out of a whirlwind tour to discuss Michael Schenker Fest, his renewed energy and a future that seems limitless.
 

Lee: Hello, Michael. Greetings from Texas.

Michael: How are you?

Lee: Always great when talking with Michael Schenker. Our paths last crossed in Dallas when you brought Temple of Rock here. A fantastic show, but your latest tour may surprise some fans with not one, but four vocalists.

Michael: Well, I’ve been performing forever. In 2008, I lost my stage fright and had the urge to be onstage.

Lee: You’d been quite a shy guy before, no?

Michael: Yes, yes. But out of the blue, I had no stage fright. I took that as a sign that it was time for me to be back in the loop of rock and roll. For the first time in my life, I [realized] I had made a musical contribution to the world. By the  time I was 23, in 1978, I did the Strangers in the Night album with UFO and helped Scorpions with the Lovedrive album and opened doors for America with them. At that point, I tasted fame and success and I understood what that was like and was asking myself was that something I needed?

It was my development period in the first part of my life and I decided I didn’t need to hold onto fame and wanted to be more…

Lee: Artistic? As opposed to being a rock star?

Michael: Yes, to start the second chapter of my life and focus on experimenting on music, being an artist like you said, yes, and doing something small on my own time with an unknown singer, just having fun with music. I never focused on being famous.

Lee: You followed your muse instead of taking the easy road.

Michael: The black and white Flying V [guitar] marked the second part of my life. I wrote the song “Into The Arena,” which is about being in a battlefield and real life and doing work. That’s what I did in the middle years: experimenting with microphones, with instruments, releasing albums on Mike Varney’s label like The Endless Jam with Ansley Dunbar.

Lee: Those two CDs are incredibly underrated. Great stuff, Michael.

MIchael: Yes, they were focused on performance, on developing, so that was the most rewarding era. By later on, I wanted to be onstage. I took that as a sign that the middle years were done and now I can start the third chapter of my career. I started deciding to perform with the most popular music of Michael Schenker, which was the ‘80s basically, which wasn’t ‘80s as much as it was the most popular music of Michael Schenker, other than Scorpions or UFO. I started that in 2008.

I started Temple of Rock, and by the time it was a real band, it was a real good band. We did two studio albums and two live CDs-DVDs.

Lee: It definitely felt like an actually band. I got that sense after chatting with Francis Bucholz, Herman Rarebell and especially Doogie at the Dallas show. You guys really seemed to gel musically and personally.

Michael: After four or five years of touring like that, I suggested taking a break because we were playing the same cities over the over.

I suggested taking a break and Herman went his way and Francis went his way and I said to myself, you know what? This is the third part of my life, celebration time. I need to perform with the original singers. That’s what I felt like I should be, so I focused on the ‘80s. That was the most doable [period], I thought, with Gary [Barden], Graham [Bonnet] and Robin [McAuley]. Those three came to mind. I contacted them and it was as if they were waiting for the  telephone call.

Lee: That’s amazing, perhaps a sign that it was meant to happen?

Michael: And Chris [Glen, bassist] and Ted [McKenna, drummer] were my original rhythm section, as well as Cozy Powell, and I had the idea of Steve Mann on guitar and keyboards. He was with me during the whole McAuley-Schenker period. He wrote “Anytime.” We started our first festival at Sweden Rock and took it very slow. It was not a master plan: it was step by step.

We were offered to play in 2016 at Loud Park, the third-largest [festival] in the world. I asked who headlined on the day before. They said, “Scorpions.” I said, “We can’t do it. Ask me again in 2017.” The promoter offered me three venues and one of them was a Tokyo venue, which reminded me of Budokan. I said I have to film this for DVD. The original Budokan album was audio only.

For the first time around the world, people were able to see it. The point of the undertaking was rather than looking at an iPhone or YouTube, there would be a aproper DVD. And I envisioned a new album and party in the studio with women, wine, beer, music: a Michael Schenker festival.

With a record deal coming in, I had one leg back in the world of rock and roll in 2008 with [record label] In-Akustik. I was quite happy there and so I hung out with them for 10 years and built back to where I was when I was 23 because I was out of the loop and did little interviews and did experimenting to myself.

Lee: That’s about when I tracked you down just a couple years earlier. Fans were happy to see you making music again, Michael.

Michael: Yes, and in 2008, again, I started getting back into it, as you say, and record offers were coming in. Nuclear Blast was the most attractive one. It’s a German label and very ironic because I left Germany when I left Scorpions the first time after Lonesome Crow  [Scorpions’ debut LP] in the 1970s because Germany did not understand what I was doing.

I was fascinated with lead guitar since I was 9 years old, just what you can do with a six-string, especially with distortion. At 17, I made lead guitar my focus as a means of pure expression. Earlier at age 14, I fell in love with Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, that sort of hard rock thing. I used metal music as a screen to put my lead guitar playing and paint my lead guitar on it.

Because of that, I developed very quickly. I went from Lonesome Crow to Strangers in the Night and Lovedrive and made it to the top. That’s when I, you know, decided I know what it is like to be on top. I don’t need it. I’d rather experiment with music.

My contribution in the ‘70s was done and in the ‘80s, people used my style and commercialized it and made it accessible for a wider audience. Those guys [bands influenced by Schenker] made double-platinum albums with my kind of style, but that wasn’t my agenda anyway. Other people were more suited for that kind of stuff.

So while they were doing that and simplifying the ‘70s style for the ‘80s, I wondered how many people picked up instruments because of the simplicity, thinking if they can do that, I can do that! They made it attractive. Those guys became big rocks stars and, of course, they made it attractive to a wider audience.

That was not for me. I was bubbling with creativity. I had to get it out of my system. I didn’t think Scorpions or UFO would be happy with me experimenting while commercial touring was happening. In 2008, the groundwork, the battlefield, was done, was out of my system and I was able to celebrate. That’s when I realized after Temple of Rock after we took a break, it was time to go into the next step with the original singers.

Lee: To Michael Schenker Fest and the newly released Resurrection.

Michael: Exactly. Yes. Then we also got approached in 2017 to headline Loud Park and I said, “Who was headlining the day before?” He [the promoter] said Slayer. I said, “OK, I’ll do it!” Gene Simmons was opening for us and Alice Cooper opened for Slayer. It was really funny. It was a great contrast. The beautiful thing about the album was I had all the music written already. I went to the studio and said to Michael Voss, our co-producer, I think we need two or three songs with everyone singing, and so he’s secretly writing while I was putting music down. After the second song, the next morning he said to me, “Michael, I want to show you what I did last night.”

He wrote lyrics and melody for the music I put on record. I said Michael Voss is fantastic. I was so happy that song was finished so early because it was a perfect example of this band, of this undertaking. We had so much time to get it down, we were able to release it ahead of time to promote the album.

When it was released on the second of March, it went high on the Billboard independent album charts. Unbelievable. And number 10 in Germany on the official album chart. Then it was number 1 on the rock chart in Japan and so on. We had a listening party in Europe during a two-month promotional tour. It was incredibly well received and we got so many cover pages and it was called album of the year by many magazines.

The album was a lot of work. It took about six months. Over the years, I spread all my energy in all these different lineups and jump-started Scorpions, jump-started UFO and did my thing.

Lee: Now you’re jump-starting Michael Schenker.

Michael: Yes, jump-starting Michael Schenker. When I wanted to do smaller things, which the ‘80s marked that period, [manager] Peter Mensch was waiting for me to do business with me. He wanted me to go all the way up and I wanted to go all the way down (laughs).

At least I started off doing my thing. But he sent me to jam with Aerosmith. It was a confusing time for me. I went from UFO to Aerosmith until I found my way to MSG. It was a one-person experience in limbo land.

I was all over the place. I got so many offers from Ozzy [Osbourne], etcetera. It was a very interesting time. At one time, I had a vision of doing things on a low level. On the other side, there were people pulling me to get to the top like it was walking on the edge of a table, you know?

Basically, I went through all that and Peter Mensch put a super band together with [UFO keyboardist] Paul Raymond and all of that. He wanted me to get to the next level and get more singers, someone who was already established.

David Coverdale wanted me and called me to be in Whitesnake. I said, “Why don’t you join MSG?” Of course, neither thing happened. Cozy [Powell] joined David, you know. We got Ted McKenna back, who we got because he was in the Alex Harvey Band with Chris Glen.

They came down for [Michael Schenker Group album] Assault Attack and then Graham [Bonnet] was available and we started doing that and because in my middle years, I experienced so much at some point, we got Gary back and then at some point in 1984, that version of MSG with Gary fell apart. And then Assault Attack came out, but it was never promoted. Graham only lasted 15 minutes onstage, which helps make this tour really special.

Lee: So is this the first time you guys have actually performed a full set together?

Michael: Yes. It’s the weirdest thing. Because Robin and I decided to go our separate ways and never performed any McAuley-Schenker stuff over all those years, too. The ‘80s was there for a particular purpose: to educate people in making this music attractive to the wider masses. It’s really weird because I was able to do my work undisturbed as an artist. Now I’m at the third stage. I’m able to celebrate and I’m free. I’m able to do what I want. There’s nothing I wanted to do that I haven’t done. I had stage fright all my life and now it was a 180-degree turn.

When Nuclear Blast approached me to sign a deal with them, I didn’t want to do it, but I realized I am not the same Michael anymore. I’m no longer shy or unstable. I’m outgoing today and stable and I want to be onstage. Unbelievable. I said I think it’s time to put both legs in rock and roll. The funny thing was I got the award, the axman award from Hard Rock Hell on the same night in 2017, the same stage as [Nuclear Blast] got award for best label. It’s really weird.

Lee: You and Robin might call that perfect timing.

Michael: (laughs) Yes, yes. It’s more than meets the eye. Everything has come full circle and how certain things went, it wasn’t supposed to happen aside from making a record. Here we are with a two-and-a-half-hour show. Oh, and Doogie asked me what about the band?

Herman was doing his thing, and Temple of Rock wasn’t doing anything. I said you’d better come over, so he came over and we had four singers. I had current and past singers all together. We played classics and classics and classics and new stuff and we have a really well-balanced show for two and half hours. It’s the same lineup as the album and the first time we’ve done this.

Lee: Were any musicians from any of your past lineups not available for the tour? Did you ask anyone who wasn’t able to participate?

Michael: No, it was exactly what my vision was supposed to be. It’s almost like synchronicity. Unbelievable.

Lee: So by avoiding commercial success, you have achieved success in the long run and on your own terms.

Michael: Yes, the funny thing I joke about is I probably have more platinum albums that any of the ‘80s bands because I’m hanging on everybody’s walls.

Lee: You’ve been quoted as saying the secret to your ongoing creativity is what you call “play and discover.” Is that still the case?

Michael: That’s what I do and have been doing that since I was a 9-year-old kid. That is what motivates me, Lee. I don’t compete, I don’t look over the fence. I just self-explore. Maybe [UFO vocalist] Phil Mogg will show up once in a while to sing a few UFO songs since it’s the anniversary of Strangers in the Night.

Lee: Have you and Phil talked about that?

Michael: (laughs) No, I am just putting that out there.

Anyway, even at that age [when joining UFO], I knew this is what I wanted to do, but because of peer pressure, everyone’s driving a big car and has a big house. They have lost what it was that what once made them really happy and don’t even know anymore what that was.

Most people are after instant gratification and that is a big problem. I say just do your thing, whatever makes you happy. I am a self-expressionist. That’s what I do, and that’s what I love to do. If people want to follow trends, fine. You reap what you sow and that goes for everyone. With me not ever having focused on money or success or fame, it all came by itself as a byproduct.

Lee: Again, your success coming in the long run. I wanted to ask about your original guitar style and ensuring a signature sound. You’ve mentioned avoided listening to music. After you and Kirk Hammett jammed on That Metal Show, have you still not heard Metallica?

Michael: Ha! You can’t switch off music. The elevator, you can’t switch off. When you are in a boutique in France buying new clothes, you hear music. I heard the Metallica album. That’s how I discovered the song “The Unforgiven.” It’s a beautiful song. That’s when I realized what people were saying about Kirk. When he plugged in and was recording, I could hear Lonesome Crow. Unbelievable.

Lee: That goes back to the synchronicity thing in that Metallica have a song called “The Unforgiven” and one of your solo albums is called Unforgiven.

Michael: Yes.

Lee: A lot of fans are excited about seeing this tour. What can they expect?

Michael: Two and a half hours of rock. It goes by like nothing. You’d think people have enough by two and a half hours, but no! It has been great so far. It’s the first time people are seeing this and in the United States. It’s the same lineup. We are playing all the most popular music of Michael Schenker.

Lee: We look forward to seeing the tour when it reaches Dallas, Michael.

Michael: Very good. Thank you!

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