Within the early 80s there was an official Michael Schenker Group T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: ‘EARSPLITTENZELOUDENBOOM!’ It was each an affirmation of Schenker’s hard-rocking credentials and a self-deprecating joke from the foremost exponent of what was as soon as described as ‘Teutonic top-string torturing’.
Michael Schenker is a real guitar hero. His greatest work with UFO, MSG and the Scorpions elevated him to legendary standing. And his signature type – crunchy riffs and fiery, melodic solos, performed on his trademark Gibson Flying V – impressed a era of guitarists together with Slash, Kirk Hammett and Randy Rhoads.
Michael Willy Schenker was born in Sarstedt, Germany on January 10, 1955. He was simply 16 when he made his recording debut alongside elder brother Rudolf on the Scorpions’ first album, Lonesome Crow, launched in 1972. Only a yr later he joined British rock band UFO, with whom he would obtain worldwide fame.
Between 1974 and 1978 Schenker made 5 good information with UFO, however left the band after recording the basic dwell album Strangers In The Evening. As UFO bassist Pete Method later defined: “We bought worn out on the street. Perhaps it was the medication, with all of us.” And it was in the course of the wild days of UFO that Schenker earned the nickname Mad Michael that may stick like glue. As Schenker, now sober, stated just lately: “I used to be residing on the sting.”
After UFO he returned briefly to the Scorpions and likewise auditioned for Aerosmith (to exchange the briefly absent Joe Perry) earlier than forming the Michael Schenker Group. Within the early 80s he made a few of his definitive music with MSG, and on the finish of that decade he teamed up with singer Robin McAuley within the rebranded McAuley Schenker Group.
Since then Schenker has labored, on and off, with varied line-ups of MSG, made greater than a dozen albums as a solo artist, and even buried the hatchet with UFO for lengthy sufficient to make three extra albums.
For his most up-to-date launch, 2024’s My Years With UFO album, Schenker lured Axl Rose into the studio as a part of a stellar line-up that additionally featured Slash, Dee Snider, Joel Hoekstra, Joey Tempest, Roger Glover, Carmine Appice, Joe Lynn Turner, Erik Grönwall and Biff Byford, testomony to the respect he continues to command. And with Grönwall now fronting a brand new model of MSG, it is clear Schenker isn’t completed but.
…and one to keep away from
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