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<\/p>\nGuitarist Michael Schenker rose to fame in the 1970s as the lead guitarist in his older brother’s band, Scorpions. German-born Schenker soon set off on a path of his own, making a string of popular hard rock albums with UFO, and later with his own Michael Schenker Group. His bands would be characterized as much by personnel turnover as by Schenker’s brand of sizzling fretwork.<\/p>\n
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But for his current tour, Michael Schenker is demonstrating that there’s no bad blood among his former vocalists: three of his former lead singers \u2013 Gary Barden, Graham Bonnet and Robin McAuley \u2013 join current vocalist Doogie White in an all-star aggregation called Michael Schenker Fest. \u201cThere were no fences to mend,\u201d he says. Schenker has decided now is the time to \u201cperform my music with the people I wrote it with,\u201d for both old and new fans.<\/p>\n
Schenker says that the unlikely mega-reunion happened more or less on its own. \u201cIt was not a master plan,\u201d he says. \u201cIt just took things bit by bit, step by step. From one day to another, I just went forward with the next possibility.\u201d The first step was a series of dates in Europe. A DVD was put together chronicling those shows, and it was very well-received. \u201cFor the first time,\u201d Schenker says, \u201cpeople were able to see what the full potential of this undertaking was.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next logical step was the making of an album. March 2 saw the release of the aptly-named Resurrection<\/i>, the debut studio release from the four-vocalist Michael Schenker Fest. The guitarist originally had something else in mind, but after recording song with titles like \u201cTake Me to the Church\u201d and \u201cThe Last Supper,\u201d he said to himself, \u201cWait a minute; I have to think of a new album title!\u201d<\/p>\n
Schenker spent some years spent in the relative commercial wilderness, a time when other groups were capitalizing on the hard-rock path blazed by him and his contemporaries. But he looks back on that period as an important part of his ultimate musical path. \u201cThe middle years were basically the battleground,\u201d he says. \u201cIn order to develop, you have to have obstacles, hurdles, challenges. And those years, they got all the stuff that was in the way out of my system. You can’t pay money for that kind of learning. And you get stronger if it doesn’t kill you. I have two tattoos on the back of my shoulders. One says ‘Born to be free,’ and one says “Born to overcome.’ And that’s my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2011, Schenker won the Marshall \u201c11\u201d Award, given to recognize \u201cthose artists and musicians who represent rock and roll excess and living on the edge.\u201d Though Schenker’s career and life can be said to have existed on the edge in more than one way, today he prefers to focus on the music side of the equation. \u201cI’m like [Christopher] Columbus,\u201d he says with a hearty laugh. \u201cI love to play and discover. I just love to move forward and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guitarist Michael Schenker rose to fame in the 1970s as the lead guitarist in his older brother’s band, Scorpions. German-born Schenker soon set off on a path of his own, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,46,49,62],"tags":[3424],"class_list":["post-14572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-metal","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-michael-schenker","cat-41-id","cat-46-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14574,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14572\/revisions\/14574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}