RETIREMENT? WHAT RETIREMENT?
Classic Rock|Summer 2023
In 2012 the Scorpions announced their retirement. A decade later… they’re still with us. Classic Rock caught up with the core members to look back at the life and times of one of hard rock’s great and most enduring bands
Chris Franzkowiak
RETIREMENT? WHAT RETIREMENT?

Throughout their extraordinary career, Scorpions guitarists Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs and singer Klaus Meine have enjoyed the highs and suffered lows of the music business. Having sold more than 100 million albums, with platinum and gold titles including Lovedrive, Blackout and Savage Amusement, played more than 5,000 gigs in 80 countries, and received more prestigious awards than you can shake a Flying V at, the German band are deservedly up among the elite in rock history. The release this month of Scorpions: Colours Of Rock Limited Edition – 12 albums including Fly To The Rainbow, In Trance, Virgin Killer, Tokyo Tapes, Blackout, and Love At First Sting, all on 180g coloured vinyl – is the latest significant milestone on the long and winding road that has taken them from playing clubs in and around Hanover in the 60s to performing on some of the world’s biggest stages.

Rudolf, Klaus and Matthias: December 2022 marked the tenth anniversary of the announcement of Scorpions’ retirement, but you still haven’t stopped. Indeed the past decade has been hugely successful for the band.

Matthias Jabs: To be honest, it is still a mystery to me how the idea of retirement could have created such a stir in the first place.

Esta historia es de la edición Summer 2023 de Classic Rock.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición Summer 2023 de Classic Rock.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE CLASSIC ROCKVer todo
Joan Armatrading
Classic Rock

Joan Armatrading

The singer-songwriter on her new album, inspirations, being a 'band', what her key was about, meeting Nelson Mandela...

time-read
4 minutos  |
December 2024
Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
Classic Rock

Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)

It was the power ballad to end all power ballads, and 30 years later people still ponder what the it’ is that the singer wouldn't do.

time-read
5 minutos  |
December 2024
Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024
Classic Rock

Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024

Kris Kristofferson, the iconic, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and actor who played a key role in advancing a strand of country music into a more raw and confessional direction now recognised as outlaw country, has died peacefully at his home in Maui, surrounded by family. He was 88 years old.

time-read
3 minutos  |
December 2024
"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"
Classic Rock

"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"

Back from the brink: the Thunder vocalist who survived major medical trauma returns.

time-read
4 minutos  |
December 2024
EVER MEET LEMMY?
Classic Rock

EVER MEET LEMMY?

He's heard Lemmy's unreleased solo album, had dinner with Chris Holmes, told Paul McCartney to get a round in, been told gangster Reggie Kray wanted to have a word with him... He is Dogs D'Amour frontman Tyla 7 Pallas, and these are some of his stories.

time-read
7 minutos  |
December 2024
"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"
Classic Rock

"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"

With their ninth studio album In Murmuration, Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers have replaced their erstwhile prog epics for a more honest approach to songwriting reflecting their personal lives.

time-read
10 minutos  |
December 2024
IN THE BEGINNING
Classic Rock

IN THE BEGINNING

With previously unseen photographs from their early days as featured in the new Queen | Collector's Edition, Sir Brian May talks us through sights of the band in the early seventies.

time-read
8 minutos  |
December 2024
BASS-IC INSTINCT
Classic Rock

BASS-IC INSTINCT

Plucked from obscurity in 1975 to be in David Bowie's band, then unceremoniously out of the picture five years later, bassist George Murray looks back on his time with the Thin White Duke.

time-read
10+ minutos  |
December 2024
High Rollers
Classic Rock

High Rollers

When Ronnie Wood, the Stones and some A-list mates holed up at his house to help with his solo album, it sparked a days-long party, a Rolling Stones hit and the last album by arguably their finest line-up.

time-read
10+ minutos  |
December 2024
THE NAME OF THE GAM
Classic Rock

THE NAME OF THE GAM

When ABBA-mad Opeth leader Mikael Akerfeldt met one of their singers, he lost it”. She didn’t sing on their new concept album, but some other, perhaps unlikely, big names did.

time-read
8 minutos  |
December 2024