SCORPIONS - New album not the end of the world! Page 2
by Martin Popoff

Says Schenker, "Unbreakable was the start after many fans asking us again and again on the internet, 'You do great stuff, but can you do an album like Blackout again?' We said we can do a traditional album, but for the year 2004. And that's what we did with Unbreakable. For Unbreakable we were happy, but we knew there were some points where we could do better, composing and sound-wise. So in this case, we had it in our mind to do an album ourselves in 2006 in my studio. But then we said, you know, to do that is maybe not a good idea, because it's much better after being this long together to have somebody from the outside, to really lift up the band, a great producer who can really do it strong enough, to give it new spark."

"So we had some big names, and Klaus and me went over to Los Angeles in 2006, February, and met with these people, and the one who came the closest to our vision was Desmond Child. And he had said, 'It would be great, if we could do something with a concept album. You guys really gave a great message with Wind Of Change, the soundtrack for the revolution of the century, and you guys can make an album where people will believe it coming from you,' and stuff like this. We said, 'OK, let's do something together.' He said, 'OK, you have to wait until October because I'm still working with Meat Loaf.' We said, 'No problem, we will wait for you.' We had lots of stuff to do with playing live around the world."

"When we arrived in the beginning of October to start with the album, we had a lot of songs with us, but then Desmond was surprising us by presenting us his idea of Humanity Hour 1, including already, he brought a guy in called Liam Carl. He's an artist that does covers and work on the internet - he really came up with a great cover, with a great booklet and everything. He said, 'This is the way of doing this idea, Humanity Hour 1.' And then we talked about it, liked the idea, and Desmond said, 'Guys, I have a lot of good writers around who can help to make this album a great album,' including Eric Bazilian, who we knew already from working on Unbreakable, and Marti Frederiksen, who we knew already from working on Eye To Eye, and Jason Paige, John 5, and stuff. So in this case it was great teamwork."

SCORPIONS - New album not the end of the world! Page 3