HERMAN RAREBELL Interview Page 3
By Bob Nalbandian

SW: Can you talk a bit about Uli Roth's departure with the Scorpions?
HR: Uli Roth had the desire to form his own band already back in '78/'79, after our first Japanese tour. You can hear in those earlier Scorpions albums that there were two directions of the band - one direction was very Hendrix orientated, songs like "Hellcat" and "Polar Nights" that Uli wrote, which I think were great songs. Then there's the Scorpions that was a very melodic hard rock band. So by the time Uli left, it was on one side sad, but on another side very good since now, finally, the band could go in one direction. As you know, the beginning of the "Love Drive" album, Michael Schenker just left UFO and he played on a few songs on "Love Drive," including, "Another Piece of Meat" the instrumental "Coast to Coast," and the title track. And then crazy Michael just left in the middle of the recording session and we found ourselves without a guitar player. That was the time when Matthias Jabs joined the band.

SW: Did you know Matthias prior to him joining Scorpions?
HR: I personally did not, but Rudolf Schenker and Klause Meine knew him since they all lived in Hannover. Matthias played in a local Hannover band and they knew he had the talent to learn all the Scorpions songs, and it progressed from there.

SW: What were you doing prior to joining Scorpions?
HR: When I first started at age 14, I played with some semi-professional bands. I studied 4 years of music in Saarbrucken, my home town. I studied drums and piano. One of my first bands at the time was a band called The Masterman, this was back in 1968, and as you can see from the picture in my book, we all had the flower-power shirts on and matching trousers. The next band after this was a blues band, called Fuggs Blues, which was a very good band. In 1971 I decided to go to England because I didn't want to be in the theatre or a big orchestra, I wanted to be a rock musician. I was hoping to find the next Led Zeppelin. I had a band together with Bobby Harrison from Procol Harum called RS Rindfleisch, which was a German name. I wound up doing different jobs in England for four years before I joined the Scorpions on May 18, 1977. Shortly after, we did our first Japanese tour, and then we went to the United States.

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