Your source for news about the Scorpions since 1996.

From an interview of Rudolf Schenker in the last issue of the French magazine Rock Hard:

• Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) is singing on The Cross.
• The Waken 2006 DVD is in the editing process right now, and may be released in autumn.
• The Scorps asked Michael and Uli to play on Humanity – Hour 1. Unfortunately Michael was in Japan at the time and Uli was not available neither. Rudolf hopes they will play on the next album.
• After Humanity – Hour 1, Humanity – Hour 2 could be a possible sequel to that album.

The official website has posted the full lyrics and writing credits for Humanity Hour 1.

Here is a new Humanity Hour 1 website announced on the official website. Stay tuned!

I’m always trying to find out more and more information about rare Scorpions songs. One of my tricks is to look in the ASCAP and BMI databases for songs written by Klaus, Rudolf, and Matthias. I’ve discovered some super rare songs that no one has ever heard of before now.

Also, ASCAP gives Rudolf with writing credit on the following three UFO tracks: Bella Donna, Crystal Light, and High Flyer. I’m not sure if that is a mistake or not. I couldn’t find any confirmation of this elsewhere. One person mentioned that Crystal Light was ripped off from Fly To The Rainbow.

Here are some songs Klaus has written with Peter Wolf among others:

• Bigger Than Life
• Keep The World Safe
• Lust in the Dust

As for rare Scorpions songs, I have found these songs:

• Bite of a Snake
• Dragonfly
• Freejack
• Magic
• Pretty at Nite
• Rock My Car
• Same Old Song
• Strangers in Paradise
• Sweet American Girls
• Time Has Changed Like the Wind

I feel like most of these are left over songs from album writing sessions. Dragonfly seems like a song maybe used on a TV show as background music. I bet Freejack was written for the movie Freejack, but it wasn’t used for some reason and Hit Between The Eyes was used instead. I’ve heard a bootleg of Rock My Car from Sweden from the 1980s, but other than that I know nothing about it. I also know that Pretty at Nite is a demo from LAFS. Enjoy!

A new French video interview of Klaus and Rudolf is posted on Nostalgie. Click on the movie icon to start the interview.

As posted on Baconmusic:

One of the first tihngs Desmond said to us was, how about doing a conept album? So, here we have, ‘Humanity Hour 1’ and although it is a very loose concept, the songs are all about humanity itself and the Humanity thing was Desmond’s idea.

I think my absolute favourite is the title track ‘Humanity’.

For more read the full interview.

As posted on melodicrock.com:

NOW AVAILABLE FROM RETROSPECT RECORDS:
Herman Ze German & Friends – Finally released officially on CD! Legendary drummer Herman Rarebell recorded this solo album in 1985 while on a break from the Scorpions. Featured vocalists are Don Dokken, Jack Russell of Great White, Charlie Huhn (Victory, Ted Nugent, Deadringer) and Steve Marriott (Small Faces, Humble Pie). This CD also features an appearance by Juan Croucier of Ratt. Herman has just completed a brand new album with details of its release TBA.

As reported on Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, the LE will contain:

the following material on the DVD: Behind The Scenes (Video), ‘Humanity’, ‘We Were Born To Fly’, ‘Cold’, Photo Gallery, Ralf Strathmann – Photo, Liam Carl – Photo, Liam Carl – Photo, Liam Carl – Photo, Liam Carl – Photo, ‘Humanity’ (Radio Edit – Excl Orchestra).

I’m posting the link to Amazon to preorder Humanity Hour 1. Note that this is the European import. As soon as we know the date for the American release, I will list it here. Also, the release date for these two items have moved to May 25th.
Preorder European import
Preorder Limited Edition import

A German store has posted samples of all of songs from the new album, Humanity Hour 1. Check it out!