Michael Schenker - Temple Of Rock - Uber Rock Interview Exclusive

Michael Schenker – Temple Of Rock – Uber Rock Interview Exclusive

Written by Michael Anthony
Sunday, 17 January 2016 03:20

It hasn’t been the happiest of New Years for rock fans, with longstanding icons apparently going down like nine pins. An enthusiastic and energetic Michael Schenker, however, is always a mood lifting joy to the ears, as much when he converses, I’m starting to think, as when he picks up his famed Flying V and solos with a melodic fluidity and emotional depth that in the world of heavy rock is still second to none. It was an absolute pleasure, therefore, to pick up the threads of a previous interview for a progress report on the ongoing construction and continuing ascent of Michael’s Temple of Rock.

Hi Michael! The last time we spoke – around the time of the ‘Bridge The Gap’ album – you explained to me your ‘Temple Of Rock’ concept. You spoke about reaching the third stage of rock music – putting the roof on the temple. So, how is the roof building going?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You know I’m kind of putting it all together. It’s a bit like there’s a temple of rock that is all my past and present, and there’s a temple of rock of musicians, and there’s also a temple of rock which is the whole development of the last fifty years of rock music – so I’m using ‘temple of rock’ for everything now [Laughs]. The temple of rock in general is the music, the era of my generation of rock, which started with Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. That era, my generation, is coming to an end, and we’re celebrating the roofing, because, you know, people are dying. David Bowie just died. Very sad. And Lemmy just died. Very sad. And, you know, it’s going to be just a memory sooner or later. Basically, I’m just celebrating the roofing and keeping on making my musical contribution until the end of my life.

My first ‘Temple Of Rock’ album, that was all about summertime and playing with all these different musicians from the past. I called it the ‘Temple Of Rock’ because I’ve been writing from within since I was 18, so putting all my music together is my temple of rock. And when we play live, that is a temple of rock because we are presenting, basically, all my epochs and the most popular developments of my past and my music. And then, of course, there is Temple Of Rock [the band] that has developed as its own entity now. As Temple Of Rock we have done ‘Bridge The Gap’ and ‘Spirit On A Mission’ and we have come pretty far, I would say. We have just released a new double a-side single, ‘Good Times’ and ‘Rock City’ that’s being played on Planet Rock, and we start a UK tour on 20^th January. Then on 31^st January we do a headline gig – The Giants Of Rock – where we have Ian Hunter [of Mott The Hoople fame] etc and then we finish the world tour in Scandinavia at the beginning of February. So, after that, Temple Of Rock needs to find its own record deal because we have been using my solo deal from 2008 with Inakustik. I used that as a platform, but Temple Of Rock needs to find its own record deal for the next album and that’s what we’re going to be doing, figuring out what we can find. In the meantime, in April 2016, we are releasing a brand new live CD, recorded in Madrid, and then hopefully by sometime in 2017, we’ll have a new CD out. That’s basically the plan.

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And you already have material for the next album?

Yeah, I always write. I am always ready. [Laughs]

When you stop and think about it, the ‘Spirit On A Mission’ album was written and released quite a while ago now. Has it been well received by fans?

Absolutely! And, you know, this band is growing and growing and that is the idea – to develop, to move forward, and getting a new record deal should bring Temple of Rock to a new level. But we’ll see what exactly what kind of deal we get and how we proceed.

Can I ask what the concept was behind the ‘Spirit On A Mission’ album?

Yeah, basically, you know, it’s my filing system from the early UFO days. It’s somehow coming back to the foreground. I’m feeling very energetic. I want things to be fast. I want things to be heavy and deep, and with all the emotions I’ve accumulated and with the live lift, I want to put the whole spectrum together. We have the 7-string addition, we have Wayne [Findlay, 7-string guitar and keyboards] as a songwriter, and we have the classic Michael Schenker sound. Combining it all with the whole past and putting it all in one, basically, that was the concept, but keeping it very, very up and moving and snappy and melodic and powerful. And Doogie is a great singer, so he adds a lot of melody to everything. ‘Spirit On A Mission’ just developed from ‘Bridge The Gap’. It was a great step, and we’ll see what the next step will be.

I think it has a very smooth feel, and a really nice flow and energy about it.

Yeah, that’s where we got to with that. I guess the addition of the 7-string gave it a nice balance and, you know, it’s the beginning of its own uniqueness, and we’ll build from there. The third album, hopefully, will bring us that much further where we can say that the Temple Of Rock has got its own sound and its own unique thing, and that’s what we are working on.

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You mentioned the tour, which I wanted to ask you about. Will tracks from the ‘Spirit On A Mission’ album continue to feature this January?

Yeah, yeah, we play a bunch of songs off the ‘Spirit On A Mission’ album. And even though this is still the world tour we are consistently changing the songs. We develop and add songs as we go, so it’s constantly changing. And, of course, we’ve got to make sure that on this tour we’re playing ‘new’ old classics – not just the ones we played last time – to make sure we don’t repeat ourselves too much! Also to make sure that for the people who want to hear new songs and the people who want to hear classics, we have a well-balanced all round show. We have a lot of classics with people asking why we don’t play this and why we don’t play that, so we have a lot of choice, but we are also playing quite a bit off ‘Spirit On A Mission’. We are moving forward and this has been going on since 2012 now. We already have quite a few new songs that are already becoming quite familiar to people, so it’s moving in the right direction to become self-sufficient, you know.

Can you think of an example of an older song that you’re playing now because people were requesting it?

Well, it’s not necessarily what they request. People do request, but I don’t always agree with what they’re requesting [Laughs]. It might just be one person, you know? I have also got a lot of different line-ups. The Barden line-ups, the McAuley era, UFO, Scorpions, Graham Bonnet etc. etc. and some things are not suitable to do now. They may be something for later. Even outside of Temple Of Rock there are a whole bunch of things that could be done but maybe approached in a different way. If I get bored and nothing is happening, maybe I’ll do something that is overdue, who knows? But we’ll get to that when we see how we develop with the focus of the record deal for Temple Of Rock. In general there is definitely a good picture of where we all agree what songs should be in the bucket of available or suitable songs. I purposely stayed away from certain songs because they were particular line-ups I don’t want to include. I don’t want to mix up too much and make it all one stew. But at the end of the day, we’re not really going to be playing that many more classics because we’re trying to make this the Temple of Rock – it should be able to stand on its own two feet. If I want to play classics I can go out with MSG, I can go out with Gary Barden, with Robin McAuley, with Graham Bonnet or whatever. But we are establishing Temple Of Rock as its own unique entity.

It sounds like you are still enjoying playing live?

Ah, well actually, what do you mean “still”? [Laughs]. It started in 2008. And it’s fantastic. I never knew, I never thought that it would happen that I would have so much fun on stage in my later life. It was a real struggle in my earlier stages because I was getting stage fright and I was very nervous before playing but all of that is gone. Now I can completely get into and love to make contact with the audience. It’s great, and I’m really happy that it turned out that way.

Yes, it’s fantastic, and fantastic for the fans as well. The UK tour runs in January. And it’s quite wide-ranging isn’t it? You take in London, the Midlands, gigs up North, Scotland. Any places you’re particularly looking forward to playing or have particularly good memories of?

You know, I love to play the UK period! This is where I started. This is where I wanted to be when I left the Scorpions after ‘Lonesome Crow’. I wanted to be here. I didn’t even care what band it was. [Laughs] I just wanted to be here because I knew people would understand what I was doing and in Germany they didn’t. And so, when I started off my very first gigs with UFO were straight up north to Newcastle and Sunderland and Glasgow and places like that. That was how the whole thing started to grow and it became bigger and bigger and bigger. And I’ve been living here now for the last five years, so I’m back to square one!

You’re living in Brighton, is that right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I studied in Brighton. I enjoyed my time there as well.

It’s busy. It’s so busy there, I tell you. There’s so many people and almost every person’s under 20 years old. There are so many young people there! Unbelievable!

I was going to ask you about the future, but you’ve already told me about that and your plans beyond the tour. Plans for the new album sound particularly exciting, though it’s kind of funny thinking of musicians of your reputation and stature, with Francis and Herman, looking for a record deal.

Well, it’s because you don’t just go out and get a record deal, you know. And nothing out there was really anything that would be suitable for this band. I have a pretty good solo deal and I can use my deal to support the idea of creating Temple of Rock to make it its own entity. But you have to take it in steps. We have taken those two steps of ‘Bridge The Gap’ and ‘Spirit On A Mission’ so we have actually established a momentum and can now attract people to come out with a proper suitable deal that we can accept. That’s the idea. I don’t believe in just getting together and getting a deal, you know? I think you also have to prove a bit before you do that, otherwise you end up with rubbish. So, we have proven enough at this point and I want to use the next album to get to the next level. And to get to the next level we need a record deal that is suitable for this band.

Thanks Michael. Good luck with the tour and the record deal.

Thank you so much. Speak to you soon!

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