Michael Schenker has just released a new album called "Universal" (review here) and was on European tour, too (live review here). Back home I had to great chance to do a phone interview with him to talk a little bit more in detail about the writing process of the album and about his 50-year career in rock history. Enjoy reading and don't be confused about all the Michaels in the interview!

Michael

Hi Michael, did you have a good tour?

Yes, the tour went well, lots of happy fans and that's fun.

I saw you guys in Bochum and I have to say it was great. Just the fact of finally being able to see a band live again was great. How was it for you to be on stage again after Corona?

(Laughs) For the body a bit unusual, because at this age, when you haven't been on stage for two years, and the first time was back in England at the end of October, that was quite a shock for my body, even with my position to play guitar. That's already noticeable especially a little bit later. Footballers, for example, have to train themselves, stamina and all. And if you don't do that, it can be quite a strain on the body, which is suddenly shocked. The tour was now longer and the body has adjusted to it, there was everything okay.

Your new album "Universal" will be out soon. First of all, I think the cover is pretty cool. Who had the idea for it?

It was basically my own idea. Captain Kirk (William Shatner; M.) had spoken on the first Temple Of Rock record back then and that's when the idea came to me, I made a sketch and my website designer then expanded a bit. But that was not yet the right time for such a thing, the acoustics then had another idea and that became this pyramid. At some point, when we were making the new record, I remembered it, showed the sketch to Markus Staiger (head of Nuclear Blast; M.) and then changed it a bit and that's how it came about.

I didn't know that Wiliam Shatner had a guest appearance with you!

Yes, on the first Temple Of Rock record, where Doogie (White; M.) also sang for the first time. I played on his record and he did the intro with me.

What do you want to say with the title? That music is equally important everywhere?

Universal basically has several meanings. First of all, music is very universal, you can understand that everywhere, no matter in which country or on which planet, that's mainly meant that way. But you can also understand it ironically. I'm in this spaceship and I'm probably looking for venues on other planets and behind me are the UFOs and they probably met me sometime in the past and I joined them, so everybody can build their own story.

How important are the lyrics for you as a guitarist?

Basically not at all. I used to just listen to music as a kid and the music I liked was English or American. I didn't know English, so I focused on the music and for that reason alone it wasn't important to me. But the lyrics are important so that you form words that then become a sound. For that reason, the lyrics are important because through those words the singer makes some sounds that are then incorporated in different ways and through that also becomes an instrument. But what's behind it, that's not important for me and as someone said before, that it takes something away from the music if you concentrate on two things, but there are people who are maybe more keen on the lyrics than on the music or vice versa.

On the 13 tracks you once again show your skills as a guitarist. How do you manage to write such sophisticated melodies? When do you get the ideas?

Michael Voss and I have a good cooperation, we have been producing together for 12 years. He doesn't know how the songs sound until we book the studio to record, and then he gets ready right from the start to put the lyrics and melodies together and when I go to the hotel he continues in the evening and plays it for me the next morning and that's how it comes together. I then give him feedback and we never know what's going to come out of it because it's all brick by brick. I start with the music and the rest, all the ideas, who's singing and who we should maybe bring in as musicians, that comes together.

With the intro 'Calling Baal' and the corresponding track 'A King Has Gone' you pay tribute to Ronnie James Dio. Why only now or how did you get the idea for this?

Again, brick by brick - you don't know what's going to happen next. On 'A King Has Gone' Michael Voss said to me "Here, I did this last night" and he also said that the lyrics are about Ronnie James Dio and I just said "Ah, my favorite rock singer, play it!". Then he played it for me and I thought it was fantastic and then Michael Voss suggested that we have the Rainbow guys who played with Ronnie James Dio back then with us. He managed that and we had Bobby Rondinelli, Bob Daisley, Tony Carey with us. Markus Staiger also thought the song was great and had the suggestion to get Michael Kiske as a singer. We tried that and it sounded great and so Michael Kiske became the singer for the piece.

You have a lot of guests on "Universal" who contribute different things to the tracks. Was it difficult to get all those people to do it and record all the different stuff or did it go through file sharing?

We did the music first and then I explained to Michael what I needed as drums for the tracks so he understood what direction it was going in rhythmically and then we do like a guide bass and guide keyboard to that so you have a good base to work with. Of course we also have the vocals, Michael has written all the lyrics and melodies this time and that we send to the musicians and singers and they then practice it and what is important then are the personalities of the participants. The building is done, so to speak, and Michael Voss is the engineer and when everything is right between us, I first take a break and he goes to engineering. When that's done, I'm back in and you think about which version - sometimes you have three or four different versions of some instruments or vocals - and we agree at some point and that's how a record comes about.

You have been active in many bands over the years. Which one would you describe as the most important for you or your career?

Life is a development for me, there is nothing important or less important. All steps are important that have led me to today. It's all a puzzle work for me that belongs together and until the end of my life it's all as it should be.

Do you have an absolute favorite song that you are particularly proud to have composed?

I am not proud at all, maybe happy. But in general also with music, for me it's about the record and having the balance, like a well-written book, that everything is well balanced, that it doesn't get boring, that nothing repeats itself over and over again and has a certain freshness in it. That's the most important thing for me. There is no moment that can be the same, every moment is different and it depends on the moment and what is happening around. All that together, all the steps and all the little moments are important. But I don't have a favorite song. Not even on this record. Every song has different things that come out. It can be a very well done solo, some melody...I see it all very detailed and very different than a consumer who just hears the thing for the first time. By the time people hear it, I've heard it a thousand times (laughs) and that's a very different kind of being there because I'm also a creator. I do everything much different than the commercial world and I'm an artist and I evaluate everything much different than normal people do.

Now I have a question Sebastian Ramstedt from Necrophobic asked me to ask you. Some bands like to steal from you, like Iron Maiden on "Back In The Village" or Europe on the first two albums. Did you notice that and what do you think about such things happen?

Keep paying attention, but don't know anything about it. I also basically don't care, because you can't do anything about it. In the 80's a lot of people copied my style and I'm used to that, but as I said, I don't listen to music, haven't for over fifty years and I don't even know what's out there. There are certainly awesome guitarists and singers, but I always say "spreading and expressing the joy of music from the place of pure self-expression". That's why I don't listen to music, because the brain is like a sponge and absorbs everything and you automatically copy things if you are too busy as a consumer, so I made the decision from the beginning of my life to only be an artist and creator instead of a consumer. This also kept me fresh and gave me less opportunity to copy something.

How do the further plans look like? You canceled your Russian tour for perfectly understandable reasons.

We are playing festivals, Graspop, Hellfest and some more in July and August. In September, October, November we will be in America - all that with Ronny Romero as singer and after that in Japan and we hope to come to South America and Australia and then we will see.

Will your first MSG albums ever be remastered? You can hardly buy them anywhere and if you do, then only at horrendous prices.....

Some things are coming together title by title. I just got an offer for the Chrysalis re-releases, all the Michael Schenker Group stuff as a setbox. But I've had different record companies and different bands like McAuley Schenker Group or Michael Schenker Group and so on. That all comes up at some point when you're asked if you'd like to do that and then you decide to do it. Probably other things will come along as well.

What advice would you give to young guitarists who have just started playing?

They have to decide what they want. Whether they want to be commercial musicians who want to get famous really fast and make a lot of money with short cuts and all kinds of tricks - so more artificial lifestyle as a musician, or they really want to be in it with heart and soul and that joy that comes from playing guitar instead of calculating - people have to be clear about what they want. Then it's also clear: if you want to be successful quickly in the short term, most people stick to the trend so that they get a piece of the pie, in other words they have to do what the trend is doing and thus copy and make something that fits in and the other direction is that you have joy in playing and not insist on becoming famous or making a lot of money.

A sunny Saturday afternoon, the best time to go to soccer match (Borussia Dortmund) but right before to ask Rob (git.) from Dead Head some questions about the great new album "Slave Driver" the Dutch guys have recently released with a new (who is also a former member of the band) vocalist. (read review here) So I disturbed him during some garden work to have a Skype chat with him. Dank je wel, Rob!

Michael

Hey Rob, how are you doing?

Pretty good. We had one bad review so far, it was in a Norwegian magazine and the guy wrote about five lines with some Google info. About how long the band existed, how many albums and that we changed the singer and that we're from Holland and one line about that the new album is not so special. But all the other ones have been great! I don't know how to put it, but maybe if you keep working on an underground level and keep continuing and doing it in the margins, then one day people will start to appreciate that. And I have the idea that maybe that's happening now, that people think: "Okay, they have been continuing for so long… there must be something good about that". But I hear something good about the music, about the new singer, about the songs and the production and also because we have such a great distribution this time, thanks to Napalm Records. Hammerheart is now working with them. We reach Australia and other countries far away, which is good because some people there have never heard of us before. So I really hope it's best this way. And there are a lot of comparisons with older bands which were thrash influences. And usually they write like "THAT band died in 2005, but Dead Head is still doing it the old way". So there are a lot of compliments and positive things and of course it's nice to read. I mean, we do it for ourselves, but if other people appreciate it, of course it helps and makes you happy in a way.

The album cover is pretty cool – what does this person (or at least the remains of it) shall represent?

Well, Dead Head was never a conceptual band. I mean I like "Operation: Mindcrime" and stuff like that. I like King Diamond, but first of all it takes a singer that likes to do such stories. And it's best when you are a native speaker in English, of course because that really helps you a lot. I've seen some concept albums from Holland like Ayreon and it worked well, but it was never my thing. On OUR first albums the lyrics were pretty stupid: hell, Devil, kill, Satan, Belial…but I mean, if you grow up with Possessed and Slayer, that's just okay. But after a while we started doing a little bit more conscious lyrics, but we have never been a conceptual band. There has really not been a connection between the album cover, the title and the songs. But when I look at it, it really fits very well together this time. Because the guy is a really nasty-looking character. If you have a slave driver, somebody who is making people work really hard and don't pay that much – he could look like this. It's a next-level album cover, because we were really into the pop-art, kind of simple images on the cover which worked well. Like the cover of our album "Kill Division" is just a page from a book from the library, but it works well. And, as I told you before, "Swine Plague" was even made in MS Paint!. But this time Hammerheart said that they wanted a good cover and we agreed. Then we were looking for something and found this. It worked well together with the title and I think it's some kind of international thing. Of course we always wanted a cover like this, but it's also a matter of inspiration and budget.

Who is the Slave Driver? Is it referring to quite everyday things like religion ('Alcolyte'), personal desires ('Grooves Of Envy') or fear ('Fear Scraper') or is there a more special meaning behind the title?

Well, that was an interesting thing. WHEN we got the new singer, the first thing that happened was that he said that he doesn't want to hear any of the vocal recordings we did with our old singer Tom. Because Ralph wanted to do his own thing. But of course some lyrics were already written and eventually some of the singing is in the same style, but he put a lot of his own things into it and there are a lot of meanings this time in the songs. He even made a little paper for me (laughs) with which song is about what. A lot of the songs are about the dark side of people in general – 'Acolyte' is about the perversions of the Catholic church, 'Grim Side Valley' is about the dark side of human beings. 'Frequency Illusion' is a very interesting thing because it's a phenomenon if I tell you about it you will recognize it. If you buy a new car and you drive with it, you will suddenly notice a lot of those cars. You never saw them before, but as soon as you or your parents have a new car you certainly see that car everywhere. That is the frequency illusion phenomenon. So if you look it up at Wikipedia, you will find that it means that if you start noticing something or learn something new, then you will see it everywhere. It's new, but it's really not. It has always been there, but you never noticed. I told you last time about our other guitar player who works in a psychiatric asylum and he has a lot of night shifts. So he comes up with all that stuff you never knew about. 'Polar Vortex' is about a natural phenomenon that is currently happening, the jet stream moving and the climate change – so it is really worth looking into the lyrics this time. I could not always explain them so well, but this time it just has more different subjects. And Ralph, our new singer, put a lot of styles into that. I mentioned King Diamond before, he also does these different voices, not schizophrenic but maybe a guy being angry first and then it changes during the song or like Rob Halford – he really likes to do stuff like that. That's very inspiring, of course.

Can you tell a little bit more why Tom left? The last time we chatted, you told me that you are going to record the album and it would be all pretty fine…

Well, Tom didn't want to sing any more like he used to sing. I always thought that we are not a big band, but a band with a certain number of followers who love what we do- aggressive thrash, not like Exodus or Testament but quite different. I think that the vocals are very much related to that. So he wanted to sing differently, something like Pro-Pain. At first we did some demos at home, so it was not like an album, but more like an idea. When we came to the recording of the real thing, he still did that new style. I tried to find some kind of middle way for both of us, but he was really not going to do the old style any more. So we thought: what will happen now? People buy our new record with certain anticipation, put it into the CD player and it sounds like a different band….what the hell? So we were very hesitant about the new singing style and thought about it a lot. Tom was really focused on the new thing and refused to discuss it, because we didn't like it. He became totally frustrated with us and one day he said that we should call Ralph because he would quit. So he suggested calling Ralph, because he knew what we wanted. If I listen back to Tom's vocal recordings now, they sound less motivated than Ralph's vocals, but also a little bit like he is searching for what he wants and that was not Dead Head from the past. So it is a good thing that he quit, also for himself. Because he got totally frustrated with us and then we found Ralph again and we called him the next day. He was totally into it from the beginning. He started doing everything again, but quite differently and it took like 6 or 7 weeks until all things were done just like we wanted them to be. It's cool that he already did an album with us, of course. He really grew as a vocalist, also because he has been in Bodyfarm which is a death metal band from Holland so he also developed the deeper voices. It really works and he is very creative, all rehearsals he is doing with us and we're already doing new songs with him.

Did you also write new songs for Slave Driver with him?

No, all songs were already written. Only the vocals had to be re-recorded.

I think you've changed more into a more brutal, almost death metal-like style. In the past you had more groovy, catchy elements in the songs…

The stuff is there.

Yes, of course it's there but in my opinion it isn't that much in the foreground than in the past…

We have one song without speed, but we didn't put it on the album. It's gonna be on the bonus CD for the next reissue. This is quite funny because now that Ralph is in the band, the next reissue from Hammerheart is "Depression Tank" where he also sang. Now, Hammerheart usually wants a bonus CD with the re-issues they do. But there are no demos for "Depression Tank". So we thought what we could do? We had two songs that we didn't put on "Slave Driver" and also an acoustic part. And in May of this year we recorded some extra songs for that bonus disc. That means that the re-issue of "Depression Tank" which will come out next year, has a second CD with seven songs – three that are left from "Slave Driver" with one really groovy song and four new songs. It will also be a separate vinyl release, something like "Flag Of Hate" or "Eyes Of Horror"- EP but of course less legendary (laughs).

Having a look at the titles of your albums – "Dream Deciver", "Kill Divison", "Haatland" etc – do you regret the long title of your debut?

(Laughs) We never thought about it. It was the first album and it was just a song we wrote. I don't know – we don't have any regrets anyway. We have some regrets regarding not waiting for a better record deal and stuff like that, maybe some regrets in terms of production choice, each album has one song that we don't like to play but that's it. It's A creative thing and you can judge choices afterwards but you can never change them.

You are also working at Dutch TV and I saw a few months ago that you had the honor to drive a new police car quite fast on your own – how did this happen?

Well, I wasn't actually allowed to drive. But working as a journalist, we usually have contact with the official press people from the police, fire department, the community and from the government. And sometimes you have connections to some guys who work on the streets or on the highway. This was a highway patrol, driving an Audi that can speed up to 280 km/h or so. I don't know exactly, but it was very fast and so I was allowed to sit in the car. I talked to some of the guys working on the road and they provided me some tips and told me some crime stories and so I got to this. So they showed me all the secret things they have in the trunk, it was really interesting.

Coming back to Dead Head, do you have some gigs planned outside the Netherlands and Belgium? You played with Suicidal Angels a release show in May I realized…

Well, I know people who still have like 15 tickets for some postponed shows and even bought tickets for the same show again, because they lost the overview about it. And all because of Corona. If all these shows are still going to happen and the festivals who already paid money to the bands and the bands don't want to give it back, this means that most of the shows are still booked for this year. We knew that in advance and our management in Hammerheart said: "Listen, we understand totally that this year is not a good year for you guys, because you have a new album but there are still bands out there that did an album two years ago and they still wanna promote it. So all the shows and festivals will be mostly booked". So there is an understanding from the label about this, which is good because so we don't have to feel sorry. What we do, is that we have an own network for clubs and we always have been pretty good at putting ourselves in a support spot for bigger bands – we played with Exodus, Slayer, Sadus, Candlemass and we always had support through the big bands and we still are able to connect to guys that do shows and they help us a bit and so we have one show in Denmark in October and there are a few more things will happen. But it's quite difficult, because you have all these bands that still want to play their shows that originally were scheduled in 2019 or something. There is this Stonehenge festival in Holland and they still have the same line-up they had two years ago. They had to replace two bands, because they no longer exist or had some fight in the band. But all the others are the same that were announced two years ago. This is also the reason we did the videos. To show that we're still alive after Tom left. And it is also an alternative way of exposure. A lot of people watch YouTube videos in the evening and we have 60.000 views now for 'Acolyte' and that's okay. I mean it's not Kreator who has a million views, but it cool.

Do you have some last words for our readers?

We're still alive and play some loud and aggressive music for the people. I hope that the people will take the time to listen to our new album and appreciate or hate it but at least invest some time into it. And check our three videos on YouTube!