Scorpions

Scorpions start with a guitarist. Rudolf Schenker forms the band in Hanover, West Germany, in 1965. Klaus Meine joins as singer in 1969, and the debut album, Lonesome Crow, follows in 1972. Matthias Jabs arrives in 1978 and plays most of the lead guitar from then on.

For more than a decade the band has an extra pair of ears. Producer Dieter Dierks shapes their sound from In Trance in 1975 through Savage Amusement in 1988. Their American peak comes with Love at First Sting in 1984 and Rock You Like a Hurricane.

Then the map turns east. In April 1988, after their Moscow dates are refused, they play ten shows in Leningrad. In August 1989 they finally reach Moscow, for the Moscow Music Peace Festival. In July 1990 they play Roger Waters’s The Wall concert at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.

By Crazy World the line-up is Meine on vocals, Schenker and Jabs on guitars, Francis Buchholz on bass and Herman Rarebell on drums.

In January 2010 they announce their retirement. It does not hold. They keep going, and in 2025 the band Rudolf Schenker started in Hanover marks 60 years.