![Michael Schenker Criticizes Scorpions, Calls Brother Rudolf Schenker a ‘Trick Master’](http://townsquare.media/site/366/files/2015/03/Michael-Schenker.jpg?w=630&h=420&zc=1&s=0&a=t&q=89&w=980&q=75)
Michael Schenker Criticizes Scorpions, Calls Brother Rudolf Schenker a ‘Trick Master’
Guitarist Michael Schenker was a member of Scorpions in the early '70s before leaving to join UFO. There is no love lost between Schenker and the Scorpions, including his older brother Rudolf. In a recent interview on "Eddie Trunk Live" on SiriusXM, Schenker pulled no punches.
In his conversation with Trunk (transcribed by Blabbermouth), Schenker ripped his former band, saying, "Look, you put all the pieces together. [Scorpions] released a 50-year box; it's not 50 years. Then they tell the people they're gonna stop playing, and then all of a sudden they make a record. It's all bulls--t. They have become numb and dumb, and old and bald. It has nothing to do with music anymore."
In the interview, Schenker said he always supported his brother Rudolf's success, but then went on to say Rudolf completely adopted his image, wants to distort reality and is playing a game.
"He's a wannabe and a trick master," Michael Schenker says. "I am not going to talk to anybody about this. Rudolf knows exactly what he did wrong, and only Rudolf himself can fix it for himself. My side of the street is clean; I don't have to talk to anybody. But if you are so addicted to success and if you have screwed up in such complicated ways to become a success — if you have to cheat and stuff like that, or fabricate in order to get to where you wanna get — it's nothing to do with me. I play music; I'm an artist."
Schenker continues, "For me, it's all about music. Scorpions don't write their own songs. They have lost it completely. For the last 23 years, they're cutting out [former drummer] Herman [Rarebell]. Herman and Francis [Buchholz, former bassist], they are responsible with them for the '80s commercial success that they had, the political success that they had with 'Wind Of Change'; Herman and Francis were part of it. They're cutting them out wherever they can. They don't make them part of awards — nothing."
"They are just three greedy people," Schenker says. "For the last 23 years, they haven't done anything that is worth talking about. All they have done is they've been milking the past, they've been milking — in the last 23 years — what they have achieved with Herman and Francis in the band. There's nothing else they have done. And maybe people are afraid talking about it. But the fact is they are fooling the people."
Schenker also criticized Scorpions in an interview earlier this year. His band Michael Schenker's Temple of Rock recently released the DVD/CD On a Mission: Live in Madrid.
See Where Michael Schenker Ranks Among the Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time
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