Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon from The Metal Voice, spoke with legendary guitarist Michael Schenker about his new upcoming studio album ‘Universal’ which will be released on Atomic Fire Records on May 27th 2022.
When asked about how much new music he has released over the years
“In my whole career it’s just pouring out if I would have joined Ozzy Osbourne he would have been sorry because I did so many things. I did acoustic instrumentals, electric instrumentals, covers, you name it. Fifty years later I did everything I wanted to do out of my system .So now I can relax and focus on the stuff I love most the rock music that I do these days.”
When asked if there was a part of him that regrets not joining at least for one Ozzy album
“That is not how it works. First of all when Ozzy’s offer came up I almost fell for it but I had to from that moment on figure out how to protect myself from being tempted and not ending up doing something that I shouldn’t be doing which I would regret doing later. So I came up with this thing, like Michael why did you leave Europe or leave the Scorpions? For the same reasons you should not join Ozzy Osbourne, Motorhead or Deep Purple or Ian Hunter or any of those people who asked me. For the same reason because I would have to copy all of the stuff for live shows they had done before. I hate copying, it would not be Michael Schenker expressing himself and it would just not make any sense to what my mission is.”
When asked about the musical direction of this new album ‘Universal’ compared to his last studio album
‘I just make sure that I have the songs that I pick they are always like songs that fit well together to make an album balance. Like a good written book, it should not get boring so I make sure that different elements are there to always keep coming up with some surprises that are exciting ect… Basically the difference is these are new songs. It’s a bit like a band, like if you have Led Zeppelin’s first album the songs are like the second album. Why is that cause it’s Led Zeppelin, it’s the same band just new songs.”
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 