HeavyMetal.lu: Hello all the Scorpions fans in the world, hello Martin, hello Abbey Metal Show! This is Michael Winkler here, and I am having an interview with Matthias Jabs of the Scorpions. Hello Matthias ! Matthias: Hello, great to be here, thank you all for being here at the Abbey Metal Show on radio 106.5FM, or on the internet, welcome to this radio show! HeavyMetal.lu: And here comes the 1st question of Kim Baxter (hello Kim): Matthias, when you started playing guitar, your first influence was Hendrix. So many other guitar players at that time wanted to emulate him. What gave you the inspiration to create your own style and how did you accomplish that without any lessons? Matthias: Good question Kim! Hi, how are you? Yes I listened to Hendrix as well as to other great guitarists at that time like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter, Alwin Lee from Ten Years After. So, I was inspired and influenced by Hendrix in a way that I just loved his style, but I never tried to copy him or to play like him, so I feel like influenced by all kinds of styles from blues to classical music and just created my own style, you know, just playing and practicing and listening to everybody and at some point I stopped listening to other guitar players, once I felt I am good enough playing by myself and then I just played my own style following my own creativity. HeavyMetal.lu: Ok there are some more questions for you here..What do you think the chances are for the new generation´s true musicians in the music industry? Matthias: I would say the chances for new musicians who are really determined to make a great career... they will find their own way. We have different technologies, the internet first of all. The glorious times of vinyl albums or CD will be over soon. Therefore, they have to find a different way... like downloading or live streaming. It will definitely always be about LIVE concerts, though, and therefore once they are great on stage, they will have a great career. They might not be selling millions of albums like the bands from the 80’s did, but there will be different ways like writing music for a computer game, not only GUITAR HERO, but for CAR RACING games, there is always rock music there, usually guitar orientated music, so there are always opportunities for the young generation to do something. HeavyMetal.lu: Would you like to share with us more about about the day that you were auditioned for Scorpions? How was it? The audition, your feelings? Had you ever thought before that you would play in such a band? Matthias: Actually, right now I´m in a basement in the city of Hannover, and the rehearsal room, where I met Scorpions as a guitar player auditioning for them, is very close, so, it´s a good question. Yes, it was a great day for me. I got a call just like a few days prior to the event, and I had like very little time to prepare for the songs, but, then again, I knew Scorpions quite well. I really loved them as a band. They were the best band in Germany for me, without a question, and therefore I was proud to be invited for the audition, and, actually, it went very well. We played a couple of the songs from the 70´s like BACKSTAGE QUEEN and PICTURED LIFE and others...STEAMROCK FEVER I remember...so, it was like a great opportunity for me. It wasn´t automatically or immediately decided after the audition, but a couple of days later I found out that they had auditioned already roughly 140 guitar players in London! It would have made me nervous if I had known, but I didn´t, and therefore I played freely and , finally, ... the rest of the story is history. Michael: Out of your collection which one is your most special favourite guitar and why? Matthias: The first one that comes to my mind is my first EXPLORER. It’s from 1976. I bought it brand new when I had just got a gig with the Scorpions. I felt like I needed a new guitar - one that had a flashy look - and Rudolf already had his FLYING V, so EXPLORER was the answer and it was a great guitar. I played everything from all our famous songs like STILL LOVING YOU, ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE, NO ONE LIKE YOU and all the rest of those albums are mainly done with that particular EXPLORER, which I don’t take on the road anymore, I just keep it safe in a safe place, but I would say that is the guitar that has made the most history HeavyMetal.lu: Is there any option of you doing a DVD Guitar Master Class to show your technique and share how you use it to express feelings ? Matthias: I would love to do that, but just tell me when! I am thinking about this, I have many offers to do it for many years, maybe I am too lazy to do it, too, but I must say it’s very hard when you are in the Scorpions, it’s always like so much going on, that so far... If I do it, I want to do it right. I did not really see any proper time for it, maybe in the near future, but again you tell me when. HeavyMetal.lu: Matthias you have met many fans on a more personal level at your store. Has this affected you somehow? Matthias: I must say it is great, great like..actually to have a store like I do in Munich MJ GUITARS, it’s great that I have the opportunity to get to know many of the fans that made the effort to travel sometimes from as far away as Italy, Czech Republic, France, all over Germany, some from America and other places, from Greece, so it was great to get to know the fans on a different level. You know very rarely we have the opportunity to say hi to our fans backstage. There is always a small group of people in the Meet & Greets, but other than that there is really no chance to do so and in this case that is a new platform, a new forum ,so to speak, where I can say hello, shake hands and spend time with Scorpions fans and that’s a great thing. HeavyMetal.lu: Ok here is another question for you: Matthias do you think one is born a composer, or one becomes a composer? Matthias: I think you need to be born with creativity in order to write songs. You need to FEEL something in your life, you need to be emotional, you need to absorb things in an intense way, in order to bring them out again in form of a song, or writing a book, or painting. I think you need to be born with it to a certain extent but you can definitely learn while being surrounded by composers, or being in the music business you can learn how to express yourself in music. HeavyMetal.lu: Here comes another question from Evgenia Kouka : Matthias, can you play any other instruments, except your guitar? There is a video of you where you’re playing the bass and the drums ? Matthias: I would say, I can play guitar quite well, I can play a little bit of piano, I can play bass, because it´s like... I have just played it so many times when I record my own basses, when I do my own demo songs, to play the drums I would say I can’t really play the drums but I have been sitting behind a drum set a couple of times - many times, actually, therefore I can play a couple of beats but I wouldn’t call it drumming. I focus on guitar and that’s fine. HeavyMetal.lu: Ok, here is Cristy Slater and she asks: Which professional direction would have you chosen, if your music had not been successful ? Matthias: That’s a very theoretical question of course. I did everything I could in order to become a professional musician. When I started playing guitar with no lessons, I practiced like up to 8 hours a day, not every day of course, because I went to school, but I tried to get an average of 5 hours a day practicing and I didn’t do it just for fun, of course I did it for fun too, but I really wanted to become a professional musician and have a career, so everything else is like hypothetical, but I studied law right after school and if I wouldn’t have become a professional musician, I am afraid I might have finished the law studies, but then again, I didn´t do it, I became a guitar player. HeavyMetal.lu: In all these years Matthias, you have experienced so many things, is there anything you still want to do, but you haven’t managed to yet? Matthias : I guess it’s a lot of things, all those kind of things I never had time to do, but at the moment I am so focused at what we are doing, the new album, the new DVD, the upcoming shows we are playing, so I am totally concentrated on that. Therefore my mind doesn’t tell me any unfulfilled wishes at the moment. I can say I had a great life, we have a great career so far and it will go on, so we maintain this one rather than try to do something else. HeavyMetal.lu: Bands like Metallica, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard played touring their early years as supporting act to your gigs. What do you feel when you did realize that these bands too have become very big? Does it fill you with pride to have given these bands the first chance? Are you still in contact with them? Matthias: Yes we are always in contact with them. They became friends, not that we see each other every day, but we toured forever with Iron Maiden, toured the US, we met in Europe once in a while. We played with Def Leppard for months and months, we just met them recently when they played with Journey at the Hollywood Ball. With Bon Jovi we are very good friends, and I can only say from my point of view, everybody deserves the greatest success in his career. I am glad, it make me proud too that we had all these bands as a support, but first of all I am really happy for them that they made such a great career. HeavyMetal.lu: Did you ever play in Australia? How often, any TV shows, or interviews …? Matthias: I hate that question, because we have never played in Australia and it’s about time that we do. I remember we had the opportunity many many years ago, during CRAZY WORLD TOUR I think it was 1992 or something. Unfortunately we had been something like 18 months on the road and said ok let’s do it next time, which was a mistake obviously. Since then we have offers. It’s so far away! It might sound stupid, but it is not easy to say: Ok, let’s bring the band, the crew and all the equipment over to Australia next week. Things must be well planned out. You know other bands are doing it so we should do it as soon as we can. HeavyMetal.lu: Which music direction, singer or bands belong at the moment to your favourites? Matthias: I know many people, I would say, that produce great music. There are too many to make a list right now and if I just pick up some of them I might give the wrong impression… Do you mean brand new musicians?.... Well they are not brand new anymore, but I like Nickleback. I think they produce a great sound, they have great songs I really like the singer. There are bands like Daughtry... There is a band here from Germany that has been some time in America, they are called Stanfour, I like them. We toured with the Rasmus in Russia earlier this year, I think they are a great band, they are on the Pop side, but they have great songs. The Killers have great songs as well. So they are many bands not so many in the old like the 80’s rock fashion, understandable since they are trying to create their own style. There are enough bands still around from the 80’s like Van Halen, us of course, Iron Maiden, AC/DC. AC/DC is one of my favourite bands. Everybody of this genre I like a lot and still listen to. HeavyMetal.lu: Ok that’s it ! Thank you Matthias ! Matthias: Yeah thank you everybody these were great questions ! Thanks a lot to Matthias for accepting the interview, to the Glitterking to recording it in Germany and last but not least, Elton and Lenita for the redaction of it.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 22:21:52 +0000