Rudolph Schenker
Rudolph
Schenker was born in Hannover, Germany on August 31, 1948. "When I
was five or six years old, I heard music and couldn't get it out of
my mind." With his mother playing piano and his father violin, the
sounds of classical music filtered throughout the household. But
when Rudolph heard Elvis Presley, Little Richard and later the
Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds and Pretty Things, rock and roll
was the only genre of music on his mind.
Rudolph the older brother of Michael Schenker, who was also a founding member of the Scorpions before he left to join UFO and later form the Michael Schenker Group. "I formed the Scorpions with friends from Hannover. We played in some of the local clubs, and I remember my brother coming to see us with my father, and asking if he could play with us. He was just a little 10 year old guy playing with the Scorpions. We did a session with him and everybody said, 'this young guy can play so good!'" By the time the Scorpions recorded their first album Lonesome Crow in 1972 Michael was the lead guitarist in the band with his brother playing rhythm. Still, brotherhood was the only thing on Rudolph's mind. "Michael was playing a Les Paul and I was playing my Flying-V," he says. "But his guitar was broken so he borrowed mine. He said, 'Hey, this guitar is so good. Can we switch? You get the Les Paul and I get the Flying-V.' I said, 'why not?' He's my brother. He was playing lead, and I told him that if he liked my guitar so much, we'd change."
Rudolph
is a Flying-V freak; he has 18 of them, including two originals. But
Rudolph was very willing to make the sacrifice for the good of the
band. "At the time," he maintains, "I didn't like to play with two
Flying-Vs in the same band." Rudolph played a Les Paul until Michael
departed the mothership for UFO. Then he went out and bought a new
Flying-V. Rudolph considers his brother to be the king of heavy
metal guitar, since Michael plays "very hard, precise and melodic.
He puts together his feeling and technique. I also like Eddie Van
Halen because he has created new harmonic things and is a very
rhythmic guitar player. He has fantastic technique!" Heavy metal
music is Rudolph's main love, although he hates the term. "Look back
at our first album," he pleads, "we haven't changed our music much -
maybe just a little bit. When we started, we played rock. Now
they're saying we play heavy metal. The music is the same; the
terminology has changed." And now there are two more Schenkers on
the musical horizon. Rudolph's 26 year old sister Barbara plays
synthesizer and keyboards in Viva, who have three albums released
overseas. And Rudolph's son Marcel plays drums. Rudolph
guesses that he doesn't play guitar because he doesn't want to be
compared to his famous father and uncle.
Click on the pic to buy the
Scorpions "A Savage, Crazy World" on DVD
|
The Scorpions: Best Of Scorpions Performed by The
Scorpions. For guitar and voice. Format: guitar tablature
songbook. With guitar tablature, standard notation, vocal
melody, lyrics, chord names, guitar chord diagrams and
guitar notation legend. Metal and hard rock. Series: Hal
Leonard Guitar Recorded Versions. 151 pages. 9x12 inches.
Published by Hal Leonard. (HL.690566) See more info... |
