AXL Rose has expressed an interest in touring Japan and performing a set of UFO songs with Michael Schenker, according to the influential guitarist.
Speaking on Sirius XM, Schenker also revealed Rose had recorded three UFO songs for the German’s current album but approved only one for release. Schenker went on to again attack his brother, Scorpions guitarist Rudolf Schenker, in the interview conducted with the Trunk Nation show.
“Whenever promoters thing they want to invest to hear this whole thing with the All Star band including Brian Tichy, Derek Sherinian, Barry Sparks – basically we’ll do it that way,” Schenker told the Faction Talk station, in reference to musicians who played on the record which is entirely made up of UFO songs.
“I think the first time will be in Japan, where actually Axl Rose has shown interest that he wanted to be the singer for the Japanese tour with the original album line-up which I call the All Star band.”
Explaining how Rose came to sing “Love To Love” – the next single – on his current album, My Years With UFO, Schenker told host Eddie Trunk: “Slash came to the studio in Frankfurt – I guess they were touring Germany at the time.
“(He said) ‘I told Axl I was going to do this today here with you and he said I want to sing something too’.
“Axl, actually, he decided to sing ‘Only You Can Rock Me’, ‘Too Hot To Handle’ and ‘Love To Love’ and he recorded all three songs, he sang all three songs, I’ve got all three songs to listen to.
“They all sounded great.
“For some reason, there was a message …. he did not like ‘Only You Can Rock Me’ and ‘Too Hot To Handle’.”
Schenker would not rule out one last show with UFO, the iconic British band of which he was a member across two stints but was unequivocal when asked on the Trunk Nation program if he might work with his brother and Scorpions.
“No,” he answered.
“I just know that I have been a very big part of creating Rudolf as a musician. I don’t think without me he would have been there. Maybe the other way around, the same way.
“But the thing is I have to protect myself. Every time he wants to do something with me, every time they want to do something big and they need my name, he misuses me.
“I’m very sad that he keeps doing that. He’s seven years older than me, he’s a bully. He has abused me for many, many years. He has destroyed my image for many years.
“He just pretends that nothing ever happened.
“I ask other people ‘hey, how does your older brother treat you?’ And they said, oh, exactly the same.
“I think it’s just a thing that they do. They think that they own you, that they can do to you anything they want. ‘He’s just my little brother, he’s nobody, blah, blah, blah’.
“I have no idea how these people … how their heads and their brains work but the fact is I helped the Scorpions, I jump-started them and they forgot everything about it.
“…nobody is really the bad guy, it’s just that Rudolph is a crazy, weird person. I don’t know what drives him. I don’t want to be connected to it.”
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