Kent: Fast of all, the question everyone wants to know is...the answer to right now, what's happened to Chris Logan?
Michael: I don't know. I was asleep. I wasn't a part of it. Something happened. My tour manager came with a black eye, and he said, "I'm leaving the tour. Your singer just hit me". That was it. You know. And the next morning, apparently the doctor saw him, and I know Chris was drunk. My tour manager had a black eye. That's all I know. And that Chris said he's leaving the band.
K: He flew to his home in US?
M: Apparently so.
K: Will you ever be the part of UFO again?
M: I don't know. I can't look into the future. Life is a strange thing, you know. Unexpected things happen for whatever reasons, you know. So I have my doors open for anything. I just keep moving forward whatever makes sense I do.
K: Do you feel that hard rocking classic rock is coming back to the big stages?
M: I have no idea. I am not really a consumer or a critic or anything like this. I don't analyse the scene. I just do what I like to do, and hope the people keep rocking, you know.
K: Your new album is called Ahh. I can hardly pronounce that.
M: Arachnophobiac. Yeah!
K: 'Arachnophobiac' It reminds me of old MSG '82-'84, like in strong melodies.
M: I just play, you know, I focus on making an album, totally different than the consumer does. And, it was maybe less overdubs, you know. Not over produced. Maybe that will be part of it. Maybe a kind of went back more to the basics. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I just always do what I do. I really don't do anything really different. I always do what I do. It's just other people that join the band. They change the outcome. It's bit like when you put... Say like if you have a banana as the essence of a fruit salad. When you mix the banana with strawberries and cherries, you get one kind of taste. You take the strawberries and the cherries out, and now you put in mango and passion fruit with the banana. You're still banana! You can still taste it, but it's a little different.
K: You're soon turning 50. Do you still feel like a Rock'n'Roll star?
M: I have never felt like a Rock'n'Roll star. You know, I am the musician. I play from the heart. I do what I like doing. Its music's my passion, and it's God given. It's a God given thing, the music, you know. And I am just a tool, you know. I have developed the potential that I had since I was born, I guess. And I recognized it and developed it. You know, that's basically it.
K: So you will rock until you die on stage.
M: Yeah, I'm glad I didn't become a football player because that was a football or music, you know.
K: That was your choice when you were a boy.
M: Yeah, Yeah, because every weekend, Saturdays and Sundays, it was either football or music. So I had to kind of make a decision what I want to do. I was playing football for six years when I was six until eleven. And so I decided for music. With football we have been limited, you know. You can't only play it for so long.
K: You have a lot of things going on. You have a new DVD out now, and I heard you had a CD coming out with all your former singers performing. Can you tell us about that?
M: Yes, absolutely. It's going to be one song. The music is already done. And a Swedish singer was sending...a Scandinavian...I can't remember, I think from Finland probably. Or from Sweden, I can't remember now. He sent me a demo and he was perfect for this kind of the thing. It's like a concept album. It's like a one long song like "Adventures of the Imagination". Like one long song, it goes from one thing to another. And kind of takes you to all these different places, and It's gonna be called 'Tales of Rock'n'Roll'. We gonna be leaving like two minutes, three minuets gaps for original singers to fill in. But he is gonna be singing. He is right now writing his lyrics and his melodies for the music. Then he knows to leave, you know, he is gonna be singing everything. Then I'm gonna approach, they already got Robin McCauley committed Kelly Keeling and ah..
K: Graham Bonnet also?
M: Yeah, yeah...but the main singer is gonna be that guy who is writing it.
K: From Finland?
M: I don't know if he is from Finland. I have to find out because I'm E-mailing all the time but I forgot where. I know (he is from) Scandinavia. I don't know exactly where, you know.
K: OK, so he sends you tapes and a...
M: He is working on it and then he sent me over MP3 and asked me if I like it or not, what should be changed and stuff like that.
K: OK. When can we see that?
M: We gonna be in the studio doing the vocals from the 2nd of January.
K: You have a new guitar. I can see on your hat.
M: Yes, Dean. We are working on a Michael Schenker model. I am now very excited about that. I'm gonna go to the NAMM show and Frankfurt music exhibition, and the stuff like that.
K: Your guitar's been like a symbol for Rock'n'Roll. That black and white Gibson Flying V. But you have never endorsed Gibson guitars.
M: I have never endorsed Gibson. I have never endorsed any guitar. Actually I endorsed one guitar once in Japan, but that was kind of...I can't remember, it was long time ago, Aria or something like that, but It was a long long time ago, like the early '80s or something. But I never endorsed Gibson. No.
K: Have the approach about this?
M: I don't think they needed to because they all saw me playing it. So, "hey, we don't need to do anything. Michael does anyway". (laugh)
K: So you think you have sold a lot of Flying Vs for Gibson.
M: Possibly. (laugh)
K: You have a lot of really hard-core fans, like myself.
M: Yes, those are the most important for me. Those are the people I am really playing for, you know.
K: Do you have ever feel like a guitar god, or a guitar hero.
M: No. All I know is that I do I like, and I like listening to it, myself. You know, when I... I have a kind of feeling behind everything I do. That is a connection. It's not just stuff, you know. It's emotional.
K: You say you don't listen to very much Rock'n'Roll music.
M: I don't listen to any music. If somebody puts the radio on, that's fine. If I'm by myself, I work or I write music. I rather have a television on in the background. That's the way I do it. Because when it comes down to writing, and making music, I rather listen to myself for inspiration than to other music.
K: You have enough music in yourself.
M: Yeah, I have an inner well, like an inner spring. That's where I get my inspiration from.
K: It had to come from something. What did you listen to when you grew up?
M: I jump started. People like Jeff Beck. When in the early days, it was like anything that was in the radio, you know. When I was a nine years old, which was in the 64. Who was in the radio 64? You know. Ah... Rolling Stones, Beatles, you know anything, the Shadows. Shadows was the main influence in the early days. When I was 14 years old, I heard the first real good distorted guitar by Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Those three were my favourites. Then a little later Leslie West from Mountain. I mean he was unbelievable.
K: As we have read about, you had a lot of problems of Alcoholic and stuff like that. How are you feeling today?
M: I'm feeling fantastic!
K: You sold your guitars, those Gibson Flying Vs. The Black and White. The famous. Wasn't that hard to separate from them? Do you see your guitars like friends?
M: I'm not feeling attached to, you know. I mean I have been playing different guitars. I have been in a studio quite a bit lately, and playing different Vs of other people. It all works for me. I'm not too worried about it. I think it's a bit like a nuclear power, you know. You can use it for a good way and a bad way. I mean I can take my guitar and smash you over your head, or I can take the guitar and playing music. I mean it's really the guitar is...it's what you do with it! If you have developed a certain style,... Like people can play my guitar and might not sound like me. It just sounds like the guitar sound. So you have to put your own personality into it. So if you have a personality, if you have to develop a style, that will kind of come across through any guitar.
K: No matter what guitar you have, you will sound like Michael Schenker.
M: It will be pretty much like that.
Additional Comments from Kent
I have a quote from Michael that he said right before we started the interview:
"wait a minute, I just got an idea for a song, I have to write it down. You know my brain is like a computer. I have to empty the hard disk when it gets full, it's just that my head only have 100 MB"
He also said that his new DEAN guitar is a modified original DEAN so it isn't built as Gibson copy, the MSV LTD is a DEAN but modified to suit Michael's needs.
I also would like to add that Michael was the nicest rock star I have ever met, polite, kind and patient.
R.B. Araki would like to thank Kent Andersson for providing this interview in audio format and permitting me to post the interview texts and audio files on my website so that everybody can hear and read them. R.B. Araki also would like to thank Maki for her tremendous support to set up this page.