Michael Schenker talked about the first of his upcoming three albums that will arrive via earMUSIC, ‘My Years with UFO,’ during a new interview with Noise11.
“I wrote all the songs. I mean, of course, [the] UFO [album] was already written, but the MSG, Michael Schenker Group album, and the next [Michael Schenker] album, I wrote the music,” he shared. “The second album was supposed to be an electric, like an instrumental album. And the reason was I wanted to make three albums in one go to let the people know what I’ve done in the last 50 years.”
Schenker played with UFO in 1972–1978 and formed MSG following his departure. He decided to celebrate his run with the ‘Rock Bottom’ band by covering 11 songs from their early catalog for a new project.
“So, I did UFO, I did MSG, and I did an acoustic or electric [album] and both instrumental music,” the German guitarist continued. “So, after we finished with ‘My Years With UFO,’ I started putting down my guitars for the MSG album, which is gonna be called ‘Don’t Sell Your Soul.’ And it’s with Erik Grönwall singing most of the songs, Robin McAuley singing, and Michael Voss, my co-producer, he’s also singing.”
Michael Schenker worked on five studio albums with UFO: ‘Phenomenon,’ ‘Force It,’ ‘No Heavy Petting,’ ‘Lights Out,’ and ‘Obsession.’ The guitarist carried the spin on these records’ sound to his upcoming trilogy.
He explained, “And then I did the instrumental album. As I was putting down my guitar, my composition, the instrumental part, Michael Voss kept singing, and I went, like, ‘Michael, this sounds really good. I think we should turn this into a vocal album,’ and have, like I used to do with UFO, ‘Belladonna’ and ‘Love To Love,’ all of these songs used to be instrumental songs. And then they turned into vocal songs. And so we invited Herman Rarebell from the Scorpions, ex-drummer.”
“And so, this album is like now one of my favorite albums,” his words continued. “It turned into this amazing album. Somebody had the idea to tune it to a 432 Hz instead of 440 Hz, which is the same tuning as ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, Pink Floyd. And we added this, we added that, and it was like building a house. All of a sudden, I was shocked what came out of it. And people will be shocked when they hear this album because they will not believe what they’re hearing. And it’s called ‘Freedom Of Expression.’”
‘My Years with UFO’ will come out on September 20, 2024. The other two albums will follow in 2025 and 2026.