At a press conference to announce the Scorpions’ 60th-anniversary concert in their hometown of Hannover, Germany, next July, Mikkey Dee said Lemmy’s death was unfortunate but something positive came out of it when he joined the Scorpions.
“If you asked me, I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’ve been playing with these crazy guys for about four years.’ But we’re talking nine, so time’s flying,” the drummer shared about his stint with Scorpions. “And we managed to create a great record [2022’s ‘Rock Believer’] over the COVID years. So it’s gone so quick these nine years.”
Dee continued, “I would say four, maybe five, but not nine. But here we are. So that’s how it came about. So, something bad turned into something pretty good, I would say. And, yeah, as Lemmy’s passing and then joining this band, I wanted to bring some power and tightness and a little bit of Motörhead into the mighty Scorps.”
“And we’ve been friends, over the years, we’d seen each other at festivals and shows, so we kind of knew each other, but we never played together,” the rocker also added. “And so there we are. Hopefully, many more years to come. And we’re starting off with the 60th [anniversary] next year, so that’s a great honor to be a part of that.”
In an April 2023 interview with Robert Cavuoto from Metal Rules, Mikkey explained how he became the drummer for Scorpions in 2016 after being with Motörhead for nearly 25 years. He said, “They [initially] called me in to be the stand-in for maybe James. Because they started to get tired of his problems.”
The musician then noted, “So they said, ‘Look, if you could be a stand-in on parts of the European tour.’ I said, ‘Yeah. No problem.’ But meanwhile, while I was secretly following the band around in Germany, we were rehearsing a couple of times — secretly.”
“And I’m sure that they wanted to check me out there, of course. And you never know how things are gonna go with the social part or the musical part, but they loved it immediately. And my idea was to show them what they cannot be without, basically,” Mikkey also stated.
Scorpions will celebrate 60 years on stage with a big concert in their hometown. The ’60th Anniversary – Coming Home’ event is set for July 5, 2025, at the Heinz Von Heiden Arena in Hannover, and will include special guests like Judas Priest.