This interview with Klaus was taken just after the gig on Saturday night:
http://www.aamulehti.fi/uutiset/kulttuuri/89774.shtml
And here is the translation:
THE HAT AND THE MAN UNDER IT
Scorpions: The loss of hair doesn´t frighten the band´s vocalist Klaus Meine.
The father of power ballads won´t be able to read this article, because he will be home already, having his breakfast.
What happens to a rockstar if he doesn´t fade or die young? He ages - inevitalby. Still, a rockstar is always a rockstar even if he is getting close to the retirement age. 60-year-old Klaus Meine is one of those ageing rockers who has no intention of retiring.
Meine is the frontman of the German band Scorpions. The small man has been singing in the band since the beginning of the 70´s. The other two veterans of the current line-up are Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs.
The pioneers of melodic hard rock, originally from Germany, gave their performance at Sauna Open Air festivals on Saturday.
The concert was not a part of a bigger tour, so the band , who arrived in Tampere on their private jet plane, returned back home the same night. Without a proper fee, an individual gig like this wouldn´t be done.
-Travelling in Europe is easy : two hours and you are back home. Not bad at all, says Meine.
The singer appreciates comfort, which is understandable, since he has been touring for more than 30yrs all over the world with his band.
*The hat will stay
Except for his high-pitched singing voice, you recognize the man from his hat. You know, the leather hat , looking like a beret, showing a bush of dark curly hair from underneath.
The hat is such an important part of his image that when he made a mistake of taking it off around the time
EyeIIEye was made, the fans got nervous.
- Nobody wanted to know what I looked like without the hat. When I put it back on, people
thought it had a magic power or something.
- Losing hair is not a problem for me. I started having hair loss when I was 20.
Meine gets excited when I compare his hat to the face paintings of Kiss.
We are also mentioning Kiss when I ask Meine if they are going to make the pyramid the way they used to in the 80´s,
- Kiss just did it a while ago in the bar of a hotel in Hamburg. I think we´ll leave it to them
.
*You can always come to Finland
The starting point for the young Scorpions was to get away from Germany. Also, they didn´t want to play Kraut rock. They stuck to their goal of creating an international career. They almost adopted the name Stalingrad - Rammstein of their time.
- Our first producer Conny Plank suggested it. We didn´t agree. I´m not a big fan of Ramm-
stein, but I like their evergy, Meine says.
- We have German passports but we belong to the international rock family.
Bands like Van Halen, Aerosmith and Bon Jove are members of that same family.
*New stars are born
New rockstars are born all the time in this world. The result is inevitable : the tiring rockstars have to step aside and give way to the energetic newcomers.
Meine looks puzzled when I ask him why Scorpions keep on coming to Finland year after year and why he thinks people here are still interested in seeing them.
- The Finns respect rock legends who have survived the changes of styles in music , Klaus
Meine explains.
Fortunately, a country like Finland exists, where "old" bands like Scorpions and Whitesnake are always wellcome.
http://www.aamulehti.fi/uutiset/kulttuuri/89774.shtml
And here is the translation:
THE HAT AND THE MAN UNDER IT
Scorpions: The loss of hair doesn´t frighten the band´s vocalist Klaus Meine.
The father of power ballads won´t be able to read this article, because he will be home already, having his breakfast.
What happens to a rockstar if he doesn´t fade or die young? He ages - inevitalby. Still, a rockstar is always a rockstar even if he is getting close to the retirement age. 60-year-old Klaus Meine is one of those ageing rockers who has no intention of retiring.
Meine is the frontman of the German band Scorpions. The small man has been singing in the band since the beginning of the 70´s. The other two veterans of the current line-up are Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs.
The pioneers of melodic hard rock, originally from Germany, gave their performance at Sauna Open Air festivals on Saturday.
The concert was not a part of a bigger tour, so the band , who arrived in Tampere on their private jet plane, returned back home the same night. Without a proper fee, an individual gig like this wouldn´t be done.
-Travelling in Europe is easy : two hours and you are back home. Not bad at all, says Meine.
The singer appreciates comfort, which is understandable, since he has been touring for more than 30yrs all over the world with his band.
*The hat will stay
Except for his high-pitched singing voice, you recognize the man from his hat. You know, the leather hat , looking like a beret, showing a bush of dark curly hair from underneath.
The hat is such an important part of his image that when he made a mistake of taking it off around the time
EyeIIEye was made, the fans got nervous.
- Nobody wanted to know what I looked like without the hat. When I put it back on, people
thought it had a magic power or something.
- Losing hair is not a problem for me. I started having hair loss when I was 20.
Meine gets excited when I compare his hat to the face paintings of Kiss.
We are also mentioning Kiss when I ask Meine if they are going to make the pyramid the way they used to in the 80´s,
- Kiss just did it a while ago in the bar of a hotel in Hamburg. I think we´ll leave it to them
.
*You can always come to Finland
The starting point for the young Scorpions was to get away from Germany. Also, they didn´t want to play Kraut rock. They stuck to their goal of creating an international career. They almost adopted the name Stalingrad - Rammstein of their time.
- Our first producer Conny Plank suggested it. We didn´t agree. I´m not a big fan of Ramm-
stein, but I like their evergy, Meine says.
- We have German passports but we belong to the international rock family.
Bands like Van Halen, Aerosmith and Bon Jove are members of that same family.
*New stars are born
New rockstars are born all the time in this world. The result is inevitable : the tiring rockstars have to step aside and give way to the energetic newcomers.
Meine looks puzzled when I ask him why Scorpions keep on coming to Finland year after year and why he thinks people here are still interested in seeing them.
- The Finns respect rock legends who have survived the changes of styles in music , Klaus
Meine explains.
Fortunately, a country like Finland exists, where "old" bands like Scorpions and Whitesnake are always wellcome.