I'm sure it seems like the Scorpions have always been legends, but the truth is this band have had a long hard slog to the top, and with many pitfalls in their 50 years-long career. Success was far from easy and in fact improbable from the start. Considering frontman Klaus Meine's awkward accent, stature and unfortunate hairline (not being cruel, just pointing out the odds for success in the industry against someone being merely extremely talented), and the band's terrible German humour and misguided early direction, you can be sure that if they started in the 90s or today they never would have made it. Look at the Eye II Eye album as proof. But they are still going strong 50 years later... and personally for me they are somewhat special, as Scorpions on the Pure Instinct tour was my very first rock concert.
You can map out their career and music in a few main phases- the 70s with Uli Roth and their Hendrix meets Deep Purple sound which met with mediocre success. The reinvented melodic & crisp hard rock sound of the 80s, which made them superstars in the US which coincided with the rise of MTV, and would peak with the Wind of Change-era. Then from later in the 90s mostly regarded as has-beens by the mainstream, until a revival of interest in classic rock bands around 2010 which has lasted till now.
You can map out their career and music in a few main phases- the 70s with Uli Roth and their Hendrix meets Deep Purple sound which met with mediocre success. The reinvented melodic & crisp hard rock sound of the 80s, which made them superstars in the US which coincided with the rise of MTV, and would peak with the Wind of Change-era. Then from later in the 90s mostly regarded as has-beens by the mainstream, until a revival of interest in classic rock bands around 2010 which has lasted till now.
Burny EX-85MJ Matthias Jabs
Here is an exceptionally rare Burny Matthias Jabs model, which unlike the Gibson Scorpions Explorer, has a pickguard and is closer to what he really played in all those classic videos. To me Matthias Jabs is an unsung hero in the annals of rock. A great lead guitar player and relatively free of the drama & ego problems that plagued the band with Michael Schenker, and to a lesser extent the eccentricity of Uli Roth.
Gibson Explorer 90
Matthias Jabs has chops as a guitar designer too; he co-created the Explorer 90 to be 90% the size of a regular Explorer and with 24 frets. This model is pretty lightweight, with a slim neck, hardtail, and has hot OBL Bill Lawrence pickups with a coil tap. A great guitar and he certainly deserves more credit for it, if only they were more popular. They were only made for a few years before being discontinued, so they are pretty hard to find now. I picked up this Explorer 90 double which was originally silver but was rather worn down, and had it repainted in the 'reverse' white stripes on black style. I'm not usually a fan of modifications/refinishes because mostly they end up looking like ass, but this time I think it turned out pretty good!
