Pete Murray - Lo Pro & Klaus Meine - Scorpions

Pete Murray - Lo Pro

By Rob ”Bubbs” Harris                  

During the Nu-Metal phenomenon of the late 90’s, there were a few bands that remained underground and made some really great records. One of those bands was Ultraspank. Although the two albums they put out weren’t exactly runaway hits, they were far better than anything Limp Bizkit or Korn were doing. In fact, I still rock out to some Ultraspank on a regular basis. Now that Ultraspank haven’t been active for a while, I’m sure some of you may have been wondering what happened to the songwriting duo of Pete Murray and Neil Godfrey. I am glad to inform you that Pete and Neil have been writing music together the whole time, have formed Lo Pro with a few more familiar names, and are getting ready to unleash “The Beautiful Sounds of Revenge” upon the world. Pete Murray (vocals) took some time from surfing the tasty waves of San Diego to speak with us.

Metal Exiles: Pete, what’s goin’ on man?

Pete: Not too much. Just taking it easy today.

Metal Exiles: It is an honor for me to be talking to you. I was and am an Ultraspank fan, and am glad to see that you are still making good music. 

Pete: Thank you. That’s really cool.

Metal Exiles: One of the first big shows I ever went to was Ozzfest ‘98. You were on that bill with Ultraspank, along with some other really good under the radar bands like Snot and Kilgore. There were also some bands on that tour that blew up after that, like S.O.A.D., Sevendust and Incubus.

Pete: Yeah, that was a great tour. I think that was also the last year that bands didn’t have to pay to get on the tour, so that was really cool. There were a lot of good bands on that one too. I remember doing off shows with System of a Down opening up for us. It was crazy to see some of those guys shoot up the way they did. 

Metal Exiles: Nice! Well, let’s talk about Lo Pro, shall we?  

Pete: Sounds like a plan!

Metal Exiles: The Beautiful Sounds of Revenge is very much a rock record, but those who go into it thinking that it’s just going to be Ultraspank Jr. are going to be quite surprised. Was it your intention to break away from what might be expected of you and your band mates, especially given some of the previous bands you have all been in?

Pete: Honestly, people ask me that question a lot. Had Ultraspank been given the opportunity to thrive and continue successfully, we would have naturally progressed and done some different things. You’ll notice that we started throwing in some acoustic guitar lines on Progress, as well as some other new things. Also, I like to push myself as a singer and keep exploring my range. I can do a lot of things with my voice now that I couldn’t really do back in the Ultraspank days. With Lo Pro, especially now that Jerry is in the band, it could be viewed as sort of a continuation of Ultraspank, but it’s really just where we are at this point in our lives and this is the music we are creating as a result.  

Metal Exiles: You mentioned that you like to push yourself as a singer to explore your range. It’s crazy to me that you displayed so many different vocal techniques on the Ultraspank records, but you have a whole new bag of tricks for Lo Pro. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear it was a totally different dude singing.

Pete: Thank you for noticing that. I really do like to push myself to do different things with my voice. After the first Lo Pro record, we did a small acoustic tour and then went out with Aaron Lewis. That experience taught us a lot and helped us take a whole new approach to writing music. Personally, I will always have the desire to better myself as an artist, whether anybody notices or not. I owe that to myself.

Metal Exiles: Playing acoustically is a lot of fun. In fact, as a musician myself, I write most of my music on an acoustic guitar first. That way, you know it’ll sound that much gnarlier when you plug in. Tell me a little bit about your experience with this new writing approach.

Pete: You know, we never wrote music like that before. Now, we write everything that way. You are absolutely right. If you can write a song that sounds good with just an acoustic guitar and vocals, you know that you have something solid. I used to get distracted with programming, which I love to do, but I felt as if I was trying to fill spaces with something else that I could have been filling in vocally. Now, we try not to do too much or think too far ahead. Neil and I just get together and write the songs naturally, before adding all the extra testosterone.

Metal Exiles: The Beautiful Sounds of Revenge isn’t the heaviest thing in the world, but it is definitely an angry record. The thing is, you actually have plenty of good reasons to be pissed, or at least you did when writing the lyrics for these songs. Tell us a little bit about the trials and tribulations of Lo Pro.

Pete: This record is kind of a diary of the Lo Pro experience. In a way, especially with the first record, the Lo Pro story kind of mirrors the Ultraspank story. We signed with Geffen Records and truly believed that they were going to do what they said they were going to do, which was push our band out where it needed to be. In the end, they really didn’t do anything , for whatever reason, and nothing ever really became of that relationship. At the end of the day though, I’m not really pissed about it anymore. I’m still going to write and play my music, and nobody can take that away from me. It would be nice to be a little further along as far as a career in music goes, but being able to keep on doing music is blessing enough. As far as the lyrics go, I never have a lack of aggression when it comes to writing songs, whether the music turns out heavy or not.

Metal Exiles: What I like about it is the fact that you write from personal experience and convey emotion, real emotion, through your music and lyrics. I hate seeing all these emo bands on MTV singing about how bad they got it, knowing damn well that these kids are all suburban rich kids who never had a reason to be truly angry or depressed (other than having to live with stupid haircuts and tight pants, hahaha.). These bands get signed to huge labels because their daddy paid to get them on there. What do they have to be pissed about?

Pete: (Laughs) I hear ya! You know, I still remember the days that I wrote most of those songs. Something had happened to inspire these songs. It’s interesting to me how I can still pinpoint all these different benchmarks over the past couple of years, as to why I was feeling a certain way and how that came out in the music I wrote. In a way, I am blessed to have been through all that bullshit. I’m lucky to be surrounded by a bunch of good guys, especially Neil, whom I’ve been writing and recording music with for over 20 years, who let me express myself the way I want to, without worrying about all the other crap that goes along with the business.             

Metal Exiles: Let me ask you this, before I forget. There is some kind of a mix up about when the album is going to be released. I’ve heard several different dates and speculations. Can you please confirm the release date?

Pete: It’s coming out June 8th. We were shooting for May, but we pushed it back a couple of weeks to make sure we had some time to take care of a couple of things first. In fact, we just wrote a song that we are going to mix this weekend and be able to squeeze onto the record. It’s a little last minute addition that we thought would fit well with the overall feel of The Beautiful Sounds of Revenge.

Metal Exiles: Damn! There are already 14 songs on there.

Pete: Well, it’s been a while since we put out a record and the fans have definitely let us know that. We slapped together an E.P. this past Summer because we were touring with Creed and Staind. Those songs were like a taste of the new full length. We didn’t want to leave them off of the record, because we felt that they definitely belonged on there, but we also felt like we should put as many new songs on there as well, so that the fans don’t feel gyped.

Metal Exiles: What about the “Supergroup” stigma? Do you feel as if the bands that you guys were members of in the past are just that - in the past? Lo Pro is it’s own beast for sure.

Pete: I can see why the industry needs that to get excited about something, but it does drive me crazy. If we were intending to go out and sound like Ultraspank or Godsmack, we would have called the band UltraSmack or something.

Metal Exiles: How about GodSpank?

Pete: Hahahahaha!

Metal Exiles: Speaking of band names, what is your process for picking them? You have chosen a few strange ones.

Pete: With the old band, we were called Spank, but after searching around, we found that there were already a million bands called Spank. We were sitting with our manager of the time at dinner, and we asked him what we should do about the name. So, he says “Why don’t we ask Rob Zombie?”, because we were managed by the same guy. He called Rob right then and told him that we needed to change our name from Spank, and he said “How about Ultraspank?”. It sounded good enough for us, so we kept it. 

Metal Exiles: And what about Lo Pro?  

Pete: That came about because we originally had a record deal before we were even a fully functional band. We had some demos floating around, but that was about it. So we figured that we were super lo profile because nobody even knew who we were, yet we had gotten a record deal.

Metal Exiles: Let’s talk about your relationship with Aaron Lewis and this strange label you wound up on. What’s the name of it again?

Pete: The label is called Rocket Science. It isn’t Aaron’s label though. Basically, Aaron’s label went through Geffen, and was dropped at the same time as we were, so we‘re working with Rocket Science, but Aaron is still very involved with the band and helps us out a lot. He’s really the only person through this whole process that has stuck with us, despite all the ups and downs. It’s crazy. At first we had a high profile record deal with Geffen, management by The Firm, and all kinds of people working for us. I swear, the minute we got dropped, my phone went from ringing every five seconds, to not ringing at all. They were all gone overnight, except for Aaron. He likes our music and what we do, so he’s always shown support. 

Metal Exiles: That’s probably because he knows what it’s like. Staind weren’t always as big as they are now.

Pete: Totally.  

Metal Exiles: So, how is yoga working out for you?

Pete: (Laughs) How do you know about that?

Metal Exiles: Press Releases tell no lies.

Pete: Well, I discovered Ashtanga Yoga a couple of years ago and it’s really changed my life. I love it. It’s so much easier to get mad and lose your temper, but yoga really takes all that shit out of you. I’ve already been chilling out a bit in my old age and all, but yoga really provides a much needed balance to my life. It’s pretty funny actually that my lyrics are so pissed off, but in all actuality, I’m a pretty mellow dude these days. Besides yoga, I surf a lot, and right now San Diego is on fire.

Metal Exiles: Well then, I won’t keep you from those tasty waves any longer, my friend. Thanks for the chat.

Pete: Thank you too. I’m glad you like the record, as well as the old stuff. It’s been a pleasure.

Klaus Meine - Scorpions

So it has come to pass, the 40 plus year career that the Scorpions have enjoyed is winding down.  Now they are not going out with some extensive”farewell” tour and nothing to show for it, no.  They have come out with a classic Scorpions metallic bang with Sting In The Tail and it does rock.  Klaus Meine, the stalwart vocalist of the Scorpions, sat down with Metal Exiles in the UME offices for an in-depth interview that I will not soon forget.         

Jeffrey Easton interviewing Klaus Meine.

Metal Exiles:  When you started writing for Sting In The Tail, was retirement on your minds or was this another studio album? 

Klaus Meine: It was just another studio record when we started recording it.  All of the songs were written just like the other albums.  It was a different philosophy unlike when we did Humanity with Desmond Child.  That was a concept record but with Sting we went back to a more European sound, our Scorpions roots.  With our Swedish producers, Mikael Andersson and Martin Hansen, they did not put their producers stamp on the album, they were more supportive of getting the Scorpions DNA out of us.  We were not thinking of retirement but when the album was shaping up at the very end during the mixing our manager brought retirement up to us.  He said, “Guys, how will you ever top this, this will be a very strong album”.  With every album, you go out on the road for two or three years and then you go back into the studio.  Where do we go from here, we are young at heart but Rudolf Schenker and I will be 62 this year.  Scorpions are still a high energy running machine with every show and we want to keep it that way.  When is the best moment to walk out?  When the athlete comes back with a gold medal, how can you top that?  All of us have the right feeling and we decided this would be the best moment to face the final curtain.  We want to finish on a high note where you have people saying, “Why are you stopping now?”   The question that was asked the most in the last ten years was “How long do you think you guys can do this?” and now it is the other way around.  That is a much better scenario rather than in the next five years we have to slow down in front of our fans. 

Metal Exiles:  So you go out on your own terms.  

Klaus: Yes, we are going out on our own terms.  God bless the Rolling Stones and everybody that will walk this road forever.  They have a touch of blues in their music and like B.B. King sitting on a stool in a club, which is fantastic, but for a hard rock band coming out singing “Bad Boys Running Wild” it is a completely different story and we stretch it quite a bit.  

Metal Exiles:  There is much more energy in a Scorpions show than in a Stones show.  

Klaus:  It is a lot of energy and we want to be remembered by our fans as a great live band and we do not want to wait until we find a situation where our fans say, “Aww they used to be such a great band.”  We do not want to do that, we want to keep it up until the last show.  

Metal Exiles:  Lonesome Crow (debut record) came out when I was one years old so I pretty much grew up with the Scorpions so to see you going away and not being there is different but at least you are going out on the way you want.  

Klaus:  We go out the way we want.  We come from a generation of bands like Aerosmith, Ozzy, AC/DC so in the next 10 years there will be more retiring, not just The Scorpions that will come to an end.  

Metal Exiles:  This album like you said is different from Humanity.  Humanity reminded me of Virgin Killer and In Trance, where as Sting In The Tail reminds me of a cross between Savage Amusement and Crazy World.  Was that the direction you were going when you went in to write Sting?

Klaus:  The whole idea was to reactivate the Scorpions songwriting.  With Humanity we had outside writers involved as well as Desmond Child, the album became Americanized, and we wanted to get away from that. We wanted to try to come out with some Schenker/Meine tunes and we know many fans who were expecting this.   There were we did have some outside writers who were friends of ours but for the most part, it is much more of a Scorpions album in the old fashioned way.  We were also looking for what made the Scorpions so big in the 80s, there is this big wave of classic rock music, and there is a whole new wave of young fans that come to see the shows.  I guess that they see us on YouTube and made the decision that they like the band and they come to the shows.  In addition, iTunes has a new game that has included Raised On Rock, which will introduce a whole new legion of fans to us.  Also, Raised On Rock went to #1 on the Classic Rock Charts.

Jeffrey:  This is a pure Scorpions album through and through and you guys have always delivered a message with your lyrics.  Is there a message you wanted to get out this time?

Klaus:  We wanted to go with no message this time, we just wanted to have fun with the music.  Especially after coming off of this big humanitarian message with Humanity Hour 1.  We just wanted to go back to straightforward rock n roll, let’s have a good time.  Still there is a song called The Good Die Young.  It is a song about the soldiers in Afghanistan and we wanted to dedicate it to the people who stand up for a more peaceful world.  It is an anti war song but with this album we did not want to go with a big message we just wanted to enjoy ourselves.  

Metal Exiles:  This is your last album but the last track is entitled The Best Is Yet To Come.  Is there a reason for this?

Klaus:  This song has been around for quite some time and we recorded it before we thought about this retirement thing.  When we put the album together we put that at the end for an ironic twist.  We wanted to end with a positive note and even if we end the chapter of The Scorpions after this next tour for the next few years there might be a new page in the book of life.  

Metal Exiles:  Sting In The Tail debuted at #23 on Billboard, which is the highest charting record in the U.S. since Face The Heat.  What is it about this record that people latched onto that they have not in the past few years? 

Klaus: it is in the songs I guess.  It is also the fact that we worked at home with producers that did not exactly produce but became part of the gang.

Metal Exiles:  They were not oppressive.

Klaus:  Yes and they challenged us as Scorpions fans, they were very good at what they did and it was a very relaxed atmosphere.  With the last album, I had to focus on my German accent because Desmond Child was not happy with the way I pronounced certain words.  I told him “I sold millions of records in America with my German accent”.  Therefore, it was different this time.  Last time Desmond wanted everything perfect, this time we wanted everything our way. Humanity Hour 1 is a great album but for some reason it did not click with our audience.  Now with Sting In The Tail we come into America with an album that goes up to #23 and all over the world it is charting high.  After 40 years, it is something that you do not expect.  You have all of these bands on the road for years that live on their history and nobody would expect that they would come out with something that can top their past.  With this album, we were not trying to top our history but we wanted to put out a record that our fans would say that “this is the album that we were waiting on.”  

Metal Exiles:  You guys have been inducted into the Rock Walk on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood at the Guitar Center. It is not the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame but is still a great honor.  What are your feelings on this? 

Klaus:   It is a great honor to lay our hands down into the cement in front of the Guitar Center on the Sunset Strip next to all of these great legends.  To me it is the icing on the cake, you cannot ask for anything more.  

Metal Exiles:  You guys are about to embark on your final tour and you have always been known for the enthralling live show.  What can we expect from the final Scorpions run?

Klaus:  We have a played a few shows already and we kicked off the show with Sting In The Tail, played Raised On Rock and The Good Die Young and of course the big hits as well.  We also are playing some of the things we have not played in awhile like Animal Magnetism for example which went down well.  We also might have our friends Michael Schenker, Uli Roth and Herman Rarebell here and there joining us for a night to remember here in the U.S.  There are no plans right now but since we are talking set lists we would play No One Like You with Herman on drums, We Burn The Sky with Uli and Another Piece Of Meat with Michael. You go through different times of your career and pick out the songs that are connected with those artists that mean the most.  

Metal Exiles: The Scorpions have almost always drawn the ire of the censors with your album covers, even Love At First Sting was banned for awhile.  Did you guys ever purposefully go out of your way to make the covers racy to get attention or did you just like great art?

Klaus:  Back in those days (the 70’s) it was RCA, our record label then, went over the edge with Virgin Killer.  Today when you think of child pornography on the net, you would never do something like that.  We never did this in the sense of pornography, we did it in the sense of art.  It is about the song and the label was pushing the idea because they wanted to get the controversy to help the album sale and you cannot get better promotion that that.  Looking back from the band point of view it was never an album cover that we took home to our parents and said, “Look what we just released..”  There was always mixed feelings about it and even 30 years later it caused a scandal at Wikipedia because the site for that album was blocked and even the FBI was getting involved.  All of that after so many years, can you believe that?  

Metal Exiles:  You also have In Trance with the exposed breast. 

Klaus:  In Trance, Lovedrive, Animal Magnetism but so much of it was connected with the time.  Hipgnosis did a few of those covers, which kept us on the controversial side, but we also worked with Gottfried Helnwein for Blackout and Love At First was done by the legendary Helmut Newton.  I did not know that one was banned.

Metal Exiles:  To appease some stores they had to issue a band shot album cover for Love At First Sting. 

Klaus: In the 80’s, we came close to working with Andy Warhol but due to some business reasons we were unable to.  Could you imagine Helnwein, Newton and Warhol? 

Metal Exiles: You have always had great covers but it seemed like for a while right after you released an album here in America you had a collectors item. 

Klaus:  We never did it on purpose, we just did not know it would be a problem in America, it was just sex and rock n roll.  It is odd that in America that some of these covers were a problem because in the 80’s when we would tour here we always had boobs flashed to us at the front of the stage.  Nowhere else in the world, just here.  We just did not think it would be a problem to put out a record like Lovedrive in America.  (Deadly Sting: The Mercury Years was banned at Wal Mart and Pure Instinct was banned as well.) 

Metal Exiles:  I know you have conducted many interviews during this press weekend but is there one thing that you have not been asked that you want to get off your mind? 

Klaus:  Nobody has asked me how my voice has held up talking so much. (laughter)  With the media stuff, we are doing many interviews, getting up early and we have a tour coming up.  

Metal Exiles:  How do you maintain your voice after all of these years?

Klaus:  I try to treat my voice with a little more respect and try to keep it in a good balance.  After so many years, I am a lucky person and that I survived my lost voice during Blackout in 1982.

Metal Exiles:  What did you do differently after that?

Klaus:  I did not play six shows anymore after that and just took care of myself. There is a bad word next rock n roll called discipline, you have to be on the safe side to make it through a tour.  When everybody throws a party, the poor singer has to take care of his voice.  Now I do all of the parties I missed back then, it is my turn! 

Metal Exiles: With the final album in Sting In The Tail, you now have bookends on your career with Lonesome Crow as your debut.  From the start with Lonesome Crow to the end with Sting, what do you think of your progression as a band do you think that progression saved your careers?

Klaus:  With Lonesome Crow, we were just a young band trying to find our way, trying to shape an artistic style to find the Scorpions DNA.  There was a ballad with In Search Of Peace Of Mind and a psychedelic rocker with the title track, I’m Goin’ Mad was a great rocker with Michael Schenker playing great solos.  We were just a young band with talented guys with no idea on where to go from here.  We brought in Uli Roth who had a Hendrix influence and Rudolf and I became a songwriter team.  When Matthias Jabs joined the band, we found our style, fast riffs but great melodies along with the power ballads.  I think from Lonesome Crow to Sting In The Tail we influenced many musicians.   This Is our legacy, to leave many rock classics like Rock You Like A Hurricane to Wind Of Change, which became the soundtrack for the end of the Cold War. Our final final album shows that The Scorpions still burn for the passion of Rock N Roll and we love it.  We are still a live band and many of the songs on the new album can be played live.  With this record, we want to go out on the road and nail it every night. 

Metal Exiles:  What will you do when the last tour is over?  

Klaus:  Pick up the pieces, I do not know.  Right now, it does not make sense to make plans for the end.  We are young at heart but when we come home from this, we will be 65 but we can say we have been all over the world and have fans from every country.  You cannot ask for more than that.  There will hopefully be another challenge in the book of life, I never did a solo album in all of those years.   I am sure life will not be boring and the golf courses of the world will not see us too soon.  

Metal Exiles:  That is a relief. The Scorpions have indeed had a great career and when you look back what the best impression of what you people have done for the rock world?

Klaus: My best impression of what we did, because we grew up in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, we had a chance with our music to build bridges with our music.  When we played the Moscow Music Peace festival, we said our parents came with tanks but we come with guitars.  The people from our shows were always closer than the ones in the eight O’ Clock news.  We raised the voice of rock loudly for a more peaceful world. 

If you never had the chance to see the Scorpions live this is it, your last chance, do not let it pass you by and make Sting In The Tail YOUR rock album must have of the year.

http://www.the-scorpions.com  

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