50 Fun Facts About Scorpions

A 2020 podcast investigated a rumour that which spy agency secretly wrote the Scorpions ballad Wind of Change?

CIA authorship was a rumour said to have come from inside the agency itself, and the band's singer called the idea entertaining but not true at all.

Wind of Change, the Scorpions' biggest hit, opens with the band's singer doing what over a clean guitar?

Whistling carries the melody before a word is sung, on a single that went on to sell an estimated 14 million copies, the most by any German act.

Which leader received Scorpions at the Kremlin in 1991, when the band handed over royalties from Wind of Change?

Mikhail Gorbachev was handed $70,000 of the single's royalties, which Soviet news reports said would go to children's hospitals.

A complaint from which American retailer led to a 'clean' band-photo cover for the Scorpions album Love at First Sting?

Walmart objected only once the album was on sale, although the label had shown the original artwork to retailers beforehand without any concerns.

Scorpions, the band Rudolf Schenker started in 1965, come from which northern German city?

Hanover hosted the band's 60th anniversary concert in 2025, a stadium show billed as a homecoming with Alice Cooper and Judas Priest as guests.

Which singer, a member since 1969, has appeared on every Scorpions album alongside founder Rudolf Schenker?

Klaus Meine also writes most of the band's words; in 1981 a doctor advised him to find another profession before two vocal cord operations saved his voice.

Which orchestra joined Scorpions for the 2000 album Moment of Glory, a year after Metallica's symphonic S&M?

The Berlin Philharmonic had first approached the band with the idea in 1995, long before critics accused Scorpions of copying Metallica.

Drummer Mikkey Dee joined Scorpions in 2016 after more than two decades behind the kit in which British band?

Motörhead disbanded when Lemmy died in December 2015, and within months Dee was filling in on a Scorpions tour of North America.

Which Scorpions single from 1984 became intro music for the NHL team based in Raleigh, North Carolina?

Rock You Like a Hurricane became the song the Carolina Hurricanes take the ice to at home games, having reached number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984.

Which country took the place of Moscow's landmarks when Scorpions rewrote the opening of Wind of Change?

Ukraine took the place of the Moscow scenery in the first verse in 2022, because the band's singer felt it was no time to romanticise Russia.

Which former Pink Floyd member staged The Wall at Potsdamer Platz in 1990, with Scorpions opening the show?

Roger Waters gave Scorpions the first song, In the Flesh?, on a site that months earlier had been the no man's land of a divided city.

Which music game series featured the Scorpions track No One Like You in its 2007 edition Rocks the '80s?

Guitar Hero used a second Scorpions song that year, when the band's 1984 signature anthem appeared in the third main game, Legends of Rock.

Which broadcaster gave the German band Scorpions their 1980s nickname, the Ambassadors of Rock?

MTV put four videos from Love at First Sting into rotation in 1984, helping it become the band's most successful album in America.

Michael Schenker, the founder's younger brother, left Scorpions in 1973 to play lead guitar for which British band?

UFO had just toured with Scorpions as their support act, and losing the teenage guitarist broke up his brother's band for a time.

The idea for Wind of Change came to the Scorpions' singer one summer night at which Moscow spot?

Gorky Park housed a cultural centre opened without official permission, where Soviet and visiting musicians, poets and artists mixed freely.

The Scorpions' first live album, a 1978 double LP, was recorded on tour in which country?

Japan heard it first, months before Europe, and the Tokyo concerts it captures were the last the band played with its departing lead guitarist.

The video for the Scorpions hit No One Like You shows the band's singer facing execution at which American prison?

Alcatraz was filmed during a San Francisco shoot for the 1982 single, which went on to top Billboard's rock radio chart.

Which then-unknown American singer sang guide vocals for Scorpions in 1981 while their frontman had throat surgery?

Don Dokken sang on the demos for Blackout, but none of those takes survived and he is credited only with backing vocals.

The Scorpions song We'll Burn the Sky sets a poem by Monika Dannemann, the last girlfriend of which guitarist?

Jimi Hendrix is the guitarist the poem mourns, and Scorpions turned it into a track on their 1977 album Taken by Force.

Which 1990 Scorpions album, home of Wind of Change, was the band's first to top the German chart?

Crazy World was also the first album since 1974 made without the band's long-time producer, and its lineup split two years later.

Which Scorpions power ballad sat unfinished for seven years after an earlier guitarist rejected it as too commercial?

Still Loving You reached the top three in France and Switzerland, far above its number 64 peak on the American chart.

Which guitarist won the Scorpions' lead guitar job in 1978, after the band had auditioned around 140 players?

Matthias Jabs was dropped within months when the founder's brother came back, then rehired for good when that return collapsed on tour in 1979.

Which Gibson guitar is Scorpions founder Rudolf Schenker famous for playing, with a signature model in his name?

Flying V guitars became a trademark of both Schenker brothers, and Gibson later built a signature model in Rudolf's name.

The Scorpions song The Zoo was inspired by a street the band had visited in which American city?

New York's 42nd Street, a place the band had heard called a zoo, came back to the singer when he first heard the song's riff.

At which German landmark did Scorpions play Wind of Change in November 1999, ten years after the Wall fell?

The Brandenburg Gate concert marked the anniversary to the day, and six years later German TV viewers voted the ballad the song of the century.

Which music magazine hailed Scorpions as heroes of heavy metal during the band's mid-1980s peak?

Rolling Stone used the label as Love at First Sting went double platinum in America within months of its release.

In which capital did Scorpions record a 2013 unplugged album at an open-air theatre on Mount Lycabettus?

Athens was chosen to repay the loyalty of Greek fans, and the hillside venue made it the first open-air show in the acoustic series' history.

Which 1983 California event, funded by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, had Scorpions play on its Heavy Metal Day?

The US Festival put Scorpions in front of a crowd reported at more than 375,000 near San Bernardino over Memorial Day weekend.

Which magazine named the bubblegum cover of the Scorpions album Lovedrive the best album sleeve of 1979?

Playboy's praise did not stop the American label swapping the picture for a plain blue scorpion on a black background.

A 1999 Scorpions video from the album Eye II Eye featured a look-alike of which White House scandal figure?

Monica Lewinsky's double did little for the single, taken from an album whose techno and pop touches the band's fans rejected.

Which guitarist replaced Michael Schenker in Scorpions in 1973, then quit in 1978 to form Electric Sun?

Uli Jon Roth disliked the commercial turn the band was taking; he later designed his own Sky Guitar and wrote symphonies and concertos.

Which producer, nicknamed the Sixth Scorpion, made every Scorpions studio album from In Trance to Savage Amusement?

Dieter Dierks first saw the unknown band at a sports hall in Essen in 1973 and went on to sign them to his own company.

Which German-born fashion photographer shot the original cover photo for the Scorpions album Love at First Sting?

Helmut Newton's photograph was dropped by some American chains, which sold the album with the band portrait from its inner sleeve instead.

Which design studio, famous for Pink Floyd's album sleeves, created the covers of Lovedrive and Animal Magnetism?

Hipgnosis designer Storm Thorgerson admitted that the Animal Magnetism photo just felt rude somewhere, though nobody had worked out why.

Which Spanish opera tenor recorded a version of Wind of Change with the Scorpions' singer?

José Carreras is one of several unlikely partners for the frontman, who has also sung with an Israeli pop singer and the metal opera project Avantasia.

Which country is the birthplace of the bassist who joined Scorpions for the 2004 album Unbreakable?

Poland's Paweł Mąciwoda, born in Wieliczka, has since become the longest-serving bassist in the band's history.

Which American drummer, an original member of Kingdom Come, played for Scorpions from 1996 until 2016?

James Kottak was recommended by the very drummer he replaced, who had befriended him on the 1988 Monsters of Rock tour.

Which 1972 Scorpions debut album was also released as the soundtrack to a West German anti-drug film?

Lonesome Crow features a 16-year-old Michael Schenker on lead guitar, his only full album with the band his older brother founded.

Which hit songwriter co-produced Scorpions' 2007 concept album Humanity: Hour I, about a war between humans and robots?

Desmond Child also devised the storyline with a futurist, imagining a civil war that only reclaiming our humanity can end.

Which dog breed sits in front of a man on the cover of the 1980 Scorpions album Animal Magnetism?

The Doberman was the one part of the sleeve the band's bassist said he liked, and the album title itself came from the drummer.

Which drummer of the classic 1978–92 Scorpions lineup also wrote the words to Blackout and Make It Real?

Herman Rarebell trained in drums and piano at a music college in Saarbrücken, and left in the 1990s to set up a record label.

Which experimental German rock movement of the early 1970s is used to describe the first Scorpions albums?

Krautrock suits the long progressive suites of the first two records, a style the band dropped for tighter hard rock in 1975.

In 1975 Scorpions, billed as the Hunters, recorded German-language covers of two hits by which British glam band?

Sweet had scored with Fox on the Run and Action, which became Fuchs geh' voran and Wenn es richtig losgeht in the band's hands.

In 1966 the young Scorpions played which Hamburg venue, where the Beatles had held three residencies in 1962?

The Star-Club closed at the end of 1969, three years after the schoolboy band's visit, and its building burned down in 1987.

Before taking the name Scorpions, Rudolf Schenker's school band started out in 1965 billed as what?

The Nameless began in January 1965 with Merseybeat influences, and the guitarist and the drummer shared the singing.

Which producer, famed for his work with Kraftwerk, recorded the Scorpions' 1972 debut album in about a week?

Conny Plank is said to have finished the record in six or seven days, soon after the band had turned fully professional.

Which Austrian artist's self-portrait, bandaged with forks over his eyes, is the cover of the Scorpions album Blackout?

Gottfried Helnwein's screaming figure was acted out by the band's founder in the No One Like You video, and the painter later worked with Rammstein.

In 1973 Rudolf Schenker joined which other band, whose members then adopted the better-known Scorpions name?

Dawn Road supplied four of the six players in the merged group, among them the bassist who then stayed for nearly two decades.

Which instrumental from the 1979 album Lovedrive is one of only two Scorpions songs the band's singer plays guitar on?

Coast to Coast gives the frontman a rare guitar part, while the lead lines on the studio take were played by the founder's younger brother.

Which vocal-sounding guitar effect does the Scorpions' lead guitarist use on the Animal Magnetism track The Zoo?

The talk box colours a slow riff that the band's founder wrote on their first American tour in 1979.