Rudolph Schenker

Rudolph Schenker was born in Hannover, Germany on August 31, 1948. "When I was five or six years old, I heard music and couldn't get it out of my mind." With his mother playing piano and his father violin, the sounds of classical music filtered throughout the household. But when Rudolph heard Elvis Presley, Little Richard and later the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds and Pretty Things, rock and roll was the only genre of music on his mind.

Rudolph the older brother of Michael Schenker, who was also a founding member of the Scorpions before he left to join UFO and later form the Michael Schenker Group. "I formed the Scorpions with friends from Hannover. We played in some of the local clubs, and I remember my brother coming to see us with my father, and asking if he could play with us. He was just a little 10 year old guy playing with the Scorpions. We did a session with him and everybody said, 'this young guy can play so good!'" By the time the Scorpions recorded their first album Lonesome Crow in 1972 Michael was the lead guitarist in the band with his brother playing rhythm. Still, brotherhood was the only thing on Rudolph's mind. "Michael was playing a Les Paul and I was playing my Flying-V," he says. "But his guitar was broken so he borrowed mine. He said, 'Hey, this guitar is so good. Can we switch? You get the Les Paul and I get the Flying-V.' I said, 'why not?' He's my brother. He was playing lead, and I told him that if he liked my guitar so much, we'd change."

Rudolph is a Flying-V freak; he has 18 of them, including two originals. But Rudolph was very willing to make the sacrifice for the good of the band. "At the time," he maintains, "I didn't like to play with two Flying-Vs in the same band." Rudolph played a Les Paul until Michael departed the mothership for UFO. Then he went out and bought a new Flying-V. Rudolph considers his brother to be the king of heavy metal guitar, since Michael plays "very hard, precise and melodic. He puts together his feeling and technique. I also like Eddie Van Halen because he has created new harmonic things and is a very rhythmic guitar player. He has fantastic technique!" Heavy metal music is Rudolph's main love, although he hates the term. "Look back at our first album," he pleads, "we haven't changed our music much - maybe just a little bit. When we started, we played rock. Now they're saying we play heavy metal. The music is the same; the terminology has changed." And now there are two more Schenkers on the musical horizon. Rudolph's 26 year old sister Barbara plays synthesizer and keyboards in Viva, who have three albums released overseas. And Rudolph's son Marcel plays drums. Rudolph guesses that he doesn't play guitar because he doesn't want to be compared to his famous father and uncle.