SCORPIONS guitarist Rudoph Schenker is featured in a new interview with Guitar International's Robert Cavuoto. An excerpt follows:

Q: What was the band’s thinking behind redoing your classic hits on Comeblack, they truly do sound more powerful and sonically better?

A: "The idea was to re-record 10 or 15 Scorpions songs but we changed direction to put half Scorpions and half cover songs that inspired us to play music. We thought the combination of our classics and covers would not only be great for new fans but they could also be used on video games. The new songs are now up to par on technological standards and the digital advances add the punch to the songs that give them their heart and soul."

Q: You kept the integrity of the original versions and didn’t rework or tamper with them. Was it difficult to stay true to the original versions?

A: "I tell you there is a fine line when reworking songs. The fans are so into the old stuff and it’s a very dangerous situation when you change the structure too drastically. These are the songs we have played live for over 20 years and the fans like them the way they are. They go over well and we never felt that we had to change anything. There were a few things that we did adjusted because, Dieter Dierks our producer on the old LPs, wouldn’t let us fix since the record company was in a rush for them. In those instances, I felt as we gave the LP to the record company unfinished. So now that we had the time, we made a few of those adjustments.

"After playing those songs thousands of times live, we’ve modified things only slightly compared to the original version. We wanted to freshen them up. For example 'Blackout' and 'Rhythm Of Love' now sound fantastic. I never felt 'Rhythm Of Love' got to the point where I thought it was complete. After playing the songs so often, they are where we wanted the songs to be in the first place."

Read the full interview at this location.

Scorpions' new album, Comeblack, was released January 24th in North America.

Comeblack features the following tracklisting:

Re-recordings:

'Rhythm Of Love'

'No One Like You'

'The Zoo'

'Rock You Like A Hurricane'

'Blackout'

'Still Loving You'

'Wind Of Change'

Covers:

'Tainted Love' (SOFT CELL)

'Children Of The Revolution' (T. REX)

'Across The Universe' (THE BEATLES)

'Tin Soldier' (SMALL FACES)

'All Day And All Of The Night' (THE KINKS)

'Ruby Tuesday' (THE ROLLING STONES)