Classic Rock Revisited founder Jeb Wright recently caught up with SCORPIONS vocalist Klaus Meine to discuss the band's new album, Humanity - Hour 1. The following is an excerpt from the interview:

Jeb: Humanity I shows the Scorpions moving in a modern direction. Your last album, Unbreakable, had a classic Scorpions sound. There was even talk that you would do the new album with Dieter Dirks. But you changed direction and used Desmond Child.

Klaus: "You have to make a decision as to who will be the producer for the next album. Could it be someone like Dieter Dirks who would take us back all the way to the 80's or do you want to produce an album that presents the Scorpions in 2007? Desmond Child was on the top of our wish list. We met him last summer when we played a couple of shows in California. He was busy working with Meat Loaf but he was very excited about working with the Scorpions. He said to Rudolf [Schenker] and myself, 'These days I seem to be working with icons.' I looked at Rudolf and said, 'I didn’t think we were icons yet.'

When you work with a producer like Desmond then you open your arms and welcome him as a songwriter as well. We also collaborated with some of the other top writers in rock music. Desmond said to us, 'Let’s make an album that is more mature and will hopefully take your career to the next level.' It is not so much about writing songs about boys chasing girls or the other way around. We have done that and we still play those songs every night and it is still a lot of fun but he wanted the fans to take us seriously as artists. He suggested we make an album with a theme. He presented us with the idea of Humanity Hour I and we all liked it. In a way he was taking us to where we finished off with "Wind of Change."

We wanted to come out with this album with a global message. We wanted to also make a rock album. Our first priority is to entertain the audience and hopefully come out with something very powerful. We shaped the songs in that way. We just wanted to move on and not look back. We did Blackout, Lovedrive and Love at First Sting. We wanted to do something that would hopefully impress and surprise everyone that the Scorpions, at this stage in our history, could come up with something this powerful."

Jeb: There are a lot of jaded, grouchy rock critics who say that bands go get Desmond when they can no longer do it themselves.

Klaus: "I know that people think that maybe we are running out of ideas. It is not so much that. The whole world of music has changed. We made this album in an old-fashioned way, in that sense. We worked in Los Angeles, in the studio, for four months, working every day. We could have gone into our basement and made a cheap record and put it out on the internet and hopefully we would have a hit. We made it the old-fashioned way to convince the fans, and the new generation of fans who may be listening to our music for the first time, that this is very powerful music. We put everything into this.

We wrote a few hits and we know what we are doing. Of course we can do it all ourselves. We know what to do and we are definitely not running out of ideas. We are touring all over the world and that is still the biggest source of inspiration. But to make something that is outstanding and amazing you have to have a good team around you and you have to open up. Desmond has worked with artists that we really respect like Aerosmith and he really knows what he is doing. He lives for his passion and his music. Desmond is a guy that you can trust if you want to go somewhere else and you are ready to learn another lesson in the new chapter of this band."

Go to this location for the complete interview.