KNAC.com recently caught up with SCORPIONS vocalist Klaus Meine. The following is a brief excerpt from the interview:

KNAC.com: Why do you think the Scorpions have managed to walk the line between gut wrenching power ballads and explosive rockers as well as anyone?

Klaus: "Good question. We have always just been a band that has been about following our hearts, and playing to all the beautiful girls in the audience just feels great. It's an amazing feeling if you can deliver both to the crowd. It really changes the dynamic of the set when you can play a song like 'Still Loving You' and follow it with a rocker like 'Rock You Like A Hurricane'. There is really a connection with the audience that just blows me away. As for the ballads, you know, I love the rockers, but the ballads are the singer's songs. To be the person delivering the vocals, it's very beautiful. I know, maybe part of the combination back then was also due to Dieter Dierk's production—I think the songs that we play like are great counterpoints for each other. 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' is a great partner for a song like 'Winds Of Change' and the same can be said for 'Still Loving You' and 'No One Like You'."

KNAC.com: When you set out to write a new album, are you conscious of making sure there is equal attention paid to both the ballads and rockers, or you just write the songs without consciously considering the tempo or categorization?

Klaus: "Well, in the case of the new record, Humanity is the title track, and it is a straight-ahead rocker. More important for us than considering what kind of song we are writing is to just write a great song that gets airplay. When I go to see a show, I wanna hear the hits. We want to play music that people recognize. For example, we just played in San Paolo, Brazil to 30,000 fans who were singing along to the new material as well as the old. The reason for that is simple—the songs get airplay there."

KNAC.com: Why do you think the Scorpions have continued to make writing new material a priority when so many rock bands are content to simply perform their hits in casinos and state fairs across the U.S.?

Klaus: "Well, it's true--we could tour forever on classic songs, but the fact is that we still want to express ourselves in our music. If you think about it, our career has spanned a long period of time. It started with vinyl records years ago, and now people are downloading music on the World Wide Web. It just isn't the way it was back in the old days when fans would listen to an album from beginning to end and get a feeling for what the message was that the band was trying to send. It is a new time."

Go to this location for the complete interview.