SCORPIONS Guitarist's Injury Forces Postponement Of European Shows

German hard rock legends SCORPIONS have been forced to postpone the first three concerts on the European leg of their 2022 world tour due to an unspecified injury suffered by guitarist Matthias Jabs.

The concert promoter will announce in the next few days when the shows in Lisbon, Portugal (originally scheduled for May 10),Toulouse, France (May 13) and Lille, France (May 15) will take place.

The SCORPIONS tour will resume on May 17 at the Accor Arena in Paris, France.

SCORPIONS singer Klaus Meine said in a statement: "We very much regret having to disappoint our fans in the three cities that were next on the schedule of our world tour 2022 and ask everyone who had already secured tickets for their understanding."

Earlier this week, SCORPIONS announced that they will return to North America on the "Rock Believer" world tour with special guests WHITESNAKE on the David Coverdale-fronted outfit's farewell tour.

Fresh off of their sold-out "Sin City Nights" Las Vegas residency, SCORPIONS will kick off a two-month-long Live Nation-produced run of dates on August 14 in Toronto, with additional concerts in Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, and Denver, among others. In addition to WHITESNAKE, Swedish band THUNDERMOTHER will be joining the tour. Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, May 13 at 10 a.m. local time on Ticketmaster.com.

SCORPIONS' latest album, "Rock Believer", was released on February 25. The album was recorded primarily at Peppermint Park Studios in Hannover, Germany and was mixed at the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin, Germany with engineer Michael Ilbert, who has earned multiple Grammy nominations for his mix work with producer Max Martin on albums by Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.

SCORPIONS originally intended to record the new album in Los Angeles with producer Greg Fidelman, whose previous credits include SLIPKNOT and METALLICA. However, because of the pandemic, some of the initial work was done with Greg remotely, after which SCORPIONS opted to helm the recordings themselves with the help of their engineer Hans-Martin Buff.

SCORPIONS' new album marks their first release since 2017's "Born To Touch Your Feelings - Best Of Rock Ballads", which was an anthology of new and classic material.

Meine told Chile's Radio Futuro that "Rock Believer" is "dedicated to all the rock believers in the world. And we're very excited after all these years. We thought, when you think about all the touring we did the last 10 years, after the release of 'Return To Forever' in 2015, the time was right to go back into the studio, to write new material, to write new songs and check out if the creativity is still working. The big aim was, the goal was to make a rock album — to make an album with lots of attitude, power and focus on the good old times and really enjoy the music and have some fun with the music. And that feels really good."

SCORPIONS' previous full-length collection of new recordings was the aforementioned "Return To Forever", partially comprising songs the band had in the vault from the '80s. It was the final recorded appearance of SCORPIONS' longtime drummer James Kottak, who was dismissed from the band in September 2016. He has since been replaced by Mikkey Dee, formerly of MOTÖRHEAD.