SCORPIONS Have Recorded Two New Songs For Best-Of-Ballads Compilation

German hard rock veterans SCORPIONS have just finished recording a couple of new songs for a forthcoming compilation album that will collect the most popular of their ballad-type material.

"There's a best-of-ballads album coming out with Sony Music later this year, in the fall," SCORPIONS singer Klaus Meine said during yesterday's (Tuesday, September 12) SiriusXM Town Hall radio interview (see video below). "And they wanted us to come up with a couple of bonus tracks, and we went in the studio and everybody came up with great ideas. And before we came here [to do this interview], we just finished a recording session and listened to the first mixes and stuff, and it sounds pretty good. It's gonna be a 'best of ballads,' but with those new tracks. And it's gonna be a cool project."

Regarding how the idea for the collection came about, Klaus said: "Sony Music approached us and said, 'C'mon, guys. You have so many powerful songs. And we wanna put it together in some kind of compilation you guys never did before.' So that's coming out, I guess, in November."

Meine added that while the SCORPIONS are known in the U.S.A. mostly for their harder-edged material, like "Rock You Like A Hurricane", "in other parts of the world, SCORPIONS are very famous for the ballads, like 'Still Loving You' in France. And in Asia, they love the ballads, and in Russia, 'Wind Of Change' and all those songs are very powerful — equally as powerful as 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' here," he said. "So we talked about [doing] this. In different parts of the world, people like different types of music. So we can offer [a compilation that includes all the best of the softer songs]."

SCORPIONS' last release was 2015's "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 during his well-publicized his battle with alcoholism. He has since been replaced by MOTÖRHEAD drummer Mikkey Dee.

SCORPIONS and MEGADETH will join forces for a North American tour which will kick off on September 14 in Reading, Pennsylvania and conclude on October 15 in Tampa, Florida. The sixteen-date trek, dubbed the "Crazy World Tour", celebrates SCORPIONS' 1990 LP of the same name. Two of the SCORPIONS' best-known songs, "Winds Of Change" and "Send Me An Angel", both appear on "Crazy World".