SCORPIONS' MATTHIAS JABS Explains How Tour With MEGADETH Came About

MEGADETH will join SCORPIONS on a North American tour which will kick off on September 14 in Reading, Pennsylvania and conclude on October 15 in Tampa, Florida. The 16-date trek, dubbed the "Crazy World Tour", celebrates SCORPIONS' 1990 LP of the same name.

Asked by the "Lamont And Tonelli Show", which airs on the Bay Area rock station 107.7 The Bone, how the SCORPIONS-MEGADETH pairing came about, SCORPIONS guitarist Matthias Jabs said (hear audio below): "It was a suggestion by our agent, from New York, of course. We know MEGADETH well since a long time. In Europe, we played together certain festivals — in Portugal, in Spain and in other countries — years and years ago. And so they're nice guys, they make great music, and I think it's a great package."

Two of the SCORPIONS' best-known songs, "Winds Of Change" and "Send Me An Angel", both appear on "Crazy World".

"When our album 'Crazy World' was released back in '91, right at the end of the cold war, we toured around a world that was pretty crazy back then, but there was so much hope in the air for a more peaceful future," SCORPIONS singer Klaus Meine said. "Now, 26 years later, things are getting more crazy every other day. After all these years, 'Crazy World' is still a good motto for our upcoming world tour."

MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson told Roppongi Rocks in April that "it is really a cool bill to play with SCORPIONS. We have played festivals with them over the years and it's a really good fit musically between the two bands and our fans. Plus I think every metal fan loves a SCORPIONS song. Dave [Mustaine, MEGADETH mainman] and I have always been fans and they are one of Kiko's [Loureiro, MEGADETH guitarist] favorites, too. They are a real guitar player's kind of band. In fact, when Dave and I first met in 1983, we had a friend who was attending the school Musicians Institute in Hollywood and would come over to our place and jam early SCORPIONS songs. We always studied a lot of the European guitar players, because they had a different influence that worked well in metal…mostly classical inspirations. In a way, those jam sessions were inspiring in the development of the earliest MEGADETH compositions, especially the complexity in the solos and riffs. It was a really creative and innovative period that defined some of those earliest songs for 'Killing Is My Business…' and even 'Peace Sells…'. I think the tour is going to see a lot of us reliving some cool memories from over the years."