Michael Schenker recently talked about why he rejected Ozzy Osbourne‘s and Deep Purple‘s offers to work with them. The musician admitted that they are both regarding the same issue.
Former UFO and Scorpions guitarist Michael Schenker is having trouble staying original in an industry full of people copying and being influenced by each other. His opinions about working with bands and learning from them are unusual, no matter how iconic they might be.
In his recent interview, he admitted that there was an offer from the Prince of Darkness himself to work with him. But he refused him for the same reason he refused one of the greatest metal bands, Deep Purple. Turning away such an opportunity as working with the greatest names of heavy metal, Schenker explained his reasoning.
He was tempted to join Ozzy Osbourne, but he felt like he needed to protect himself from this situation. He linked his reason with not working with Deep Purple and leaving the Scorpions. Apparently, he didn’t want to copy their work for the live shows as he is too much of an original personality to do that.
Schenker’s statement follows:
“That is not how it works. First of all, when Ozzy’s offer came up, I almost fell for it, but I had to, from that moment on, figure out how to protect myself from being tempted and not end up doing something that I shouldn’t be doing, which I would regret doing later. So I came up with this thing, like Michael, why did you leave Europe or leave the Scorpions?
For the same reasons, you should not join Ozzy Osbourne, Motorhead or Deep Purple or Ian Hunter, or any of those people who asked me. For the same reason, because I would have to copy all of the stuff for live shows, they had done before. I hate copying, it would not be Michael Schenker expressing himself, and it would just not make any sense to what my mission is.”
You can watch the full interview below.
