Biography
Klaus Meine, long the lead singer of the German heavy metal group the Scorpions, entered the world on May 25, 1948, in Hanover. Ahead of his military service he fronted the Mushrooms, and after returning home in 1970 he launched Copernicus together with teenage guitar sensation Michael Schenker. The next year the pair entered the Scorpions, an act Rudolf Schenker had started six years earlier, and the band delivered its Conrad Plank-produced first album Lonesome Crow in 1972. Ongoing personnel shifts beset the group in the years that followed, yet records such as 1974’s Fly to the Rainbow and 1976’s Virgin Killer steadily enlarged their European audience.
Animal Magnetism, released in 1980, appeared to set the Scorpions on course for American success until Meine developed nodes and a polyp on his vocal cords, prompting two major operations and six months of vocal retraining before he resumed performing. Despite speculation that he had been removed from the lineup, he returned to finish 1982’s Blackout, which spawned the hit “No One Like You.” Powered by the smash “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” the 1984 successor Love at First Sting attained double-platinum certification in the U.S. In 1988 the Scorpions became the first metal band to tour Russia, an experience that prompted the ballad “Wind of Change,” a Top Five pop hit in 1991. Although the arrival of grunge curtailed their American momentum, the group retained strong overseas popularity.
Animal Magnetism, released in 1980, appeared to set the Scorpions on course for American success until Meine developed nodes and a polyp on his vocal cords, prompting two major operations and six months of vocal retraining before he resumed performing. Despite speculation that he had been removed from the lineup, he returned to finish 1982’s Blackout, which spawned the hit “No One Like You.” Powered by the smash “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” the 1984 successor Love at First Sting attained double-platinum certification in the U.S. In 1988 the Scorpions became the first metal band to tour Russia, an experience that prompted the ballad “Wind of Change,” a Top Five pop hit in 1991. Although the arrival of grunge curtailed their American momentum, the group retained strong overseas popularity.