Scorpions India Tour: Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine and Matthias Jabs on the timelessness of ‘80s rock

From “Wind of Change” and the Berlin Wall to their 2026 Coming Home Tour, German band Scorpions talk about bringing six decades of hard rock to India

The Scorpions have lived long enough to hear their own music soundtrack the fall of the Berlin Wall, before settling into the texture of a newly unified Germany. The proximity to a turning point could have fixed them in place as a band tied to a single era, yet their trajectory keeps extending outward as they carry the same core sound for listeners who are drawn in from decades apart. But as they prepare to return to India after nearly 20 years, the question that frames the pioneering septagenarian German hard rockers hardly feels existential.

Formed in 1965 in Hanover by guitarist Rudolf Schenker, the Scorpions have outlived almost every peer they emerged alongside, moving from the psychedelic fringes of late-60s European rock into the polished classic hard rock that defined the 1980s, and in the process becoming one of Germany’s most globally successful musical exports, with a catalogue that includes hits like ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane,’ ‘Still Loving You,’ and the immortalised, ‘Wind of Change’.

Today, the band still revolves around Rudolf, 77, whose presence has anchored every phase of its evolution, alongside vocalist Klaus Meine, also 77, who joined in 1969 and became the group’s defining voice, and guitarist Matthias Jabs, 70, who entered in 1978 and helped shape the melodic, radio-facing sound that carried them into their commercial peak. Their return to India for their four-city Coming Home Tour, comes within the larger frame of a 60-year career that has stretched across vinyl, MTV, and streaming, each phase absorbed without fully displacing the one before.

(L-R) Rudolf Schenker, Mikkey Dee, Klaus Meine, Matthias Jabs and Paweł Mąciwoda of the Scorpions | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

“It’s almost 20 years ago,” Klaus exclaims. “We’re very excited to come back to figure out there might be a whole new generation of Scorpions fans out there.” He recalls their previous visit through flashes. “In Bangalore, during the soundcheck, there were millions of birds in the air,” he reminsces. “Shillong was also very special and now we have a chance to play for Indian fans across all these cities again.”

The band’s endurance has often been explained through platinum records, global tours and chart placements, yet Rudolf describes it as a kind of lived continuity. “To go on stage is exciting, and after all these years it remains exciting because the crowd, the kids are changing. We have three generations in front of us,” he explains, “and it’s great to see how these three generations come together and build one.”