MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP Trivia — 28 Entries
28 sourced facts about MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP.
Trivia
The live recording at Nippon Budokan actually took place before the band's second studio album had come out. While Ron Nevison was still mixing MSG, the group had already left for Japan to record. And yet, as Schenker's official site tells it, the audience there somehow already knew the new songs and sang along to almost all of them.
That Budokan show was Michael Schenker's first visit to Japan. Fans there had been waiting for him since his Scorpions and UFO days, yet somehow he had never made it to the country until then. The venue held over ten thousand, according to his official site, and he recalls it being like the Beatles — the crowd completely wild with excitement.
Written in the Sand, from 1996, exists because of an offer from a Japanese record company. In 1995 they approached Schenker with a substantial deal for MSG. He saw a way to use it for UFO as well, and agreed on condition that it be split into two deals — one for MSG, one for UFO — and that he be given the rest of the world's rights on the MSG side. The company accepted. He used the first deal for UFO's Walk on Water; the second became Written in the Sand, produced by Ron Nevison.
In 2016 Michael Schenker Fest were offered the slot closing the second and final day of Japan's Loud Park festival. Schenker turned it down — he had learned that Scorpions were headlining the first day — and told the promoter to ask again the following year. He duly headlined in 2017, to a sold-out house. His official site describes the venue as an indoor arena holding thirty thousand people.
Resurrection, from 2018, reached the top ten of the German album chart and went to number one in Japan, according to Schenker's official site. Released under the Michael Schenker Fest name, it features four singers: Gary Barden, Robin McAuley, Graham Bonnet and Doogie White.
In January 2026 Michael Schenker played Nippon Budokan for the first time in thirty-eight years. Promoted by Udo Artists, the tour was billed MY YEARS WITH UFO and marked fifty years since his debut with UFO, with a set drawn from across his career. The dates: NHK Hall on 26 January, Nippon Budokan on the 28th, and Festival Hall in Osaka on the 29th.
For the 2026 Japan shows Michael Schenker took the stage in a particular outfit, and on 3 February — the tour over — he explained why on his official site: to recreate the way he looked in the 1970s, since he never made it to Japan in those days. His first visit, the Budokan recording, belonged to the decade after. The same post thanks the musicians who played the three shows, and Michael Amott for jamming with them.
Don't Sell Your Soul, released on 3 October 2025, was issued to mark the Budokan show of the following year. The Japanese label's page for it explains that MSG had reached its forty-fifth year and that the record carries the MSG name, drawing the line back to the Budokan live album of 1982. The singer is Erik Grönwall of Sweden, previously of H.E.A.T, who joined Skid Row in 2022.
The idea behind Michael Schenker Fest came from something simple. By Schenker's own account, having been at it for close to fifty years, he wanted to play the songs his audience likes with the singers who had sung the original versions. So he asked Gary Barden, Graham Bonnet and Robin McAuley — all of them people he had worked with in the 1980s in Michael Schenker Group or McAuley Schenker Group. All three said yes at once. It was, as he put it, as though they had been waiting for him to ask.
Michael Schenker Fest began in 2016 at the Sweden Rock Festival. Japanese shows followed that August, and in 2017 they headlined Loud Park 17.
It did not stay a live project. Schenker added Doogie White, from his own Temple of Rock, and completed an album — Resurrection — with four singers on it. The Japanese edition came out on 28 February 2018, ahead of the rest of the world.
In 2022 the name went back to Michael Schenker Group — but the singing was arranged differently. On that year's fiftieth-anniversary tour of the United States, Ronnie Romero took the American dates and Robin McAuley the British ones, split by territory. In America they went out as special guests on W.A.S.P.'s fortieth-anniversary tour.
When Schenker went into the studio in June 2023 he was not making one record. He was making three: an album re-recording songs from his time in UFO, a new Michael Schenker Group album, and an electric instrumental album. He has explained why — he wanted all three at once, so that people would understand what he had been doing for fifty years.
One of those three, the one under the MSG name, is Don't Sell Your Soul. By August 2024 Schenker had said that Erik Grönwall, formerly of Skid Row, would sing most of it, with Robin McAuley and the album's co-producer Michael Voss also singing on it.
The first of the three to appear was My Years With UFO, released on 20 September 2024 through earMUSIC. It re-records songs from his UFO years, and the list of people on it is extraordinary: Dee Snider and Joel Hoekstra on "Natural Thing"; Joey Tempest and Roger Glover on "Only You Can Rock Me"; Joe Lynn Turner and Carmine Appice on "Doctor, Doctor"; Slash and Erik Grönwall on "Mother Mary"; Biff Byford on "This Kids"; Axl Rose on "Love To Love"; Jeff Scott Soto and John Norum on "Lights Out."
The January 2026 Japanese dates marked fifty years since he made his debut by joining UFO. The Tokyo show at the Nippon Budokan sold out, and NHK Hall was announced as an additional date.
2026 did not end with January. On 24 October they play FULL METAL JAPAN 2026 at Pia Arena MM in Kanagawa, where the plan is a set of their own best material — a second Japanese visit in the same year as the sold-out Budokan show that January.
Nor is the festival all. On 28 July 2026 a headline show in Osaka was announced: 26 October at Zepp Namba. By Gekirock's account it is the only headline show by any band on the FULL METAL JAPAN 2026 bill.
The 2026 Japan visits do not end in January. After appearing at FULL METAL JAPAN 2026 on 24 October, MSG play a headline show of their own at Zepp Namba in Osaka on the 26th — the only band on that festival bill to do so, according to Gekirock. Together with the January dates it makes two visits in one year.
Instead of Loud Park he took an offer from his usual Japanese promoter for three shows — Osaka, Tokyo and Sapporo. When the 5,000 seats at Tokyo International Forum Hall A sold out immediately he decided to record and film the night. His site says it was like Budokan all over again. The result was released as Michael Schenker Fest: Live Tokyo International Forum Hall A.
The January 2026 Japan visit was originally to be two shows, Budokan and Osaka. Both sold out, and an extra Tokyo date was added to meet the demand: NHK Hall on 26 January. The addition was announced on Schenker's official site on 8 September 2025.
On 25 March 2026 his official site reported that readers of the Japanese magazine BURRN! had again voted Michael Schenker the number one guitarist, and that he had also placed in the top ten of the Group, Album, Songwriter and Shining Star categories. He sent a brief message of thanks, saying he hoped to see them again soon.
In the autumn of 2025, across September and October, an American tour went out behind My Years With UFO. The singer was not fixed here either: Erik Grönwall had sung the European dates, while for America R.D. Liapakis of Mystic Prophecy was brought in.
While the singers keep changing, the rest of the band does not. On the 2025 American tour it was Steve Mann on keyboards, Barend Courbois on bass and Bodo Schopf on drums — described by BARKS as the familiar line-up.
The same instrument is in his hands whenever he walks on: his trademark white Gibson Flying V. The 2025 live report notes him opening with "Natural Thing" holding it.
One change is noted by a writer who has watched him for a long time: talking on stage. As a BARKS live report has it, the first time Michael did any MC a few years ago it came as a genuine surprise — and by now it has become a fixture.
At the 2022 Los Angeles show Graham Bonnet — not in the band at that point — turned up in the audience at Michael's invitation. Backstage, according to the BARKS live report, Ronnie Romero went rather fan-like about him. A small scene showing that the relationships between the singers have persisted.
It was Axl Rose who sang on "Love To Love." In August 2024 BARKS reported Schenker describing him as a perfectionist. The Guns N' Roses frontman singing a UFO song says a good deal about what kind of project the album was.