Renowned rock journalist Greg Prato has set his sights on '80s hard rock band Scorpions as the subject of his most recent oral narrative. A master of the idiom, Prato has--as he has done with previous books on everything from grunge to Iron Maiden--assembled an extraordinary collection of interviews to shed light on this successful German band. Interviews include everyone from the Scorpions themselves--Michael Schenker, Herman Rarebell, Uli Jon Roth and Achim Kirschning--to Joe Satriani, Craig Goldy, Lita Ford, Paul Gilbert, KK Downing, and many others.

The book traces the history of the band from its origins dating back to 1965 through the Bridge the Gap album. Here is a partial excerpt of Uli Jon Roth talking about the recording of Fly to the Rainbow, the band's second album.

The whole affair was very brief - seven days in all. We only spent several days recording there in Munich - at this studio called Musicland, which was a famous studio at the time, frequented by a lot of big acts, like the Stones. And we mixed it there, but I personally was not happy with the mix. I thought the vocals were too low in the mix - because we had a sound engineer that favored having the vocals lower in the mix.

A terrific book on one of hard rock's best bands.