The band entered the studio to write and record the new album, but the changes weren’t finished with yet. As the band had begun the new album process, Michael Schenker, original lead guitarist and brother of band leader Rudolph Schenker, had left the band UFO, with whom he had recorded five albums. Turning up at the studios at a loose end, he began sitting in, and before long he was even making contributions to the writing process, and eventually played lead guitar on several tracks as a contributing artist. While his contributions no doubt added to the eventual success of the album, his presence must have been a slightly disrupting one, if only for Jabs himself. Indeed, once the album was completed, the band decided to birng Michael back into the group, leaving Jabs out in the cold. All of this exacerbated when, within weeks of the tour starting to promote the album, Schenker quit the band again, and Scorpions had to go crawling back to Matthias Jabs and ask him to return to the group. It would not be a stretch to suggest that If Jabs had refused to rejoin after the way he had been treated, then the success the band enjoyed over the next decades may well have not occurred given his amazing influence on that over the next 45 years. Thankfully for all of us, he relented and returned to the band, giving the group the line up that created some of the best albums of the next 15 years, and helped to propel the Scorpions to greatness.
The album opens with the positive earnest lyrics of "Loving You Sunday Morning", fired along by the first involvement of Mathias Jabs lead guitar. Everything flows together wonderfully well to open the album in a great way. This is followed by the hard rocking and lyrically tongue-in-cheek relating of "Another Piece of Meat". This has been a fan favourite since its release, not only because of Klaus' wonderful vocal range, but the fast-paced rhythm pounding out the song, while returning prodigal son Michael Schenker blazes away over the top with his solo for the song, and Mathias throws in his lead licks throughout. It's a fast paced song that really clicks along, a real mood swinger.
"Always Somewhere" is a song that, by any other band on any other album, could be one of the straws that could contribute to breaking the camel's back. Following hard on the heels of such a raucous song, if this wasn't handled perfectly, it would have stopped the momentum of the album in its tracks. However, this is the Scorpions, and amazingly, it just seems to fit. Yes, I know that coming from me that seems incredible, but just occasionally I am able to go with the flow of such peculiar swings in mood and song genre. And it was always the case with this album. Each piece of the puzzle seems to fit at every section. There's no doubt that, if this type of track came up on a song shuffle, I would very possibly skip it to get to the next action song. but when listening to “Lovedrive” in its entirety, there's no way I can do it.
Perhaps my favourite part of the album follows this, and some may also feel this is an anomaly. The instrumental "Coast to Coast" is the song, and I simply love this piece of music. It is simple and 'basic', but what a terrific sound! The 2/4 drumming with the bass working alongside, allowing the guitars to do their things over the top of this. For me this has always been an uplifting track, a mood changer, in all of its simplicity but marked with its intricate guitar pieces. A winner. Rudolf Schenker, thank you.
Side Two of the album starts again with the heavier and raucous elements of "I Can't Get Enough". It was certainly enough in the old days to make you get up and turn the vinyl over. And then, such is the joyousness of this album, you can't even feel any enjoyment seeping away when you first notice the complete reggae-ness of "Is There Anybody There?" In fact, with the mood of the album, you move into and through the song as if it is an everyday event for an album based in the roots of 70's hard rock and heavy metal to have a song so flavoured by reggae on it. Klaus' amazing vocals are the star of the show. Crashing out of this is the upbeat return of that magical Scorpions heavy sound in the title track "Lovedrive", driven by that magnificent drum beat and heavy rhythm guitar riff flowing from Rudolf's guitar, and complemented by the leads of both Mathias and Michael. Awesome riffs, just brilliant. Just a great song.
The closing track "Holiday" returns to the quiet melodic half of the Scorpions sound, dominated in the first half by Klaus' amazing harmony vocals over the acoustic guitar, before the band comes in halfway through the song to bring out the fullness of the song and band. Again, reggae flavours this half of the song, though not as completely is it does in "Is There Anybody There?"
This is quite an amazing album, given the ebbs and flows of the music, or certainly the flow from the heavy side to the reflective side. And yet none of it sounds out of place, as can often be said of power metal bands albums of the late previous century and early this century. Scorpions is a band that has its two sides, and especially on “Lovedrive” they blend as a perfect mixture.
I had had a little bit of Scorpions stuff on cassette prior to 1987, provided by my heavy metal music dealer, which was mostly the “World Wide Live” album, and had always enjoyed it. I had then moved on to Uni, and started making regular trips to the store that really started off my vinyl collection, the second hand superstore in Wollongong called Illawarra Books and Records. On one of these early visits, I came across the vinyl copy of this album “Lovedrive”, the first Scorpions album I ever owned. And sure, the cover of the album does rope you in a little, but it was the prospect of actually experiencing a full album of this band that had me excited when I found this. There was also the excitement of discovering that Michael Schenker had contributed to the album as well, given that by this time I had already purchased an anthology of his songs of all of his bands from the very same store, as well a couple of his MSG albums. I can still remember the day I bought this clearly in my mind, and the rush to finish Uni for the day so I could get home, and then the first time I put it on my parents' stereo in the lounge room when I got it home. It has been a favourite ever since. All of those songs I knew from the live album, but also all of these new songs I had never heard before. And the studio versions of those songs I knew sounding bigger and better than those live versions. Maybe just because I knew it was Michael playing on them, but to me they were like an artwork here on this album. And I played this album until the needle went blunt, and I taped it onto cassette so I could listen to it in the car day after day. And I did.
Even listening to it again over the last few weeks, it is still just as fresh and awesome to me as it was when I first bought it. In fact, every time I listen to it, it reminds me of those days when I first found the album. At a time when I wasn’t particularly sure what the hell I was going to do with my life, this album at least was a comforting presence.
I love this era of the band, and I still love this album today. Choosing between this and “Love at First Sting” and “Blackout” would be a difficult thing to do if someone asked me to nominate my favourite, as all three are magnificent, but perhaps the fact that this has such a varied range of material that sews together almost seamlessly, and that it also has "Coast to Coast" on it, could be the swaying factor in my suggestion that this is my favourite of all Scorpions albums.
After three false starts, when I was going to finally get a chance to see the band live after 40 years, and all three falling through due to logistics and then band illness, I got the chance to see the band live a few years ago, and it was worth every moment. This album was the one that started me on the journey of love for this band, and it still remains as one of my all time favourites.
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