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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. (July 2009) |
| Matthias Jabs | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | October 25, 1955 Hannover, Federal Republic of Germany |
| Genres | Heavy metal, hard rock |
| Occupations | Musician, songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Labels | RCA, Mercury, New Door |
| Associated acts | Scorpions |
| Notable instruments | |
| Fender Stratocaster, Gibson Explorer Dommenget Mastercaster Signature model Dommenget "Universe" Explorer, Cort Garage |
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Matthias Jabs (born October 25, 1955) is a German guitarist and songwriter. He is one of the guitar players for the heavy metal band Scorpions.
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Career [edit]
Before joining the Scorpions, Jabs played for the bands Lady, Fargo and Deadlock. Jabs was hired to join the Scorpions upon the departure of guitarist Ulrich Roth in August 1978. Jabs was discovered by Francis Buchholz, who helped him learn mathematics.[1] However Michael Schenker, younger brother of Scorpions rhythm guitarist/songwriter Rudolf Schenker had made the decision to leave his own band UFO, and expressed interest at re-joining the Scorpions as lead guitarist. Michael Schenker had already been a member of the Scorpions and left the band after the recording of their first album Lonesome Crow in 1972. As a result, Jabs was dismissed very shortly after joining the band.
However, Michael Schenker proved to be very unreliable during this time period and would frequently be absent from the band's live shows. This caused the Scorpions to contact Jabs at the last minute to fill in for Michael. After too many absences, Michael Schenker left and Jabs was permanently reinstated as lead guitarist for the Scorpions, which he has been ever since. This is why the Scorpions' 1979 album Lovedrive featured guitar tracks recorded by both Jabs and Michael Schenker. Jabs' playing style was a large part of Lovedrive's fresher, newer, heavier sound. This "Van Halen-like"[2] sound would become the band's signature as it would propel them into superstardom in the 1980s. In the year 2000, he was awarded the city of Hanover plaque.
Equipment [edit]
During the 1980s, he had a 1963-64 black Fender Stratocaster, called his "trouble guitar". It had had a Floyd Rose floating bridge and a Bill Lawrence L90 pickup. The guitar was featured on many tracks that needed a tremolo, including "Blackout". A copy of this guitar (with a black Gibson humbucker) is seen on the 'Make a Difference Foundation' video filmed in Russia. This event had other guests including Ozzy Osbourne and Gorky Park.
Jabs favours Gibson Explorer guitars, he even designed a model for them, called the Explorer 90 (due to the body being 90% the size of a regular Explorer) in the late 1980s. He also has a signature Fender Stratocaster dubbed the "Jabocaster". Nowadays, Jabs and the rest of the Scorpions play the German-made Dommenget brand of guitars. All of the band's signature models are made by them. His most recent signature guitar is his "Mastercaster" which was used mostly on stage and on their Humanity - Hour 1 album. Jabs is also notable for using a Talk box on some songs (such as "The Zoo" on Animal Magnetism, "To Be No. 1" on Eye II Eye, "Money and Fame" (Crazy World), "Can You Feel It" (Unbreakable), "Media Overkill" (Savage Amusement) ), and "Raised on Rock" (Sting in the Tail).
Jabs replaces the Marshall amplification logo on his amplifier cabinets with his own name, in the same font style as the Marshall logo. Besides Marshall, Matthias also uses Wizard cabinets, Hiwatt, ENGL, Fender Prosonic and Soldano amplifiers and cabinets, Kitty Hawk preamps, D'andrea picks, and Seymour Duncan JB pickups. Back in the 1980s, he used marshall JCM 800 2210 amplifiers which you can see on the World Wide Live DVD. Jabs also currently uses Ovation 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars, D'addario strings (which are tuned to E-flat and D), and talk boxes from Heil. In 2010, Cort Guitars collaborated with Matthias to develop his own signature line of electric guitars called the Garage 1 and Garage 2.
References [edit]
- ^ "Metal Rules". Metal Rules. 2007-01-15. Retrieved 2012-02-27.
- ^ Weber, Barry. "Lovedrive - Scorpions". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-27.
External links [edit]
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![Scorpions [Kojo No Tsuki ] Tokyo Tapes Live (1978)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mseffeak6tM/default.jpg)
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