In a new interview with Sonic Perspectives, UFO’s Michael Schenker talked about his offer to James Hetfield and his friendship with Kirk Hammett.
When the interviewer mentioned that he didn’t have Kirk Hammett in his upcoming album ‘My Years With UFO,’ the rocker revealed if Hammett was ever approached for the album. “I can’t remember but I have done quite a few things with Kirk,” he explained.
“I’m not really sure how some of the stuff came about. I think James Hatfield actually was approached, I think that’s what happened. I think you have to ask you have to talk to Michael first,” he then said of James Hetfield.
The two bands are known to have inspired each other. In fact, the two are not just inspirations, but friends too.
“Peter Mensch told me when he began managing Metallica that I am Kirk Hammett’s favorite guitarist,” the guitarist said in a separate interview. “Kirk always wanted to connect with me, but he never really had the courage to. Eventually, they put something together on That Metal Show with Eddie Trunk and invited me to jam with Kirk without rehearsal and we did an interview together.”
“He is a fan and became a friend, and he plays in the biggest band in the world. I said, ‘Kirk, do you want to do this?’ And he said, ‘I’d love to.’ But he wanted to record it at his own studio in Hawaii, so his management paid for Michael Voss, our co-producer, to fly over there. We left the holes where we wanted him to play his parts. They sent me pictures. Kirk looked like a happy 19-year-old,” he added.
Similar to Schenker’s offer to Hetfield, Axl Rose offered the guitarist to sing for him as well.
“When he came in, he said, ‘Michael I just told Axl that I was going to do this and that I’m on my way to do this,’” Schenker explained in another interview. “He said, ‘I wanna sing a song too.’ And I said to Slash, ‘That would be fantastic. Ask Axl which song he would like to do.’ And so actually Axl ended up singing ‘Too Hot To Handle,’ ‘Only You Can Rock Me’ and ‘Love To Love.'”
The album has a cover inspired by UFO’s live album ‘Strangers in the Night.’ It includes fresh recordings of UFO tracks from Schenker’s time with the band.
The album also features Joe Lynn Turner from Rainbow, Whitesnake’s Joel Hoekstra, Europe’s Joey Tempest and John Norum, Carmine Appice, Jeff Scott Soto, Helloween’s Kai Hansen, and former Whitesnake guitarist Adrian Vandenberg.
