Matthias Jabs

Matthias Jabs 2014

Matthias Jabs (born October 25, 1955 in Hanover ) is a German guitarist and has been a member of the German hard rock band Scorpions since 1978 .

Career

Matthias Jabs spent several semesters studying law and started in 1969 with the guitar. In Hanover he was a member of the bands Fargo , Deadlock and Lady as a guitarist before joining the Scorpions as lead guitarist in 1978, taking over the difficult successor to the legendary guitarist Uli Jon Roth , who had a decisive influence on the style of the band in the 1970s . Shortly after joining, he recorded the album Lovedrive with the Scorpions . A little later, however, his career was over again in 1979. Michael Schenker , the brother of Scorpions founder Rudolf Schenker , left the English band UFO and was available again. Rudolf Schenker and the Scorpions gave him preference over Matthias Jabs and completed the tour for their album Lovedrive with him . Due to alcohol problems, Michael Schenker broke off the tour, and so Matthias Jabs got his second chance. He completed the rest of the tour and was finally accepted as a full member of the band. To this day he is a member of the Scorpions, has made a decisive contribution to the band's success through his guitar playing and has since played on all albums.

Composer and author

Matthias Jabs composed or co-composed some of the Scorpions songs. The first track Don't Make No Promises was released in 1980 on the Animal Magnetism album . His pieces Tease Me, Please Me , for which Klaus Meine wrote the lyrics and Money and Fame , for which he was also responsible for the lyrics with Herman Rarebell , appeared on the album Crazy World . On the album Eye II Eye he co-wrote the piece Mysterious , as well as the music for the piece To Be No.1 together with the producer Peter Wolf , and together with Rudolf Schenker he composed the song You are so dirty . On the album Unbreakable from 2004 he wrote the music for the title Deep and Dark and with Klaus Meine the lyrics. He wrote and composed the piece This Time from the album Unbreakable by himself. On the 2007 album Humanity - Hour I he is listed as a composer of several titles, We Were Born to Fly with Eric Bazilian and Marti Frederiksen, We Will Rise Again with James Michael, Desmond Child and Jason Paige , Love Is War with James Michael and The Cross with James Michael, Desmond Child and Marti Frederiksen. He also co-composed the piece Cold , which can only be heard on the DVD of the special edition of the album Humanity - Hour I. On the album Sting in the Tail of the Scorpions he is only listed as the text author (together with Klaus Meine and Eric Bazilian) of the title Slave Me . The 2013 album MTV Unplugged - in Athens features the new instrumental track Delicate Dance , composed by Jabs. He also composed the song Dancing in the Moonlight , which can be heard for the first time on the MTV Unplugged album. On Return to Forever he is compositionally represented with Dancing in the Moonlight (rock version) and When the Truth Is a Lie . Both songs are listed as bonus tracks on the extended versions of the album.

producer

Matthias Jabs worked as a producer with other artists, for example in 2001 with the former Touché member Martin Scholz and as a member and producer of the VW Sound Factory in 2002 with the band Brockmann .

Entrepreneurs and Developers

In March 2008 he opened a shop for guitars and accessories in Munich under the name MJGuitars and has been the managing director of MJGuitars GmbH since 2007 . Matthias Jabs has been one of the organizers of the Vintage Show at Musikmesse Frankfurt since 2010 . Matthias Jabs is an expert in the field of vintage guitars and works closely with the No. 1 Guitar Center Hamburg and the Guitar Center Hollywood together.

In 1980 Matthias Jabs played a key role in the development of the first fine-tuning tremolo ( Locking-Trem System ), the Rockinger Tru Tone Tremolo , the world for the Duesenberg company, which a little later was licensed through Kramer Guitars as Edward Van Halen tremolo (the EVH ) came onto the US market. The guitar company Fender dedicated a signature guitar to him in 1998 with the Jabocaster , which appeared in several variants. Jabs was the first German to play on specially built Fender guitars. At the end of the 1980s he developed the Explorer 90 model for Gibson (with the original body reduced to 90 percent). He also works with the Korean guitar company Cort Guitars and has co-developed several signature guitar models with this brand under the names Garage and Arena . Together with Boris Dommenget , Jabs has developed and designed their own guitar series with the Mastercaster , sells them in his shop and uses them in the studio and on stage. He also plays on other guitars made exclusively for him by Dommenget. Matthias Jabs designed and developed his own amplifier and sells it in several versions under the Mastertone amplifier brand he founded . These are built today by the German company Tube Thomson . Together with the Klotz company, he developed the Matthias Jabs Rockmaster Superior Signature guitar cable and the Matthias Jabs Rockmaster Superior Signature patch cable in 2003 .

He is the trademark owner of the titles Mastercaster , Mastertone and Fruxano (including his trademark MJ ). He is the patent holder of the Masterbucker Brigde & Neck (HBSC combination humbucker / single coil ) that he developed and which he uses in his Mastercaster guitars.

Matthias Jabs collects guitars and has one of the world's largest private collections of Candy Apple Red Fender guitars built before 1965. Matthias Jabs also owns, for example, a Gibson Les Paul from 1958 in the Sunburst version, which is considered the most wanted guitar and has an estimated value of 350,000 euros. In total there are about 400 guitars in his private possession.

Matthias Jabs also designs jewelry and accessories with his trademark MJ .

Others

After Matthias Jabs heard Jimi Hendrix with All along the Watchtower on the radio , he asked a classmate which instrument it was. This then offered him to learn the guitar with him. After only two classes, the two parted, and jabs learned to play the guitar self-taught . He often played classical pieces of music to practice .

In 2000, like Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker, he was awarded the Hanover city badge. In 1985 and 2000, like the rest of the band, he signed the Golden Book of the city of Hanover.

On June 20, 2000 he was awarded the Order of Merit on the ribbon of the Lower Saxony Order of Merit . In February 2015 he and Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine received the Lower Saxony State Prize for 2014.

In 2009 Matthias Jabs was the advertising medium and the "face" of the audio specialist Edifier in Germany. In 2011 he was a member of the jury of the John Lennon Talent Awards in Munich.

He lives in Bissendorf-Wietze near Hanover with his second wife, Beate, whom he married in church in 2004 in the Schlosshotel Münchhausen . He has a son with his first wife, Susanne.

In an interview with Welt Online in January 2013, Matthias Jabs described God as his personal hero. He counts the Bible among his favorite books . He often wears a cross around his neck that he created for his MJ jewelry collection. In an interview with the German music magazine Rock Hard , Jabs said in the February 2018 issue: “Of course it can't be that Adam and Eve were the first two people. Then we would all be incest products. In my opinion, this explanation and the one with the apple and the snake should not be taken literally, it all belongs more to the realm of fable . But otherwise I was brought up religiously and that's how I feel [...] I find the church very useful to create a certain balance in society, because otherwise there would only be chaos, but it is not my world. "

Matthias Jabs is involved in the Nordoff Robbins Foundation for music therapy and supports other humanitarian organizations.

Discography (studio and live albums)

• 1979: Lovedrive
• 1980: Animal Magnetism
• 1982: blackout
• 1984: Love at First Sting
• 1985: World Wide Live
• 1988: Savage Amusement
• 1990: Crazy World
• 1993: Face the Heat
• 1995: Live Bites
• 1996: Pure Instinct
• 1999: Eye II Eye
• 2000: Moment of Glory
• 2001: Acoustica
• 2004: Unbreakable
• 2007: Humanity - Hour I
• 2010: Sting in the Tail
• 2011: Comeblack
• 2013: MTV Unplugged - in Athens
• 2015: Return to Forever

literature

• Matthias Blazek: The Lower Saxony Band Compendium 1963-2003 - Data and facts from 100 rock groups from Lower Saxony . Adelheidsdorf 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-018947-0 , pp. 8-9

Web links

Commons : Matthias Jabs  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• official homepage
• www.mjguitars.de Online shop from Matthias Jabs

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated August 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ http://duesenberg.de/ueber-uns/historie.html
3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ www.trademarkia.com ( Memento of the original from December 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ An interview by Anne Backhaus: Style classics: Cell phone picture of Scorpions guitarist Jabs: "Very feminine curves". In: Spiegel Online . March 14, 2015, accessed June 9, 2018 . 
8. ↑ My house, my car, my guitar. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 17, 2010. Retrieved April 29, 2018 . 
9. ↑ www.haz.de .
10. ↑ http://www.haz.de/Hannover/Aus-der-Stadt/Uebersicht/Staatspreis-fuer-Chorleiterin-und-Scorpions
11. ↑ Scorpions guitarist jabs about God. (Not available online.) In: welt.de . Formerly in the original  
12. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from March 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
13. ↑ Rock Hard , No. 369, February 2018 (36th year): Matthias Jabs - Scorpions: Schwatzkasten Interview by Mandy Malon. Rock Hard Handels- und Verlags-GmbH, Dortmund. P. 16