Return to Forever is the eighteenth studio album by German rock band Scorpions. It was released in Europe on 20 February 2015. The album marks the final release of the band to feature the Unbreakable-era lineup with longtime drummer James Kottak leaving the band in September 2016, who was replaced by former Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee.
Background
In late 2011, the band started throwing ideas for further side projects. They had in mind two ideas. One was to release a film made from over 900 hours of footage from concerts different festivals, concert on Moscow's Red Square, concerts in Amazon rainforest, in front of Pyramids and Russian tour in 2002 and the other one was to release bonus track an album from unreleased songs, mainly from the period when their albums were released on vinyl which had possibility to fit only eight or nine songs.
In 2011 the band members started searching unreleased songs in their archives. They found many songs that were unreleased and some of the songs that they hadn't finished composing. These songs mainly had draft lyrics and there were also a couple of jams. Band members compiled a total of three CDs of unreleased songs and gave them to the producers Mikael Nord Andersson and Martin Hansen to choose the best ones for the album. the band entered the studio in early January and stayed in there until late March 2012. They reworked the unfinished songs from Blackout (1982), Love at First Sting (1984), Savage Amusement (1988) and Crazy World (1990) era. Those unfinished songs were recorded only as a simple demos, without a click track. The band members worked with Andersson and Hansen on total of 12 songs, with a plan on working on total of 16-18 songs and choosing the 12 best ones. They were adding new parts to the existing songs, especially the new set of lyrics in almost every song. The band recorded those songs in a modern way, but they managed to keep the feel, basic ideas, songwriting style and the arrangements as much as possible from the period when those songs were written. Songs "Rock 'n' Roll Band" and "Dancing with the Moonlight" were recorded during those sessions. Later, band paused the project because they didn't have enough time to finished it due to the rigorous touring schedule. In 2014 band had 12 songs prepared for the project with plan of releasing around 15 songs from the seventies and the eighties.
In 2010, the Scorpions announced their farewell tour. Before they retire, they wanted to release a bonus track album from leftovers from seventies and eighties just for the fans. After playing the final show in Munich in December, 2012, band planned to take a break and go on vacation. In January, 2013, MTV contacted the band and asked if they are interested in doing the MTV Unplugged album. They agreed on doing that project and turned out to be successful. That whole thing pushed back the bonus track project. As soon as they have finished the MTV Unplugged project, band immediately went back to studio to work on bonus track project. Band was listening the recordings they have already prepared for the project. They were happy with the result and Rudolf Schenker said that he has a tape with some songs that they could also use for this project. While searching for the tape, Schenker found an old ledger in which his mother enumerated the loans that his father provided to him, so he could buy all the equipment and establish the band. He looked into the book and it said: "September, 1965". He went back to the studio and told the band what he found and their manager said that it would be great idea to celebrate 50th Anniversary since they are the only German band who is 50 years in music and one of the few in the world along with The Rolling Stones, Status Quo, The Who, Beach Boys and Pink Floyd. Manager suggested to the band that they contact the promoters and see if they are interested in band doing the 50th Anniversary Tour. Then Schenker suggested that if band is going to do a 50th Anniversary Tour, then band needs to release brand new studio album. So the band went again into the listening process of bonus track material that they have already prepare and see if they can improve something, like choruses and riffs. After that, they re-recorded the old stuff and started to write new songs with the producers Mikael Nord Andersson and Martin Hansen. The result was the album Return to Forever.