List of Scorpions members

By 1967, Schenker, realizing that he could not sing and play the guitar at the same time, invited the 15-year-old Werner Hoyer to take the place of the vocalist.^[1]

At the end of that year, Hoyer and Vollmer left, and their places were soon taken by Bernd Hegner and Ulrich Worobiec.

In the spring of 1968, bass guitarist Achim Kirchhoff was replaced by Lothar Heimberg.

In late, 1969 Hegner and Worobiec also left. After that, the group settled on a lineup which included lead vocalist Klaus Meine, lead guitarist Michael Schenker (Rudolf's younger brother), bass-guitarist Lothar Heimberg and drummer Wolfgang Dziony. It is in this composition that they recorded their debut album Lonesome Crow, released in 1972.^[2][3]

Dziony left after the album's release, and was briefly replaced by Werner Löhr. In late 1972 the drummer was Israeli born American Joe Wyman and when he left in December, Dziony came back to complete a tour. For the January 1973 tour with Rory Gallagher they had Helmut Eisenhut on drums.^[4] When Eisenhut died and Heimberg left in the summer of 1973, they briefly played with the rhythm section Ewi (bass) and Hal Fingerhood (drums).

When Michael Schenker left to join UFO in July 1973,^[5] Rudolf Schenker and Meine briefly disbanded the group and joined Dawn Road, featuring guitarist Uli Jon Roth (who had already replaced Schenker at a festival show in June with Eisenhut back on drums^[6]), bass-guitarist Francis Buchholz, drummer Jürgen Rosenthal (later in Eloy) and keyboardist Achim Kirschning; the six-piece later opted to adopt the Scorpions moniker, and in 1974 released Fly to the Rainbow.^[7]

Rosenthal left after the recording of Fly to the Rainbow, being replaced first by Jürgen Fechter and later by Rudy Lenners, who performed on In Trance and Virgin Killer.^[8][9] In 1977, Lenners was replaced by Herman Rarebell, whose first recording with the band was Taken by Force.^[10] Roth left Scorpions the following year,^[11] which he has since explained was because he "began getting dissatisfied with the direction of the music" the band were making.^[12] Michael Schenker briefly returned to the band after being fired from UFO in late 1978, performing on four tracks for the album Lovedrive, although he was replaced the following year by Matthias Jabs who had joined around the same time.^[13] The Scorpions lineup of Meine, Rudolf Schenker, Jabs, Buchholz and Rarebell remained constant from 1978 and through the 1980s.^[2]

After 19 years with the band, bassist Francis Buchholz left Scorpions in 1992. He was replaced by Ralph Rieckermann later in the year.^[14] Drummer Rarebell also left four years later, claiming that he was unsatisfied with the band's changing musical direction, and the lack of songwriting input he was able to have in the band.^[15] He was replaced in 1996 by James Kottak,^[16] after Curt Cress performed on Pure Instinct.^[17]

Rieckermann left Scorpions in 2003, with Paweł Mąciwoda taking his place early the following year.^[18] Former Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee replaced Kottak in the band in September 2016.^[19]

• Scorpions official website