UFO, an English rock band formed in London in 1968, became a transitional group between early hard rock and heavy metal, and the new wave of British heavy metal. The band featured former Scorpions guitarist and Michael Schenker Group (MSG) founder Michael Schenker, who was a member of UFO from 1973 to 1978 and rejoined the band sporadically between 1993 and 2003. He was an early member of the hard rock band Scorpions, a band co-founded by his elder brother Rudolf Schenker. In the mid-1970s, Schenker joined UFO, playing lead and rhythm guitar. He left the band in 1978 to found the Michael Schenker Group. He has rejoined UFO three times, producing an album each time. Schenker continues to perform and record. He has been called "a legendary figure in the history of metal guitar.
Over a career spanning
55 years, UFO have released 22 studio albums, 14 live recordings, 16 compilation albums and one album of cover songs. They achieved moderate success in the late 1970s and early 1980s with several albums and singles (including their 1979 live album Strangers in the Night) in the UK and US Top 40 charts, and have sold over 20 million records worldwide. Some of their best-known songs include "Doctor Doctor", "Rock Bottom", "Natural Thing", "Lights Out", "Too Hot to Handle" and "Only You Can Rock Me". UFO are considered one of the greatest classic hard rock acts, and often cited as one of the key influences on the 1980s and 1990s hard rock and heavy metal scenes. The band were ranked number 84 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock".
UFO have influenced a number of bands, such as:
Metallica
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Def Leppard
Dio
Scorpions
Guns N' Roses
Megadeth
Slayer
Testament
Anthrax
Carcass
Overkill
Iced Earth
Anvil
Saxon
The Offspring
Alice in Chains
Pearl Jam
Rage Against the Machine
The Smashing Pumpkins
Tesla
Dokken
Monster Magnet
Voivod
Bigelf
Babylon A.D.
Gun
Europe
The
waH, waH, waH, waH, waH! of the keyboards on
Lights Out reminds me a little of Jon Lord of Deep Purple. It doesn't show Lord's style and complexity, but has some of the energy he showed when he ignored the Moog synthesizer others were starting to play with, and began experimenting by driving the Hammond organ through Marshall amplifiers in an effort to match the attack and volume of Ritchie Blackmore's guitar. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it's reminiscent of someone else back then too, but I can't think of who.
Doctor Doctor - 1974.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-U5H6hmw6E Rock Bottom - 1974.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTE4NNqmnbw Natural Thing - 1976.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FSibVFqPjU Lights Out - 1977.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Gjj-mLpUk Too Hot to Handle - 1977.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkhGQZ-9fSI Only You Can Rock Me - 1978.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HH_aWDGu58 Doctor Doctor (Live) - 1979.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYzY-iO7Evs