‘I had to quit UFO – Phil Mogg hit me’

Or perhaps he wouldn’t have cared. As the group gained traction in Europe and the United States, Schenker’s pursuit of perfection became a demon that never slept. While others kept themselves awake with the help of refreshment in powdered form, the German retired to his hotel room to listen to sound-desk recordings of gigs that had ended barely an hour earlier. He didn’t much care what happened in front of the stage. He seemed oblivious, even, that the venues in which the band were playing were increasing in size. 

“I never looked at success,” he says. “I never looked at who was in the band, really. I didn’t look much at anything. I was just in the music.” Once again, that darned “personal development” was the dividing line between him and the rest of the group. “I noticed that Phil said, for instance, after the No Heavy Petting, the album [from 1976], ‘If this album doesn’t make it then I’m going to quit’. I thought, ‘Phil, what are you after?’… I was after my personal vision, which was to be an artist and to develop as a lead guitarist as far as I can.” 

Suffice it to say, this singularity distinguished himself from the rest of the band. According to Way’s memoir – A Fast Ride Out Of Here: Confessions Of Rock’s Most Dangerous Man – on one US tour, after discovering they could write off illegal drugs as “medical expenses”, UFO almost gave their accountant an embolism when he learned $20,000 had been spent on the stuff. For his part, Way was perhaps the archetypal rock and roll animal. As no less of a hell-raiser than Ozzy Osbourne once put it, “They call me a madman, but compared to Pete Way I’m out of my league. He’s f–cking mental.”

“Coke could be found everywhere [sic] in America and I got particularly adept at identifying drug dealers who would want to go out on the road with us,” Way wrote. “Upon arrival in a new town, the first thing I would do was establish who the guy was who could bring coke straight to our hotel. It would be a great tragedy if no one was about, but [it was] a rare occurrence.”