In a recent interview with New Zealand’s The Metal Bar, Scorpions guitarist, Matthias Jabs has revealed that the band will release a new album in 2020. This will be the group’s first new release since 2015’s Return to Forever.

Listen to the interview in the player below.

“We’ve been writing some material before we went on tour before we went on tour this summer,” said Jabs. It’s always difficult to come up with stuff on tour. You get the inspiration, but to actually put it down, that’s a different story, when you travel every day.

“So we have songs, about ten, I guess, but we will have to do some more writing once this tour is over, and then prepare for the rehearsals and recordings right after our shows in New Zealand and a couple in Asia.”

Earlier this fall the Scorpions announced that they would be hitting the road with Whitesnake for a short co-headlining tour. The two bands will be heading to Australia and New Zealand to perform four massive shows together in February.

The Scorpions will then head to Indonesia for a show on March 1, 2020, with another show scheduled for March 4, 2020, in Singapore.

“So we will be back in early March,” explained Jabs, “And we know that we work with the producer Greg Fidelman, who is known for doing Metallica and Slipknot and others, and he’s a great guy. And he came to visit in our studio in Hannover, Germany already. So the plan is to record until the first of July, where we have a residency in Las Vegas for a whole month.

“And then, during that time, we can either do the final touch-ups or mix. And then the album should come out in the fall of 2020. And then, of course, we go on the road again.”

The guitarist also confirmed that the band is planning a July 2020 residency in Vegas, though no dates have been posted on their website as of yet.