The band was formed in 1979, following
Michael Schenker's departure from
UFO the previous year, in an attempt to have a band that better suited his style. He therefore decided to move to
London; a few weeks after his arrival in the city, he met
Gary Barden, vocalist of Fraser Nash, who along with bassist
Billy Sheehan and drummer
Denny Carmassi formed a new band, simply called Michael Schenker Group. The following year, the band recorded their second album,
MSG, which placed at No. 14 on the UK charts. During their promotional tour, they played at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan in Japan, where their first live album was recorded titled
One Night at Budokan. It was released in 1982 with great success in the UK where it was certified
silver after exceeding 60,000 copies sold. In October 1983, the band released
Built to Destroy, the first with keyboardist
Andy Nye and which also featured
Derek St. Holmes, best known at the time as
Ted Nugent's vocalist and rhythm guitarist. To promote it, they gave several concerts in the UK and later went on tour to other European countries as the opening band of
Iron Maiden. Their farewell concert was held on 18 December 1983 at the Dortmund festival, after which the band disbanded, and the guitarist founded the
McAuley Schenker Group. After disbanding the McAuley Schenker Group and briefly returning to UFO, Schenker reformed the Michael Schenker Group around 1995 with
Leif Sundin on vocals,
Barry Sparks on bass and
Shane Gaalaas on drums; this line-up recorded the album
Written in the Sand, which was released in the following year. It was followed in 1999 by
The Unforgiven, with
Kelly Keeling replacing Sundin and with John Onder replacing Sparks. ==Discography==