Legendary German guitarist Michael Schenker has invited keyboardist Derek Sherinian (pictured) to accompany him on a tour of Japan in January 2026, including a show at the legendary Budokan.

In 2021, Schenker tapped Sherinian to guest on his album “Immortal” album on the opening song “Drilled To Kill”. Schenker said of Sherinian: “Derek and myself trading solos, it sounds unexpected and beyond my expectation. Absolutely fantastic!” In 2022, Schenker returned the favor by guesting on Sherinian‘s “Vortex” album on the song “Die Kobra”. In 2024, Sherinian appeared on Schenker‘s “My Years With UFO” album.

Sherinian was named “Best Keyboardist” in Japan’s Burrn! magazine 2022 Readers’ Poll (an award he also received previously, in 2020). Derek was also voted “Greatest Keyboardist Of The 21st Century” and No. 8 “Greatest of All Time” by MusicRadar.com, and also was ranked No. 9 “Greatest Of All Time” in Prog magazine.

Sherinian has distinguished himself by his versatility, and aggressive “guitaristic” approach to his signature keyboard style. MusicRadar.com declared, “His virtuoso playing has seen him dubbed the keyboard-playing version of Eddie Van Halen.” David Coverdale claims that “Derek plays the Hammond organ like the son of Jon Lord.”

Starting his pro career with Alice Cooper in 1989 on the “Trashes The World” world tour, Sherinian proceeded to tour and record with KISS, DREAM THEATER, Yngwie Malmsteen, Billy Idol and WHITESNAKE. He has also released nine solo albums, and was the co-founder of PLANET X, SONS OF APOLLO and supergroup BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION (also featuring Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham).

Sherinian‘s latest solo album, “Vortex”, came out in July 2022 via InsideOut Music. Returning alongside Sherinian was legendary drummer Simon Phillips, who once again co-wrote and co-produced the album, as well as Tony Franklin on bass.

The follow-up to 2020’s “The Phoenix”, “Vortex” included eight tracks built on Derek‘s signature chameleonic sound that blends rock with elements of funk, prog, and jazz, which he started writing even before “The Phoenix” was finished.

When it came to guitars, Sherinian recruited a who’s who of great players, some of whom he had worked with before — Steve Stevens, Joe Bonamassa, Steve Lukather, Zakk Wylde, SONS OF APOLLO bandmate Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal — and a few new allies, in the form of Schenker, Mike Stern and Nuno Bettencourt.

According to Sherinian, Schenker‘s inclusion was a no-brainer.

“Michael Schenker has been one of my heroes for many years,” Derek said. “He asked me to play on his ‘Immortal’ album, and in return, he agreed to play on ‘Die Kobra’. I wanted to write a great song inspired by my favorite Schenker tracks. Zakk Wylde added some great additional parts to the song, and Tony Franklin and Simon Phillips sound great, as usual.”

In an interview with Noise11‘s Paul Cashmere, in 2024, Michael Schenker, who is currently promoting his upcoming album “My Years With UFO”, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Schenker‘s years with UFO, discussed some of his other yet-to-be-released recording projects. He said: “So I went into the studio in June ’23. I wrote all the songs. I mean, of course, the UFO album was already written, but the MSG, MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP album, and the next (Michael Schenker) album, I wrote the music. The second album was supposed to be an electric, like an instrumental album. And the reason was I wanted to make three albums in one go to let the people know what I’ve done in the last 50 years. So I did UFO, I did MSG and I did an acoustic or electric album and both instrumental music. So after we finished with ‘My Years With UFO’, I started putting down my guitars for the MSG album, which is gonna be called ‘Don’t Sell Your Soul’. And it’s with (former SKID ROW frontman) Erik Grönwall singing most of the songs, Robin McAuley singing, and Michael Voss, my co-producer, he’s also singing. And then I did the instrumental album. As I was putting down my guitar, my composition, the instrumental part, Michael Voss kept singing, and I went, like, ‘Michael, this sounds really good. I think we should turn this into a vocal album,’ and have, like I used to do with UFO, ‘Belladonna’ and ‘Love To Love’, all of these songs used to be instrumental songs. And then they turned into vocal songs. And so we invited Herman Rarebell from the SCORPIONS, ex-drummer. And so this album is like now one of my favorite albums. It turned into this amazing album. Somebody had the idea to tune it to a 432 (Hz) instead of 440 (Hz), which is the same tuning as ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, PINK FLOYD. And we added this, we added that, and it was like building a house. All of a sudden, I was shocked what came out of it. And people will be shocked when they hear this album because they will not believe what they’re hearing. And it’s called ‘Freedom Of Expression’.”