Scorpions started actively to work on a new album while touring in 2002. Drummer James Kottak said: "We would sit in the back of the tour bus late night, playing each other songs each of us had written, writing, listening to new stuff on the radio, and brainstorming what each one of us thought which direction should the new CD take". The band had the back lounge of a tour bus converted into a studio to write, rehearse and record the demos of the new songs. Guitarist Matthias Jabs said in that period that the new material would be classic rock. He explained: "We are classic rock, and most radio stations don't play that. But a lot of things are changing, so you never know."