Scorpions Move Past Old Themes : Pop music: The German rockers’ newfound seriousness is a mark of maturity and a natural reaction to the times, says the band’s singer.

When they last played the United States three years ago, the Scorpions were enjoying the biggest success of their career with “Wind of Change,” a power ballad swelling with peaceful hopes and dreams for a world emerging from the Cold War’s lingering chill.

But as the veteran German heavy-metal band toured during 1991, singing about geopolitical shifts in Eastern Europe, a different wind was starting to blow fiercely from the Pacific Northwest. The dark, glowering grunge-alternative rock of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and their cohorts was sweeping out of Seattle, changing a hard-rock landscape that had long been dominated by old-school metal bands like the Scorpions, who typically served up celebrations of rock hedonism and strutting exclamations of prowess.

Now the grunge-led shift in rock’s jet stream has turned the weather a bit chillier than the Scorpions might like. Sparked by “Wind of Change,” the band’s 1990 album “Crazy World” sold 7 million copies worldwide, a career peak. But the current album, “Face the Heat,” quickly melted from the charts following its release last fall.

Klaus Meine, the Scorpions’ singer, has been at this since 1971. He is not panicking, nor does he see the dominance of grunge as a reason for his band to adopt new styles.

“I think all the established bands get hurt, more or less, when there’s a change,” said Meine, a small man with a large voice that will be wailing as the Scorpions play today at the Forum and Saturday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

“But the Scorpions never jumped on any trends,” Meine added in a recent phone interview. “We do what we do. We saw, in our career, many waves come and go.”

Meine, 45, doesn’t see alternative hard-rock as a threat: “I like some of the stuff because it’s really rough, and very close to the street. It’s just real people playing music. I like the new Alice in Chains album, and Stone Temple Pilots is one of my favorites. I’m sure the next wave, the next trend, will be around the corner. Whether you call it grunge, hard rock or heavy metal, the great bands will survive, like always.”

If the Scorpions have avoided jumping on a new bandwagon, Meine notes that neither do they want to stand still.

“After the huge success of ‘Wind of Change,’ we wanted to make an album that’s more on the hard side,” he said. “We wanted the rock fans to know that the Scorpions are still a rock band and were far away from retiring in ballad land.”

“Face the Heat” has a couple of good-time rockers on it, as well as another idealistic state-of-the-world anthem in “Under the Same Sun,” the band’s new single. But it also has several stormy numbers inspired by lyricist Meine’s troubled outlook on events in the post-Cold War world. In “Unholy Alliance,” a dismayed Meine watches the rise of neo-Nazism in his homeland.

“It’s just a minority of people, but we can’t deny it’s still there,” Meine said. “I think it’s important to do something about it. Especially as Germans, we can’t ever let this happen again. Other German artists write about it, and make really clear statements, which is very good.”

With new songs like “Unholy Alliance,” “Under the Same Sun,” “Alien Nation” and “Ship of Fools” all dealing with the precarious state of the world, the Scorpions have moved far from typical old-metal themes of revelry and us-against-the-adults teen-bonding. One could speculate that it’s a calculated way of keeping up with hard rock’s angry young vanguard, but Meine says that his band’s newfound seriousness is simply a mark of maturity and a natural reaction to the times.

“In the ‘70s, a lot of stuff was written out of fantasy land,” Meine said. “Scorpions are not a political band, but it’s the ‘90s and the Scorpions are not a nostalgic kind of band. You’re growing up as a person, you’re growing up as a songwriter. ‘Wind of Change’ proved to me that it’s important to write songs that matter, that come straight out of the heart. There’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘Let’s party,’ but when you’re past 40 you don’t want to make a fool out of yourself. You can’t just say, ‘Hey, let’s chase chicks around.’ ”