Faith & Spirit Quote by Michael Schenker

Schenker is drawing a bright moral line between creation and imitation, and he does it in the language of devotion. Calling music a “personal expression” sounds almost commonsense until he makes the leap: it “comes from God.” That move isn’t theology so much as a claim of authority. If the source is divine, then originality isn’t merely a stylistic preference; it’s a spiritual credential. In a rock culture built on riffs that get borrowed, bent, and passed along, Schenker is staking out a purist’s stance: the artist as conduit, not compiler.

The subtext is protective, even defensive. As a guitarist associated with virtuosity and a recognizable voice, he’s arguing for the value of the signature. “Comes from within” frames authenticity as inward truth rather than outward technique, which conveniently elevates feel and instinct over formal training or market-savvy craft. Then he sharpens the blade: “people who copy are not really artistic.” It’s an exclusionary definition that turns “copying” into a character flaw, not a phase, influence, or learning method.

Context matters: Schenker comes out of an era when rock musicians fought to be seen as artists, not entertainers or technicians. Invoking God is a way to lift guitar-based music into the realm of the sacred and to insist that the beautiful thing about artists is their origin story: not what they reproduce, but what they risk by putting something of themselves on the line.