The 80s noticed metallic splintering into a number of thrilling new subgenres: thrash, loss of life metallic, industrial. And in Germany, a former thrash band known as Helloween drew up the blueprint for energy metallic as we all know it with two albums that might briefly flip them into metallic’s Subsequent Large Issues: Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Half I and Half II .
“We knew we had provide you with one thing particular,” says Kai Hansen, Helloween’s founding guitarist. “They have been data which we knew would make an influence – take us to the following stage.”
The roots of Helloween dated again to 1979, when Hansen and fellow guitarist Piet Sielck shaped a band known as Ironfist of their native Hamburg. The road-up was accomplished by Ingo Schwichtenberg on drums and Markus Grosskopf on bass. After Sielck left to develop into a sound engineer, he changed by former Powerfool guitarist Michael Weikath.
By 1984, Ironfist had modified their title to Helloween and bagged a spot on the misleadingly-titled compilation Demise Steel , launched through soon-to-become influential German label Noise Data. The 2 tracks they contributed, Oernst For Life and Steel Invaders , along with the next 12 months’s Helloween EP and Partitions Of Jericho album, established their sound – one thing Hansen describes as “Iron Maiden on velocity”.
Hansen had doubled up on vocal duties to that time, however he was feeling overstretched. He knew Helloween wanted one thing additional. “The guitar elements have been getting increasingly more demanding, and I actually had to focus on that a part of what I did for the band,” he says. “Making an attempt to carry out reside was getting robust for me, so it was determined that we would have liked to usher in one other singer.”
After an in depth search, 18-year-old powerhouse vocalist Michael Kiske – previously of German band Sick Prophecy– was drafted in, although Hansen had his doubts at first. “What he did appeared too delicate for Helloween,” the guitarist admits. “My vocals have been rougher. Extra heavy metallic. And I simply didn’t see Michael becoming in. However slowly he received me over. I got here to know what he might give to this band.”
Helloween in 1987: (from left) Michael Kiske, Ingo Schwitzenberg, Kai Hensen, Michael Weikath, Markus Grosskopf (Picture credit score: Paul Natkin/Getty Photographs)
Kiske’s arrival cemented what would develop into the traditional Helloween line-up. Hansen and Weikath, the band’s chief songwriters, had amassed a hefty stash of songs. Invigorated, they cooked up a daring plan for the following album.
“We wished to do a double,” says Hansen. “Severely, we had the songs and the idea in place. No trendy metallic band had ever achieved a double studio document earlier than, and we desperately wished to be the primary. However our label, Noise, have been utterly towards it. We fought them actually laborious, and tried to influence everybody what a fantastic thought it was. However ultimately, we misplaced. Such a disgrace, as I felt the challenge misplaced one thing.”
As an alternative, the band and the label elected to launch two separate albums a 12 months aside. The unique plan was to combine up Hansen and Weikath’s songs throughout the 2 albums.
“However then it was urged that the primary album ought to characteristic largely my stuff with Michael’s songs dominating the second,” says Hansen. “The explanation was that my type was extra alongside the traces of the traditional Helloween method – very a lot rooted in our previous – whereas Michael had a barely extra comedian method to his songs. I suppose these pointed to the place the band have been heading.”
The brand new songs that they had written had just about jettisoned the thrash leanings of Partitions Of Jericho . Impressed by the likes of Queensyche, the band have been aiming for one thing extra formidable and sophisticated, embodied by the dual 13-minute epics Halloween and Keeper Of The Seven Keys , which ended up because the respective centrepieces of the Half I and Half II albums.
“We have been eager to ensure individuals realised there was a conceptual ingredient to the albums,” says Hansen. “It wasn’t as if we’d provide you with a narrative first after which tried to slot in all the songs. We simply observed that a number of the songs Michael and I had written individually – particularly Keeper Of The Seven Keys and Halloween – had a recurring theme. It was one in every of good and evil, heaven and hell, god and the satan, all battling it out. The Seven Keys have been the best way wherein you would lock up the evil on the planet.”
If the idea was just a little clichéd, the music was something however. Songs akin to I’m Alive , Future World , Eagle Fly Free and I Need Out married the exhilarating vitality of thrash to the grandiose energy and epic melody of trad metallic. Each albums have been recorded at Horus Sound Studios in Helloween’s hometown of Hamburg, although their methodology was uncommon.
“We had two producers working with us, Tommy Newton and Tommy Hansen,” explains Hansen. “I obtained on properly with Newton, whereas Michael appeared to forge a pure alliance with Hansen. Newton and I labored within the studio in the course of the day. Michael obtained up about 10pm and labored by the night time. So we successfully had two utterly separate manufacturing groups on the data. But it surely turned out to be helpful. A lot of the songs on the primary album have been mine, so I took command of them and Michael simply added touches right here and there. And the roles have been reversed for the following one.”
The Hansen-led Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Half I was launched in Might 1987 to essential acclaim. Helloween have been being held up because the band to guide metallic into a brand new period. Half II , that includes extra of Michael Weikath’s materials, adopted in August 1988 to an equally rapturous reception.
“It was apparent that, with me writing the vast majority of the primary document, that the type can be extra classical Helloween,” says Hansen. “Michael had the larger position on Half II , so what we obtained was an album with a number of overdubs and keyboards – very totally different. It’s not that I don’t really feel there’s high quality within the songs, however once you take heed to [the Weikath-penned, Frankenstein -inspired single] Dr. Stein … properly, it’s simply foolish.”
Nonetheless, the one-two of the Keeper… albums had positioned Helloween because the heirs to Scorpions and Settle for because the kings of German metallic. Their ascent was rubber-stamped in August 1988, after they appeared on the invoice of that 12 months’s Monsters Of Rock pageant at Fortress Donington, alongside Weapons N’ Roses, Megadeth, David Lee Roth, Kiss and headliners Iron Maiden. It was the most important present they’d ever performed – the official capability was round 100,000, however estimates recommend there have been as many as 120,000 individuals there (sadly, two followers have been killed within the crush as the gang surged throughout Weapons N’ Roses early afternoon set).
(Picture credit score: Bernd Muller/Redferns)
Hansen himself loved Helloween’s Donington look (“It stays among the many highlights of my profession”), however he wasn’t proud of the band’s trajectory – one thing compounded by a dispute with their label, Noise, over document and merch royalties.
“All the pieces was being pushed ahead too quick for my liking,” he says. “I wished to take issues steadier. However the administration and the document label wished to hurry forward. We simply completed a tour of America, I used to be exhausted they usually despatched us straight to Japan. I obtained hepatitis, and at that time I knew that I’d had sufficient of the entire thing. I needed to get out.”
The guitarist had made his emotions clear on the Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Half II monitor I Need Out . “I need out/To do issues alone,” sang Michael Kiske, giving life to Hansen’s discontent.
“Sure, I did write it about my frustrations with the band, that’s completely true,” he says. “It was the one means I assumed I might make my emotions recognized. I used to be turning into alienated and didn’t a lot take care of the route Helloween have been getting in.”
Hansen made good on his promise. In January 1989, the guitarist give up the Helloween. He would go on to type a brand new band, Gamma Ray, together with his place in his former outfit taken by guitarist Roland Grapow.
Helloween would proceed with out him. Their first post-Hansen album, 1991’s risible Pink Bubbles Go Ape , was an epic mis-step, and by the mid-90s, the line-up which recorded the Keeper Of The Seven Keys albums had splintered – Michael Kiske and drummer Ingo Schwitzenberg each left in 1993 (tragically, the latter dedicated suicide two years later, after battling extreme psychological well being points).
Michael Weikath and authentic bassist Markus Grosskopf continued with a reconfigured line-up that includes singer Andi Deris and a collection of guitarists and drummers, releasing a string of albums that, whereas first rate, by no means matched the 2 Keeper… data (one, 2005’s Keeper Of The Seven Keys: The Legacy , was supposed as a sequel to the originals). Hansen ploughed his personal furrow with the long-running Gamma Ray, plus Iron Savior and Unisonic, the latter of which discovered him reuniting with ex-Helloween singer Michael Kiske.
Then in 2016, the sudden occurred. After years of insisting a reunion would by no means occur, Hansen and Kiske joined forces with the Weikath-led band for an expanded Helloween line-up. A brand new album, merely titled Helloween and that includes each Michael Kiske and his personal alternative Andy Deris, was launched in 2021. At this time, Helloween’s place because the fathers of contemporary energy metallic is safe due to Keeper Of The Seven Keys Half I and II.
“They have been essential albums, not only for us, but in addition within the historical past of heavy metallic,” says Hansen. “I’m proud to have been concerned.”
Initially revealed in Steel Hammer 142. Up to date in Might 2024
