The story began somewhere between 1976 and 1978, drummer wannabe called Kai Michael Hansen founded a band called Gentry, with Frank (vocals), Kai Hansen (guitars), Peter “Piet” Sielck (guitars), Christian (bass) and Johannes (drums). Though the band didn’t reach major success but in 1978, by the time they were about to play at contest, they didn’t have a bass player and drummer. The band was always about Sielck and Hansen. So they just borrowed members from other bands. And when the contest was on, it’s Piet’s mother came there with lots of potato chips. They gave them to people in exchange for votes and they all voted for them and they won. Gentry won the first prize on a local rock festival.
Somewhere between 1978 and 1980, Gentry was left without vocalist, bassist and drummer. Hansen and Sielck were searching for replacements. They just wanted to have something powerful and heavy. The change was simple. After they won the contest they soon found a new bassist and drummer, Ingo Schwitchenberg but had to fire the bassist very quickly because he didn’t understand their music, he wanted something more funky. So they decided that Gentry had run its course and changed the name to Second Hell. In 1980, they had an audition for bassist, and the news came to Markus Großkopf from punk-band called Traumschiss.
“Yeah, yeah, there was a punk band. You know, I come from the punk scene, I started with bands like Sex Pistols and the Ramones. There was a band called Traumschiss (unsure about the spelling – ed.) in Germany that I played with for two or three years before I joined all those guys in the band that became Helloween later on. That was at an audition for a bass player that they did. I met a guy who told me they were looking for a bass player and I just said, “Well, you got one! There’s one standing right in front of you!” He gave me the address, I called them up and… well, and I’ve been in since then. What a lucky day! Imagine I could have gone somewhere else on that day!” Then a short time later Marcus on bass, while Piet took the vocals. They played several songs that later wound up on Helloween and Gamma Ray albums. They already had “Metal Invaders”, the first song that Helloween ever recorded. It was the song that started it all. They also played “Phantoms Of Death” and “Gorgar”. And, there was also the song called like the band “Second Hell”. It later became “Heading For Tomorrow” of Gamma Ray. “Second Hell” was that long, about 10 minutes. It had the same melody, almost the same arrangement and riff as the song “Heading For Tomorrow”. But the lyrics were different.
Songs from this era include “Murderer” (1979), “Phantoms Of Death”, “Second Hell”, “Iron Savior”, “Gorgar”, “Metal Invaders” (1980), “Save Us” (1982), and “Victim Of Fate” (1982). Michael Weikath of Powerfool entered (bringing with him, among other things, an early version of “How Many Tears” called “Sea Of Fears” from 1982), and the band changed its name. In 1983, Piet left for America for a year to study sound engineering. He though they’d played around for two years and nothing happened. It was very frustrating for Piet and finally he gave it all up. At that time there was no really professional scene in Germany although he worked for two years in a studio as a recording engineer. So he decided to go to Los Angeles because the whole rock music scene was concentrated there. But when he came he found out that he knew more than people there. So he spent about nine months in L.A. doing surfing and mostly having the fun of life. Then he returned to Germany and started working in “Karo Studios” with Kalle Trapp.
He gave all the rights to Kai and he was free to do whatever he wanted with those songs. The way they were played on Walls Of Jericho is the same way they were played in the days of Second Hell.
“Everything split up and everybody was trying to find some ground for themselves in different ways. I knew Weiki from other bands, I played with him in a different band with some other guys, then I came back to Kai and we played together with Weiki and they got to know each other. And then we decided to get Weiki in the band, because Piet wouldn’t go on with what we were doing. We have had him in the band as long as we are called Helloween.” – Markus Großkopf -
When they played in a small club in Hamburg, a club for amateur and semi professional musicians that had equipment and helped them get gigs. So they eventually met each other there at a show one time so Hansen was there with Markus and Ingo under the name Ironfist. Weikath found the band impressive because it was some of the heaviest stuff he had ever heard and sometimes it was so badass and they played “Gorgar” in a different version because it was so badass sounding at that time and just so aggressive and such. Eventually they got into contact and Weikath asked Hansen if he would like to team up with him and his band at the time called Powerfool because the keyboardist went away and Weikath was sick of trying shit with keyboardists since they wanted mostly to do nothing but jazz and funk but no hard rock. Weikath thought that he could have another guitarist and do it well like Accept or a band like that like a twin guitar attack team. Hansen took the offer to join the band, they played for a while at the band but they didn’t suit with the others. So they both left the band and found Ingo and Markus after half a year.
In the end of 1983 they were together and we had written songs like “Metal Invaders”.
Helloween (1986)
It all started from there and Ingo then was watching that movie HALLOWEEN and they could not think of any other name because they have been around as other names and they did not think Ironfist or any other name was good enough to start their career off with. They wanted something racey and fast and that looked and sounded good.
Then Hansen and Weikath had the idea of changing the “a” into an “e” because it was sounding more like hell and it was different. For Halloween, you of course use pumpkins and the “o” was perfect to put as a pumpkin. They started scribbling logos and Weikath and Hansen both at the same time came up with the “o” as a pumpkin in the middle.
Helloween officially became Helloween in 1984.
They met Limb Scnoor (their first manager, now manager of Angra, Heaven’s Gate) who had contact with Running Wild who were at Noise and so they made it! At the beginning Limb did a good job to promote the band, as manager. He did a good job at promotion, organization and had contacts with several people. Of course that had its limit, because Helloween grew faster than he did in the society of managers.
In early 1984, Helloween undertook a small tour of Hamburg clubs. Songs from this era include “Murderer” (1979), parts of “Heading For Tomorrow” (!) (1980), “Iron Savior” (1980), “Gorgar” (1981), “Metal Invaders” (1981), “Save Us” (1982), and “Victim Of Fate” (1982). Weikath entered (bringing with him, among other things, “Guardians”, an early version of “How Many Tears” called “Sea Of Fears” from 1982).
The musics was the mixing of Weikath and Hansen. The songs Hansen wrote with Piet were more hard rock like UFO, but their sound became heavier when Judas Priest came, especially when Hansen started writing faster songs e.g. “Metal Invaders” that he wrote with Piet with a hard rock style, changed, like the homonymous song of Iron Saviour. Generally their sound was the mixing of Weikath who wanted them more melodically and Kai who wanted them with more speed and power. On this standard the songs were written, Hansen adopted melody and Weikath adopted speed… Until then there was nothing truly comparable, except Iron Maiden who had that combination but a bit slower.
March 1984 they recorded 2 songs for a NOISE compliation record called Death Metal. The first track was called “Oernst Of Life” which Weikath wrote, and the next was a heavier more sloppy and slower version of “Metal Invaders”. At first time, Noise didn’t believe to them. They entered the collection because the other band that supposed to enter had fallen apart or had some problems. However that’s how they decided at Noise for the EP (the homonymous) and after the response of the people, came the contract.
End of 1984, Helloween signed a contract with Noise and recorded their first album simply titled Helloween or also known as “The Mini LP” in March 1985.
Following The Mini LP, they recorded the first album Walls of Jericho with producer, Harris Johns. The songs were mixed between Hansen and Weikath. They used funny and unusual stuff to the materials such as for the intro to the classic Helloween song in “Starlight” with the intro “Happy Happy Halloween” which was quite funny. They thought that was perfect, just put it in for a little while and then switch to something different. Also they inserted the melody of classic composer Edvard Greig into the solo part of their old song “Gorgar”. The intriques started here. Hansen refused to add backing vocals in Walls of Jericho.
Even when Weikath insisted to try, but he didn’t want to because he belived that backing vocals made the song sweeter and softer. So, that was just a beginning. Hansen also requested a little less tours but the management wouldn’t allow it. That was such a burden for him. At November 18th, 1985 Walls Of Jericho was released.
Started from february until June 1986, Helloween toured Europe for the first time together with Grave Digger. They continued tour in North America for the first time together with Exodus in spring 1986. During European tours, Hansen got ill and they had a thought for a singer. Especially to play more complicated melodies at the guitar, because it was the period when they wanted to be heroes of the guitar.
They wanted to go for a lot more intricate stuff on the guitar and more technical. So it was like getting harder and harder for Hansen without having big experience on vocals. Hansen never had lessons or anything and he was not that fixed on the guitar yet so it was getting difficult. On the other hand they thought it would be really cool to have a real front man, a real singer. However Kai found it difficult to sing and play at the same time, so after the tour they searched for a new vocalist.
Summer 1986 Markus found Jorn Ellenbrock.
“It was in a holiday camp where I used to go. There was this guy playing keyboards and that was Jorn. When we needed a keyboard player I just called him and up and asked if he’d like to do a tour with us. You know, I actually called him up to say, “Oh Jorn, would you like to play some tunes with us?” And he said, “Oh yeah, maybe, let’s do a nice jam session. Can we hook up next week and play something together?” That’s what he was expecting. And I told him, “No, I’m talking about an American tour for more than three months!” He said, “Oh, alright, let me think about this.” And since then, he’s in.” – Markus Großkopf -
July 1986, they released a single EP titled “Judas”. Which contained the song Judas along with some live tracks.
Autumn 1986, Hansen tried to add Tyran Pace vocalist Ralf Scheepers but he refused. They heard Queensryche, the first album that they did, and they thought that would be cool to have a singer like that who could be very stable on the high soaring notes and have a lot of expression. It was Markus who came up with the name of Michael Kiske, a singer towards that direction and Kiske had the elements.
So, Markus got Kiske number and try to contact him. Kiske was going to this school nearby and Markus dropped in to hear him sing and the band Kiske had which was Ill-Prophecy. Also Markus gave him Walls Of Jericho and tried to convince him to join the band. Kiske did not take him seriously at first and never gave Markus an answer. Kiske felt that Walls Of Jericho album was a little too fast for him. At the same time, Weikath found Kiske number from a female co-worker that he used to work with in record store. She told him there was this guy named Michael Kiske who could sing like a young god. So then Weikath called up the number and Kiske was actually in the bathtub when Weikath called him. Kiske never called back because he did not really like the old Helloween.
The basic thing was that they do not know each other but they needed a good singer and Kiske was one. Kiske was sitting in the bathtub talking about it and Weikath invited him to have a look at their song material and if he would want to have him singing with the band. They used the picture vinyl version of “Judas” contains a funny medley of Christmas songs to invite Kiske into the band, to introduce Michael, just because it was the very first track he sang with Helloween. It took a long time for him to decide to do it and for the band to actually take him into the band because they were not quite sure if he would fit or not.
At first Hansen thought that his voice was too weak and it could have been quite heavier. That became a topic later on and each person took their own approach when writing songs for his voice. However in the end Kiske fit perfectly and he did a great job for the band and his voice turned out to be heavy enough for the band.
When Kiske joined the band, Weikath lead him in a particular direction. And it was:
“Hansen is an ass, thinks he’s the greatest, but actually, he sucks. At this time, I believed it more or less. But after a while I didn’t think of Kai as an ass at all. That is to say that Weiki plants his images absolutely perfectly – I didn’t see through it myself for years and ask myself today how it could have happened. Briefly: the separation was simply inevitable – it just didn’t work anymore, neither artistic nor on the human side. I just have very different ideals. “I always had a bit different thing in mind compared to Kai or Weiki – that brought a bit of variety to it.” – Michael Kiske -
So that was also another intrique.
