The Story Behind the Songs
This will be a collection of stories behind Helloween’s songs. Most of them taken from band member’s interviews and also some song interpretation by fans which is considered to be the closest interpretation. Also, the whole information from each song will be included as well.
Behind the change direction from Walls Of Jericho to Keepers:
In earlier days, the songs that Kai Hansen wrote with Piet Sielck were more hard rock like UFO, but their sound became heavier when Judas Priest came, especially when Kai listened to the “Exciter” he 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 (more about Iron Saviour at the end). Generally their sound was the mixing of Michael Weikath who wanted them more melodically and him who wanted them with more speed and power. On this standard the songs were written, Kai adopted melody and Weikath adopted speed…
Until then there was nothing truly comparable, except Iron Maiden who had that combination but a bit slower.
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). Later in 1983, Michael Weikath came with his old piece with SAS-band (1982), “Sea of Fears”, an early version of “How Many Tears”.
The collaborations result in songs like “Starlight” (Weikath/Hansen), “Cry for Freedom” (Weikath/Hansen), “Walls of Jericho” (Weikath/Hansen), “Metal Invaders” (Hansen/Weikath), “Gorgar” (Hansen/Weikath), and “Heavy Metal (Is the Law)” (Hansen/Weikath).
Kai stopped singing, especially when they started, he had no idea, nor technique, nothing just what came out of him, more screaming and yelling. At Helloween and Walls Of Jericho tours, Kai was ill, so 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. Back then that’s how it was… Looking, one day, Weikath came with Michael Kiske. At the beginning Kai couldn’t get used to Kiske voice because he was influenced by Geoff Tate. When they listened to the first LP of Queensryche the “Queen Of The Reich”, and they thought “Ah! there is a singer towards that direction” and Mike (Kiske) had the elements, the skills!
It was the production and the producers! Until then they were wild,… 1,2,3 go and then chaos! Then they worked with Tommy Hansen and Tommy Newton who “cleaned” Helloween. They were like wild horses who needed someone to tame them.
After all, they did the right thing at the right moment and with a little luck, because they did something that no one did before and it was like extreme metal without brutal vocals. It was heavy metal that you could sing easily, but it was also powerful and aggressive together.
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