HELLOWEEN - Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I 12" Vinyl LP Album

- French Release with Gatefold Album Cover

Kai Hansen feels less like a traditional frontman and more like a force that leans too far forward and drags the band with him. In the early Helloween years, guitars came first and vocals followed almost by necessity, from 1984 through the late ’80s when everything still felt fast, risky, and unfinished. When he left in 1989 it wasn’t drama, just impatience in motion. Gamma Ray didn’t slow anything down; it doubled the pressure, speed with a grin that still had teeth. These songs don’t stroll or explain themselves. They shove, they dare, and they expect you to keep up.

Michael Weikath is Hamburg-born and stubbornly melodic, and I mean that as a compliment and a warning. I’ve heard plenty of fast guitar players. He’s one of the few who sounds like he’s arguing for the hook. Not begging. Arguing.

Back when I was still judging bands by how quickly they could light up a cheap club PA, his trail starts in 1978 with Powerfool—kids with amps and ambition, basically, the classic “we’ll sleep later” setup. Then he slides into the early Helloween gravity in 1982, when things are still half-formed and hungry, before the band plants the official flag in 1984 and starts turning Hamburg sweat into something the whole world eventually copies.

What I like about Weikath is the discipline. The riffs don’t wander off to show off. They march. They steer the song, they herd the chorus into place, and they don’t apologize for being bright. Some metal people act allergic to joy—like a melody will ruin their leather. Weikath never got that memo, and thank God. His playing keeps saying: you can be fast, sharp, and still sing. And if that bothers you… that’s kind of the point.

Markus Grosskopf is Hamburg through and through, and I mean the practical kind of Hamburg: show up, plug in, make it work. Born in 1965 and active since 1978, he’s the founding Helloween bassist who makes speed feel organized—like somebody finally put the chaos on a timetable.

The part I always grin at is how unglamorous it starts. He’s a kid with a bass because the room needs one, and suddenly he’s bashing through punky stuff in a space that probably smells like cables and bad decisions. Then he goes looking for something heavier and lands in Kai Hansen’s band Second Hell, right before that early Helloween crew locks in with Michael Weikath and the name becomes official in 1984.

I’ve got a dumb little ritual: grey morning, coffee going cold, I throw on an early cut just to check whether the bottom end still feels like steel. It does. Grosskopf doesn’t “support” the guitars—he keeps them honest. And by 1990, when he’s also involved with Mr. Prooster, you can already tell he’s the type who won’t sit still just because the main band is rolling.

Ingo Schwichtenberg is the founding Helloween drummer I think of when people romanticize “the early days” but forget the work. Hamburg bred, active from 1978 to 1993, he played like the kit was a moving vehicle and he’d rather steer than sit politely in the back. That kick wasn’t decoration. It was a decision.

Before Helloween was official in 1984, he’d already been grinding through the local trenches with bands like Gentry and Iron Fist—those pre-fame rooms where the air is warm, the amps are cheap, and nobody cares about your “image,” only whether you can hold the song together when everything else gets loud. He learned the hard way. You can hear it.

From 1984 until 1993 he’s the engine behind Helloween’s first era, and I’ll be honest: I prefer that urgency to a lot of the later, shinier perfection. He hits like he means it, but he doesn’t smear the music—he snaps it into place. Fast, clean, a little dangerous. The kind of drumming that makes you stand closer to the speakers even though you know you shouldn’t.