Intervista Helloween (Markus Großkopf)

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Hi Markus, how are you doing?

I’m pretty good, I’m fine, at least I’m awake.

Did you just wake up?

No, no, I did some sport already, I did some exercise already, I had breakfast and then after this we go to rehearse.

I’ve seen you guys at the end of 2017, the tour had just started, but you kept touring a lot for the whole 2018. This was a very intense tour with you playing 3 hours every night, how do you feel about it looking back now?

It’s been really, really great, nobody knew what was going on before we started, but from the rehearsal we did we could say, from the musical side it was working very, very well.
We saw that two singers can belong together very well, the whole band has been in a good shape, it’s really, really fun doing this and when you have this much fun doing three hours is very easy.
Of course it’s a challenge, but it worked very well, I liked it a lot, it was very powerful, there was a lot of energy coming from the audience, which was very, very inspiring and that was really, really great, I loved it.

You’re now about to release “United Alive”, how did you choose the city where to record the album? I remember seeing some cameras around in Goteborg, did you record different shows and chose the best one?

Yeah, we recorded a couple of shows with multiple cameras and then after the tour we had to check all that stuff, all that material.
Those shows you can see [in the DVD] were the most emotional ones, we felt that there is a lot of energy coming across from the band, and from the audience.
So, yeah, those shows were the ones we felt were the most emotional ones.

While in the studio you can record something as many times as you want until you get the best take, in a live you only have one shot, whatever you do is forever imprinted in the live recording. Did you feel nervous when you played the shows you recorded?

It’s a little different where you know there are a lot of cameras around, but at the end of the day it’s just a show like every other show, and still you feel a little bit nervous, but who cares?
It’s there and it’s working, somehow it’s always working, and if there are some odd notes that you really, really hate you can use techniques to wipe it out or something.
It’s not rising and falling on one odd note, it’s the whole show, the whole energy, the whole vibe, and we decided those show are really, really great so we wanted to have them out.

This Helloween reunion with Michael and Kai is something that fans hoped for a long time, but it seemed impossible for years. What made it possible this time?

Well, time was working with us because Michael Kiske was ready for something new, ready for being with us, ready for talking to Weiki again and finding out that there are no harm and no bad feelings anymore, finding out this why not trying another start?
It took a lot of time to get this together, even before we started rehearsing we took like two, two and a half years thinking about it, you know, it needed a lot of preparation, it needed a lot of time to glow, it’s not something you decide today and do tomorrow.
It’s just like being a very, very long process, but I guess when you prepare it very well then it last longer.

You’re now working on some new music, was that the plan from the moment you decided to do the Pumpkins United tour, or was it something that you decided at a later moment seeing how good was your chemistry together?

No, there was only the idea to do a tour and then see what would happen, how it was going to work out, how it would feel for each individual member to do this.
We could have had as well some misunderstandings and fights starting again, so we could have ended the tour, done the shows and then after the tour gone separate ways, that was also possible.
If that was the case for a tour, doing a creative process that would have been big trouble, working with each other knowing that it wasn’t really going to work out.
So the tour was cool to check.

How is it like to sit with Michael and Kai again to write music? Is it just like 30 years ago, or did it take some time to readjust to their presence?

It’s great, now we are in the new situation writing songs together and going back into the studio together, that’s what we never did, I did work with them separately, individually with Kai and Michael Kiske, and when they were gone I was working with Andi.
But now working with all them together is really, really great and there is so much creativity coming across because everybody has great ideas.
I like it a lot, you know, I was looking forward to going back into the studio after this tour.

What can we expect from this album?

I don’t know, as I said it’s a totally new situation for us, we don’t know what’s coming out of it.
We just got a bunch of great tracks, we need to find out who sings in that song, who sings in that part, you know, who’s playing this guitar, who’s playing that guitar because we never did it like this, so I can’t really tell you what it’s going to be like, it’s going to be a surprise for all of us too.
[Laughs] Which is very interesting, I never did this.

I was going to ask you if it will be some songs with only Michael, some with only Andi, and some with both, but I guess you don’t know yet.

Yeah, I guess it will be a mixture of that, singing individual songs and then coming back together, but that’s what you’ve got to find out: if you have a track that’s great you’ve got to find out who sings in that song, or even both, or even three people can sing that song.
We’ve got to find out, we’ve got to really, really try what’s working, that can be very interesting.

The Pumpkins United tour was a sort of celebration of the band’s history with all the singers having a lot of time to shine and the whole discography represented in the setlists. Do you have already discussed what will happen with your future shows? Will you continue to do something similar or what will happen?

We don’t know what we’re going to do with the next tour, there are definitely some songs from the “Keeper [of the Seven Keys]” albums we didn’t do on this tour that we will play, there will be some old stuff like ‘Dr. Stein’, ‘I Want Out’ and ‘Keeper’ and ‘Halloween’, but we’re not quite there yet, we’re concentrating on the studio and then after this they will be mixing the album, so when we have the album out of our heads, so to say, then we can do the next thing thinking what we can do for the next tour.

Do you already have an idea of when the album will be finished?

We will be in the studio for October, November and December, maybe January, then they will be mixing it, it will probably be released in the beginning of the summertime so we can go out for the touring business in the autumn next year, that’s the rough plan we got.

Helloween are considered the forefathers of Power Metal, or European Power Metal if you will, particularly with your work on the two “Keeper of the Seven Keys”. When did you realise the influence you’ve had on all the bands that came later?

After the “Keeper I” maybe, because there was a lot of people trying to copy the style we created, so it was like “Oh, alright, we really must have done something right” [laughs].
You take that as a complement, of course [laughs].

Now it’s definitely a great moment for Helloween: you went from playing mid-sized venues to selling out arenas and the fans are crazy about you. Looking back at your whole career what would you say have been the highest and lowest moment for Helloween?

I don’t know, one of the greatest ones is definitely the situation we got now, when we got reunited all together, that was one of the biggest and greatest parts of it.
When Andi came into the band was a great part, when we did the “Master of the Rings” record, that was great because before that we were kind off of the Helloween track and Andi came and brought us back to what we are supposed to do.
The lowest moment was definitely when Ingo died, you know.

That was my last question, do you have a final message for our readers?

I would like to thank you for the energy that you gave us when you saw us live, it was so inspiring, makes me always come back on tour.

Great, thank you, hopefully I’ll see you soon live!

Yeah, you cannot really kill a band like Helloween, we’ll always be around! [Laughs]

Davide Sciaky