Few power metal musicians – if any – are as influential as Kai Hansen. So when news broke in late 2016 that he re-joined forces with Helloween, the band he helped form, it understandably caused a wave of excitement. I was given the chance to sit down and talk with the singer and guitarist shortly before the release of Helloween’s self-titled reunion album in 2021.
When asked who made the first phone call for the reunion, he laughs. “That’s not how it went at all”, he says. “It has been more or less in the making for years. Every time Gamma Ray and Helloween played at a festival together, we would hang out, and it has been that way for at least ten years or so.
I have always said – even in multiple interviews – that it would be great to find a way to do something together again, before we are old and frail. No matter how. Maybe a tour with the old members. It would have been stupid to let that chance slip through our fingers and regret not doing it later on. It has always been a theme that came up whenever we hung out.”
The Door Opened Even Further
“Eventually, it just developed the way it has. There were still some things within the band that needed to be cleared up. And of course, there was Michi (singer Michael Kiske), who had been away from the live and metal scenes entirely, and even developed a bit of a phobia for it, in a way. We have Tobi (Tobias Sammet) from Avantasia to thank for bringing Michi back to the stage.
I was part of that tour, so Michi and I had the time to talk a lot, and one of the things we said was that we just had to do something together. It simply felt right. That’s how Unisonic was born. And of course, that opened the door even further to consider doing something with Helloween again.
At some point, Helloween, Gamma Ray and Unisonic had a break simultaneously. That was when Helloween’s management said: well guys, you have been talking about this for so long, let’s just get everyone together to see how everyone imagines it being and if it would even be doable. That is what happened, and that went really well.
We all liked the idea of playing with a bigger line-up, so the current line-up with Michi and myself added to it. That’s how the tour got started. And while the tour was happening, we were of course thinking about where we had to go from there.”
Distinctive Styles
When writing material for a new album, there was no shortage of contributors, given that there are six potential songwriters in Helloween’s all-star line-up. “Michi withdrew from the songwriting process completely”, Hansen explains. “He said: I don’t necessarily need to write songs, we have enough people here as is. So it was Weiki (guitarist Michael Weikath), Sascha (Gerstner, guitarist), Markus (Grosskopf, bassist), Andi (Deris, singer) and myself. So there were five of us writing the album.
Of course, that brings a lot of different ideas to the table. That has always been interesting to me, since there are a lot of bands that really only have one person writing the songs. And the others simply play what that person tells them to, which isn’t too uncommon these days.
For us, the art of creating our music is to absorb all these different styles that the songwriters bring to the songs and bring them together in a way that doesn’t make our albums sound like compilation albums with various bands, so that it sounds like one single band. And I think we succeeded at that. Despite the songs being as distinctive as they are stylistically, they all sound like Helloween.”
The songwriters’ styles are still distinctive enough to play a guessing game who wrote what. “At some point, you develop a sense for that”, Hansen laughs. “I recognize that. I can tell exactly if it’s one of Weiki’s songs, one of Andi’s songs, and so on. But I think that’s cool. I had that with bands that I love myself. Take Queen for example: they had multiple songwriters, yet they always sounded like Queen.”
More Individual
The actual process of writing the songs has changed significantly since Hansen’s previous tenure in Helloween. “Writing songs together in a rehearsal room is not something that still happens these days”, he confirms. “But to be fair, that was something that already changed for us when we were working on ‘Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II’, because of the opportunities that home recordings offered us.
At the time, it was an 8-track cassette tape machine. That allowed us to record demos with a drum computer, so that is what we started doing. That’s also when songwriting became a bit more individual in this band. A songwriter sits down to make the songs, and after that, the songs are more or less finished, and there aren’t many opportunities to change things around anymore.
On the other hand, we have also said: okay, we make demos, but what we also want to do is to take these demos and finish some parts together. For example: there were some songs that didn’t have any solo parts yet, or the chorus wasn’t completely finished yet. Those parts, we have actually worked on together in a rehearsal room situation in the studio.
We have done a pre-production for two weeks, where we had a band setting that was like a rehearsal with recording equipment, so we could work on the songs together. That is where the new songs became how they eventually turned out, at least in terms of songwriting.”
And then there is the fact that Helloween has three guitarists instead of two since Hansen returned. “We decided to make a list for the main solos”, Hansen explains. “Usually the songwriter and the guitarists together. And when it came to overdubs or melodies, we agreed that everyone is free to do whatever comes to mind. Then in the end, our producer and whoever wrote the song decided which parts to keep. That worked really well.”
Volume War
On stage, the three-guitar line-up poses its own challenges. “In order to prevent us from getting into a volume war on stage, we agreed to all play with in-ears”, Hansen explains. “Otherwise, it would not have been manageable. If you have three guitarists, each with their own Marshalls, I think it would have been a never-ending battle. Every guitarist thinks the others are too loud. That’s just the way it is.
In-ears are practical. You can walk around the stage and hear yourself everywhere. However, I have personally never really heard a great guitar sound on in-ears, even if it might sound good on stage. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing to live with compromises as a guitarist. It never sounds as good in your head as it does in the room anyway. That’s a simple fact. You have to move on.
Of course, we have discussed the best way to work with the in-ears and I have a sound on my ears that I can live with. That way, we managed to avoid various problems that having three guitarists and the volumes that come along with that could otherwise have caused.”
Exchanging Sounds
“For the tour, we have all decided to start using Axe-Fx AX8’s, the floorboards. For me personally, those boards almost give me too many options. There is so much you can do that at some point, you can’t even tell whether something is good or not anymore. I had some problems with an almost intolerable lag when we had program changes and things like that in the beginning. But I have to say: the sound is good.
Since we all use the same boards, we have also exchanged sounds. Then we analyzed what we liked about each other’s sounds and how we could personalize them. Weiki made it really easy on himself: he simply copied Sascha’s sound and didn’t alter that much about it, because it was already very good.
Sascha has a good taste for sounds. I also had him send me his sound, then I tried some things with it to create kind of a mix between my own sound and what Sascha had programmed. That way, we all have similar, but still different sounds.
Ultimately, it’s clear that the sound comes from the fingers of the player anyway. That’s something I realized along the way. My guitar tech once told me when I brought something new to our rehearsals: Kai, it doesn’t matter what you set up, it will sound like you regardless, haha!”
Making Sense
The Marshall amplifiers that could have caused volume issues on stage were in fact brought out to record the guitar parts for ‘Helloween’. “My rhythm guitars and overdubs have all been recorded with my Marshalls”, says Hansen. “I have a really nice old 50-watt Plexi that has been modified a bit. It has an extra pre-amp built in, so I can push it a little harder.
My basic set-up was that with a Boss GE-10 equalizer and a Tube Screamer in front of it, plus a 4×12″ cabinet. For some overdubs, I have used a Vox AC-30 with a combination of a treble booster and a phaser that I developed with a friend of mine. You can use them together or separately. You can control the gain, and what is new about this treble booster – and that is something I really wanted – is that you can define the frequency range it affects.
When used with the phaser, that treble booster can create a beautifully singing sound. We are even planning to release this pedal. We made about twenty prototypes of them before we were happy with it. And now we have the final version, which we will release as my signature pedal under the name The Banshee.”
Hansen brought various guitars to the studio: “I have done a lot with my good old ESP Randy Rhoads. Especially when it comes to rhythm guitars. It has Bare Knuckle Juggernaut pick-ups, which I am very enthusiastic about. A lot of my solos and rhythm guitars were done with that one. Here and there, I have used a Brian May Guitar, the Metal May. Especially with that Vox AC-30, it just simply makes sense.
Also, for some brighter-sounding overdubs, I have used a Strat or a Telecaster. For some of the rhythm guitar overdubs that demanded a sound that was a bit more open, I have also used a Gretsch and a Gibson ES.”
Learning So Many New Things
Classic as the material of Hansen’s early years with Helloween has become, the sets he played did not just contain songs from the time when he was in the band. “Everything was surprising, because everything was new to me”, he smiles. “Before the band rehearsals, Weiki, Sascha and I got together to run through all of the songs. Songs from our earliest days, including some songs that Sascha had not played before, and there were also some songs that Weiki and I had not played in forever. So it was important to run through what we would even do on those.
And of course, I had to learn the songs that I had never played before, the songs from after my era, so to speak. I have tried to make those my own. Most of the songs I knew from hearing them, of course, but when it comes to playing them, there were plenty of surprises that I wouldn’t even have realized were there if I had only heard the songs. Chord progressions and rhythm changes that were a bit less conventional and things like that.
At the beginning of the tour, there were some moments where I thought: what part is coming up again? How does the song continue? Especially because some things are somewhat similar; you can’t avoid there being similar chord progressions, except inverted or something, or melodies that are similar, yet a little different. I got some things mixed up in my head, but over time, routine set in, and everything eventually worked out well.
I can’t remember when I ever had to learn so many new things, haha! That was definitely different in this sort of setting. In Gamma Ray or my early years in Helloween, we didn’t have to discuss who plays what so much, because everyone simply played their own parts. But that was actually quite an interesting experience to me. It was interesting to see how these songs are structured as well.”
Salvaging Equipment
Prior to re-joining Helloween, Gamma Ray was Hansen’s main focus musically. “Gamma Ray is still around”, he reassures. “But we had to put that on ice a bit. Since the idea of the Helloween reunion started floating around, I have always said that I didn’t want to simply let Gamma Ray die. We have done too many good things together, and it would have been a shame to give that up. But it is true that Gamma Ray’s activities are quite limited now that Helloween has become a priority.
Under normal circumstances, I would be on tour with Helloween shortly after releasing our new album. But since we unfortunately have to deal with the coronavirus, there is one positive thing: I have the time to write songs for Gamma Ray again. I have been sharing some ideas with the guys. They also have their own ideas, and we are trying to put together an album soon.”
Hansen also used to run a studio, which in addition to his own bands was used by the likes of Angra, Brainstorm and Freedom Call. Unlike Gamma Ray, however, the studio is not around anymore. “At some point, we had to leave the old Hansen Studio”, he explains. “It was in a bunker which was repurposed as a storehouse, so we had to leave. After that, we had a beautiful studio on the shore of the Bille in Hamburg, right next to the water, but that unfortunately burned down.
That situation could have been a lot worse than it was. We were fortunate to be upstairs and far in the back, so the fire didn’t actually reach our room. So in the end, about seventy to eighty percent of our equipment could still be salvaged. There had of course been some water and smoke damage, but it could have been much worse.
After that, we didn’t feel like building a new studio anymore. I have built a studio for myself at my home that I can work with very well. And for the time being, I’m very happy with that.”
An edited version of this interview appeared in Gitarist 364 (July 2021)
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