In a time in which heavy metal comes back to the top, German group Helloween shows that it continues at the top and releases an album that gains quick respect all over the world, "The Time Of The Oath."

The truth is: since "Keepers I" and "II," besides the exit of vocalist Michael Kiske, Helloween has not yet repeated the big success from mid 80's. But this seems to be changing.

In spite of being a great vocalist, Andi Deris doesn't have the same feeling as Kiske had. But "The Time of the Oath" brings the band back to the enthusiasm of the "Keepers'" time. The actually formation is Michael Weikath (G), Markus Grosskopf (B), Roland Grapow (G) and (ex-Gamma Ray) Uli Kusch (D).

Helloween's origin is more distant than you could imagine. The band started its career in 1978, calling themselves Gentry, with only Kai Hansen, Peter Sielck, and various guest musicians. In 1980, the band changed its name to Second Hell and broght in two new musicians: Markus Grosskopf (B) and Ingo Schwichtenberg (D). This name lasted for two years and was then changed again to Iron Fist. By this time, Michael Weikath ends with his band (Powerfool) and joined Kai Hansen and his group. Finally they changed the band name to Helloween.

The band then records two songs for the collection "Death Metal" in 1984. In spite of the name, the collection hadn't nothing to do with death metal. The that appeared on this collection were "Oernst of Life" (this song was from Powerfool) and "Metal Invaders." Next they recorded their first work... and the rest is history. Helloween has had a lot of BIG troubles in the past, such as the exit of Kai Hansen & Michael Kiske and the suicide of Ingo Schwichtenberg.

To talk about all these things, guitar player Michael Weikath speaks to Rock Brigade by phone from New York:

Rock Brigade - Brazilian fans have benn unhappy with the big silence from Helloween...
Michael Weikath - We have to apologize to our fans in Brazil, because we have had a few problems and we can just now have the chance to explain. Our old record-label, Noise, didn't show the numbers from our sales in distant places, such as Mexico and Brazil, and this forced us to concentrate our shows in places where we knew we had a good public.

RB - Seems that this situation changed a lot with your new record-label, Castle, and a lot of people are saying that "The Time of the Oath" has the same power as "Keepers".
MW - After the "Master of the Rings" tour, we concluded that we needed a strong album, as in the Keepers' time. Maybe this resolution was the main factor that allowed us to dothis new album in so little time. It took just six weeks.

RB - Do you consider this album as a "back to the roots?"
MW - Without a doubt! Our idea was bringing back our roots, and looking for new boundaries to our music, especially because we feel that we are much mature nowadays. I think we got a mixture of "Walls of Jericho" and "Keepers", with something new.

RB - This album had a lot of good reviews from music magazines all around the world... Have you realized that?
MW - Yes. Burrn gave us the highest score an album can get! In the Europe, the reviews are very positive too. With the exception of England and Holland, the repercussions have been fantastic.

RB - In spite of the ultra-melodic riffs and the contagious harmony, "The Time of the Oath" seems to be a "dirtier" work when compared with your other albums. Was this a band decision?
MW - Yes, because we've never liked our albums sounding "clean." Actually, in the last few years we have been using expensive amplifiers and high technology. Now, we are using our old equipment, from "Walls of Jericho". We used it in part of "Master of the Rings" and we loved the result. I think those expensive amplifiers give us an "American band" sound.

RB - So the American market isn't a priority to Helloween anymore?
MW - I don't know. We're not trying to the conquer the USA, because we do our work without thinking of a specific public. All we want is for our fans from any country like the album and a lot of people here in USA do like it. Besides, as I told you, with the "amplifier" thing, this album doesn't "sound" like anything American, so I guess it won't be a big sucess here. We're now going in the same route we used to and this seems much more honest with our personalities. We don't need to "Americanize" our music to find a good place in the sun.

RB - Helloween had a great chance when you signed with a big record-label, EMI, but you left the label. Why?
MW - After we had problems with Noise, we were tired of all the crazy record-labels, contracts and lawyers. Then we received a good offer from EMI, which helped us a lot. We're eternally grateful for all they did! But they thought that because they were a big company and we were well known artists, they thought they didn't need to spend a lot for publicity with us. And besides the deficient advertising, our old fans didn't like "Chameleon" and "Pink Bubbles Go Ape", which were different from all we had done before. Obviously the sales weren't as good, and then they became dissatisfied with us and us with them. We decided to leave them.
(Note from the reporter: on the backstages there were rumors that they were fired.)

RB - Despite a lot of people disagreeing, the melodic heavy metal style is becoming big again. Do you feel this too?
MW - Two years ago (this interview happened in the last week of February), a lot of people asked us why we insisted playing "that kind" of music. "Nobody listens to it anymore", thet said. We heard this a lot. Well, the fact is we don't play a style of music just because it is successful and we knew we had a good album. And one more thing: the music world is like a circle. Today, melodic heavy might not be on top, but tomorrow it will come back again, because one day people will tire of this "alternative music". And we won't wait until that day comes to release a new album.

RB - But heavy metal always has a lot of loyal fans. Fashion music, like grunge, always passes by, but heavy metal stays...
MW - Exactly. I feel that, because no matter the fashion is, I always want to satisfy people that look for high quality heavy metal, for those who listen and feel the music. For me, that is most important thing.

RB - Everytime people say "German metal", the first name that comes to mind is Helloween. Do you consider your band a kind of creator of this typical German melodic heavy metal?
MW - I guess somehow we "invented" this style. The essence of our work is a combination of bands like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, UFO, Rainbow, heavy rock, blues and a lot of other things. We put this all together with German classical music. The result is this melodic heavy metal.

RB - Some of your old songs, like "Guardians" and "How Many Tears", became authentic classics. Do you still play them today?
MW - In our last tour to Japan we played "Ride the Sky", "How Many Tears", "Future World", "A Tale that Wasn't Right", and some others. We always need to be careful in our choices of the songs for the shows, beacuse the fans love the old ones... but we have a lot of good new work to show.

RB - Before Andi Deris joined Helloween, you had very charismatic vocalists, like Kai Kansen and Michael Kiske. How did you deal all these changes in the band "voice?"
MW - Well, even I sang in the band for a while! In Kai times, I sang in a few shows because he couldn't concentrate on playing while singing. With Kiske with us, it all seemed solved. But, with time, we knew him better and we had a lot of problems. Kiske involved himself with religious and mystics stuff, and became a very difficult and hard person to deal with. The situation becomes insolved. I'm Catholic and I believe in God and in the positive messages of the Christian faith, and this started a conflict with Kiske. He believes in God too, but he has other ways of showing this, which made him a difficult person to talk to. Sometime he started to treat people like inferiors, just because they don't think like him, so we had to take him out of the band. Nobody supported Kiske in the band, he was rough with everybody, even the fans.

RB - And how did you find Andi?
MW - At the time, Andi was in Pink Cream 69, a band that I love. He used to say he'd just leave the band if the guys became arrogant or developed a "star complex." This happened, and so he joined Helloween.

RB - Vocals have always been one of the trademarks of Helloween. How did the fans answer to all these changes in band?
MW - I know our fans will never say "Ok, life goes on." But in our careers we always had to say "we need to find a good vocalist." It seems like a fate! But Andi was one of the best we found, and he adapted very well to our style, and he's the only one who could substitute the others. Our problem wasn't just to find a great vocalist, but someone cool. We didn't want to deal with another crazy religious fanatic. Besides, Andi is a guy we can really trust. If we didn't find him, I think Helloween would be finished now.

RB - We know Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske are recording together. Do you still talk to them?
MW - No. Sometimes I meet Kai in shows, but we can't talk, because there's a lot of people saying bullshits about us.

RB - What kind of bullshit?
MW - There's always someone that heard Kai Hansen saying that I'm an idiot or something like that. On the other hand, there's always someone saying that I said the same thing about him. Some people stay between us just to gossip, so we're never sure of what the other said. It seems some people don't want us to be friends. The latest news I've heard from Kai was that he was playing guitar on Kiske's solo project, but I don't know how this project is going, because Kiske is keeping it secret.
(But we know the solo album will be much more pop than what he used to do in Helloween.)

RB - When you listen to an album recorded by Hansen and Kiske, could you leave your complaints aside and judge thier work professionaly?
MW - Of course, it would be my obligation! I won't say somebody's work is bad just because I don't like him. Besides, I know their potential, they're very good.

RB - Do you think this would be the definitive Helloween formation?
MW - All I can guarantee is everybody in the band is satisfied with our work, we're friends and we want to keep doing this for a long time.

RB - Besides melody, one of your other trademarks are the funny pumpkin drawings. But you stopped doing this for a long time and now the pumpkins are back. Why did you stop using them, and why have they returned?
MW - We thought people were tired of pumpkins. We wanted to offer something new and different. For "Pink Bubbles Go Ape," we worked with the guy whose designed for Pink Floyd, Scorpions, UFO and a lot of other great bands. It was something different, and we were proud of it. But a lot of people didn't understand our idea, and most of them didn't like it. So, we brought back our pumpkins, because they're funny and our fans love them.

RB - Everybody was shocked with Ingo's suicide two years ago. Did you notice any suicidal tendencies on him?
MW - Yes, we started to notice something wrong with him when we were on tour, with all that road pressure. Ingo had a strange behavior, he did strange things and we noticed something seriously wrong with him. We lived with him and we could see his changes. We had to cancel a show in Hiroshima because he had an attack and started to cry backstage. We didn't know what to do, because he had serious mental problems. We consulted three psychiatrists and they said his problem was hereditary squizofrenia. And to make the situation worse, he was heavily into cocaine, drank a lot, and smoked hash. He was destroying his own brain and he didn't notice this! Once we were in a restaurant and he climbed on the table and jumped, trying to fly while he was saying: "I can fly, I can fly!"... It lead to a point where we couldn't live in that situation anymore, because his sickness was incurable. A lot of people outside of the band said we could have supported him much more then we did, but these people have to just shut up, because only those who were with us and spent all this time with him can understand why we decided to take him out of the band. It's so easy to blame us for his suicide, but nobody knows what we had to handle with that situation everyday, in every concert, in every hotel.

RB - Do you think that the usual pressure that bands suffer in the music industry worsened his situation?
MW - Without a doubt! If he could have lived a life with a wife, children, and a house in the fields, he would certainly have had a better chance to be better The stress in our careers is terrible, sometimes I think I'm lucky surviving all this. Imagine how all that damaged Ingo! To be honest, nowadays I think he supported much more than his condition would allow.