Helloween

About

Germany’s undisputed kings of power metal, Helloween has been active since 1983, with distinct eras marked by key lineup changes. Their 16th album is unique in that it’s the first to feature a seven-piece band, comprising original bassist Markus Grosskopf and guitarist Michael Weikath and long-serving members Andi Deris (vocals), Sascha Gerstner (guitar), and Dani Löble (drums) alongside returning guitarist/vocalist/founder Kai Hansen and classic-era vocalist Michael Kiske. This triple-vocal “Pumpkins United” formation embarked upon a massively successful world tour in 2017 and decided to start writing together. “We went 15 months all over the planet and got to know each other again,” Deris tells Apple Music. “Mainly Michael Kiske and myself, because Helloween parted with Michael in the mid-’90s and brought me in. But we became friends in two or three weeks, and suddenly you realize, we could have been friends for the last 20 years.” Below, Deris takes us through the tracks on <i>Helloween</i>. <b>“Out for the Glory”</b> “That’s a Michael Weikath song, and he's talking of all the feelings we had on the tour. We did not dream it would be so successful. I remember us sitting in the rehearsal room and saying, ‘Okay, what's your vision, what's going to happen?’ And everybody was more or less saying that it would be great to have double as many people in the concert hall. At the end of the day, we sometimes had 10 times more people in the concert hall. It was unbelievable.” <b>“Fear of the Fallen”</b> “This song has the A/B singing from Michael Kiske and myself. I wrote this one about the old myth that says if fallen angels would try to destroy mankind, other angels would step in to rescue us. Kind of like guardian angels, but not your or my guardian angel—mankind’s guardian angels. It’s very much rooted in Catholic religion, but I have read it in the Koran and the Torah as well. So this idea is something we all have in common.” <b>“Best Time”</b> “Sascha wrote these lyrics, and we just made a little video for it. ‘Best Time’ is one of these fun metal rockers. I would say it’s in the vibe of ‘I Want Out’ or ‘Dr. Stein’—it gives you a good mood when you listen to it. It’s about living now—carpe diem, so to say. Don’t look back, and don’t dare to look into the future, because the future most of the time brings something completely different than what you imagined. You have to learn to live for today.” <b>“Mass Pollution”</b> “‘Mass Pollution’ is a description of being onstage. We want to sweat together; we want to have a loud, fantastic party. And we know there are lots of people out there who think metal is noise—or worse. In the ’80s, people thought metal was about killing yourself or something—I’m thinking about when Judas Priest got sued for the suicides of two teenage fans—but that’s not right at all. Metal is about having a good time, banging your head and maybe drinking a little too much. So don’t take it too serious—it’s entertainment.” <b>“Angels”</b> “This is another Sascha song, mainly sung by Michael. But I think the moral of the story is about avoiding temptation. It’s when angels cause you nightmares. If you give in to the temptation, everything can turn out to be very satanic.” <b>“Rise Without Chains”</b> “This song came from a dream I had. I was flying over different parts of the world, with the oceans in between. There was this shimmery thing connecting me to the ground, like a little silver chain that can never rip. I ended up in Sweden and had conversations with people even though I didn’t know their names. But now I connect their faces with certain living people and sometimes I get goosebumps because there could also have been some already deceased people among them.” <b>“Indestructible”</b> “Our bass player Markus Grosskopf wrote this one. After the tour, he was the happiest man on the planet. If he would drink too much after a show he would hug and kiss everybody in the band and say, ‘We’re fucking indestructible.’ And suddenly he came up with this song, which is about the band and all the ups and downs we went through—and believe me, there were a lot.” <b>“Robot King”</b> “I guess you could say this is Michael Weikath’s dystopia. It’s about a world that could evolve out of artificial intelligence. I went through the lyrics and thought there’s a bit of that Schwarzenegger movie <i>Terminator</i>, but maybe not as brutal. There’s a war between robots and humans, but the robots actually behave like humans. Then the actual humans become slaves and the robots fight each other. Being ruled by robots is not a world I would look forward to.” <b>“Cyanide”</b> “This is a song about consumerism and capitalism. My main example is when you go to a hospital nowadays and they tell you that you need surgery. We live in a time where you have to ask, ‘Do I really need surgery, or do they just want to make money?’ This is the world we live in, and I personally think it cannot get any more cruel or dishonest. I use the cyanide reference because cyanide destroys everything but gold. It’s the perfect symbol for our society.” <b>“Down in the Dumps”</b> “Another Weikath song. I think of it as like a personal apocalypse: When you’re down, you’re really down, it looks like you have no chance to get up again. Look at the homeless—they’re probably never getting up again. I even know people who voluntarily went down in the dumps because they cannot take it anymore—the pressure of life, the constant sorrow and stress. So this is when there is no more down because you’re already there.” <b>“Orbit”</b> “This is the intro to ‘Skyfall.’ As far as I remember, Kai wanted to have something where people fly away a little bit, like an alien far away from Earth, but suddenly he crashes—that’s ‘Skyfall.’” <b>“Skyfall”</b> “This is about an alien who happens to be near Earth when something goes wrong with his starship and he has to crash-land here. Now he’s confronted with mankind. You could say it’s a mixture of <i>E.T.</i> and some social stuff. He goes through lots of funny stories, but the song has more of a serious background, I would say.”

via Apple Music