INTERVIEW: Helloween takes on ‘Giants & Monsters’ on new album
Photo: Helloween features, from left to right standing, Daniel Löble (drums), Markus Grosskopf (bass), Sascha Gerstner (guitars) and Kai Hansen (guitars, vocals), plus, from left to right sitting, Michael Weikath (guitars), Michael Kiske (vocals) and Andi Deris (vocals). Photo courtesy of Mathias Bothor / Provided by ABC PR with permission.
Helloween, the beloved German metal band, is back with a brand-new album called Giants & Monsters. Featuring songs like “Giants on the Run,” “We Can Be Gods” and “This Is Tokyo,” the new recording is the first album since 2021’s self-titled effort, and there’s great anticipation that the new tunes will inspire the guys in the band to head across the ocean for a United States tour in 2026.
Michael Weikath is a founding member and the guitarist for the band, someone who has been at the center of the power metal sound that Helloween exports around the world.
“The reviews are coming in, and people are kind of raving,” Weikath said in a recent Zoom interview while he was in Berlin. “Many people say it’s better than the last album. Well, I wouldn’t say so. … But whatever.”
The guitarist, who admitted he’s not the best with dates, said the process of putting together the album took several months. They worked on the demos for 5-6 months, and then they had a band meeting on Zoom. There they started talking about what tracks would make the final album and in what order. The actual recording of it occurred later and took up to five more months to complete.
The finished product has tunes like “Savior of the World,” “Into the Sun” and “Hand of God.” A special track for Weikath and the band is “This Is Tokyo,” a tribute to Japan and that country’s dedicated fan base, who are positively ravenous for Helloween music.
“They were early,” the guitarist said of fans in Japan. “It was like we had some madness going on when we arrived at the airport, first of all. There were like hundreds of them saying hi and wanting to give us little gifts, little dolls, little packets, whatever little gifts. They were so cute, and then we came to the train station and were actually looking at the masses. It was so packed we were actually afraid. One would drop to the train track because how so full it was, and that was the first time we came there in ‘87. … The near hysteria was really great. Nobody got hurt.”
Weikath remembers playing large theaters on that first tour, spaces that could fit up to 6,000 people.
“We did the shows, and everybody was raving,” he said. “It was definitely a different level, totally. Ever since, it’s been preserved. They are very much music-loving people the Japanese. If you want each and every little detail of any other band, you’d probably find a live bootleg of Japan somewhere, right.”
Weikath anticipates a few new tracks making the set list for future tour dates. He was entirely sure what would make the final cut, but he thinks 3-4 would be about right. Helloween, like so many other bands that have 40-plus years of musical dominance, struggle to fit in newer songs when there are so many classics that fans want to hear.
“I keep saying in interviews, ‘Yeah, ‘Dr. Stein’ is not so important for me because I’ve played it nearly 2 million times,'” he said. “But there are people who come to visit me; they say, ‘No, it must be in there.’ What else do we cut out in favor of new material? We have a huge amount of mass plays. You’ve got to arrange it around somehow where you put in new tracks. Last time we had ‘Mass Pollution.’ This time we’re not going to play it.”
There’s also the challenge of learning the new songs for the road. It takes a long time to get them perfect for the recording session, but then there’s a lag between laying down the track in the studio and heading out on tour.
“And you’ve got to memorize, memorize, memorize, particularly when it’s new complicated tracks,” the guitarist said. “You go berserk for about three weeks to put all that info into your head. … It’s a hardship. You go until you finally hate it and have it memorized and know for sure where you are. That takes time.”
Helloween has weathered numerous storms to still be going strong 40 years after the band’s debut. There have been ups and downs, and a few lineup changes along the way, but Weikath and company are still making solid power metal music.
“He stole your girlfriend, he stole your money, he betrayed your trust, and then you say no go, no go,” he said about other bands falling apart. “There’s a saying that time heals everything — whatever, maybe, maybe not. In our case, we didn’t really have those bad cases of there’s no point of return or whatever, right. It was OK, and then you can talk things out.”
One item that Weikath would like to clear up centers on the band’s image, and really the image of heavy metal in general. The holiday of Halloween, especially the drawings of grinning pumpkins, go hand in hand with the band’s overall style and design. The guitarist said that’s mostly for show; they are actually people who don’t dwell in the darkness.
“There’s a saying that death sells,” Weikath said. “[For the album] Rabbit Don’t Come Easy, we had trouble with t-shirt sales because not every metal fan wants to have a squeaky little cute rabbit on his t-shirt, so those t-shirts with the rabbit they sold kind of lame. … We have a Christian background. None of us are Satanists of any kind or perpetrators of evil things. It’s just for fun. There are people who mean it serious, and everybody knows the people we’re talking about because they say so. But we are none of that, so it’s just for fun. It’s image. If people want to do a logo for something they’re doing for their business, what do they put? If they want it to appear mean, they put a skull, and at least I’m glad we are not peddling too much with skulls. I would say no frigging skulls and no frigging pumpkins please.”
But, alas, Weikath admitted: “Now there’s a pumpkin on this album.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Helloween’s new album is called Giants & Monsters. Click here for more information.
